NAVAL PLANNING

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 122, 26 May 1942, Page 5

NAVAL PLANNING

RAPID U»S. CHANGES

Influence Of Air Power Upon Sea Power

United Press Association.—Copyright. NEW YORK, May 25. The influence of air power upon ?? a - p T er has completely altered the United States naval programme since the attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7. It has hastened the adoption of an aircraft-carrier construction programme of a very great size and has forced the navy to shift the emphasis from its traditional dependence upon flying-boats to landbased bombers and reconnaissance planes, writes Hanson Baldwin, the military and naval expert of the New xork Times.

Details of the changes in the navy's programme are closely-guarded s'eccan revealed that soni3 or the ships planned and contracted tor at the time of Japan's attack will never be constructed. Others are being modified or converted. The ciuiser programme has been increased, and the present submarine construction programme calls for the building of 200 to 230 submarines. But the major emphasis is placed upon aircraft-carriers which will have first priority at the expense of battleships. Battleships, however, will not be abandoned—new 35 000 and 40,000-ton leviathans of considerable speed, great armament and gunpower will soon join the fleet—but the aircralt-carrier is now recognised as the most urgently-needed type. Powerful Task Forces Aircraft-carriers of every class are being planned, built, or converted from merchant hulls, tanker hulls and naval hulls. Ultimately the Lmted States Navy, with tactics modified _by the influence of air power, will probably be composed of a considerable number of powerful task forces, each consisting of one or two large, powerful and speedy air-craft-carriers, one or two large and speedy battleships, three to six cruisers and several divisions of the new 2000-ton destroyers which were ordered long before the war. This navy will also include considerable numbers of land-based planes. Actually the navy has been using for some time past planes that had hitherto been considered of the armv type. The vulnerability of the naval patrol flying-boat, sudh as the Consolidated Catalina, to enemy pursuit planes has been graphically demonstrated in the fighting in the Far East. Land-based planes of the LockheedHudson type have long been used successfully by the Royal Air Force Coastal Command, and are more easily defended, much faster and more easily manouevred. The navy's adoption of land-based planes is in accord with the practice of the Japanese Navy, which operated ship-based, water-based and land-based planes for its fleet air arm. Thus in composition, tactics and building programme the United States Navy has undergone what amounts to a virtual naval revolution since December 7.