END OF DREADNOUGHTS?

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1687, 1 March 1913, Page 3

END OF DREADNOUGHTS?

Sir,—Two correspondents luivo criticised riy recent article on'the iow-free board fsnnelless warship which Germany is nowcontemplating, and these call. tor some reply. Sir. R. Hi -Fitzherbert, of Havelock Il'orth, quotes a statement made by Mr. S, T. Jane in 1910 to the effect that tho tirrible now battle midget would "be alxmt «9 dangerous to a Dreadnought a 8 a barnacle." All that I can say to this is that a man of Mr. Jane's expericjico and knowlcdjfo ought to have known tetter, and certainly -Jane's "Fighting Ship 1912" discloses a marked—but re-luctant-and guarded—modification of that view. It mav not bo out-of place to point out that nearly all the commercial interests are wrapped up in steam (as against oil) and no doubt very much concerned to maintain existing types of ships—for 6«me time. How long? Until the armament manufacturers and builders of England have had an opportunity of using up the millions of pounds worth of spare parts of-shins—guns, plates, and macninory —which tncy liav'o accumulated in their tforlfe, vainly' imagining that the Dreadnought type would provo a type that, like Tunnvson's "Brook," would go on for over; "Until jho great manufacturers Df Britain manage to use ■ up i this mass rf swire ports, we will, I think, ntm a. -fifrncty- and very powerful .resistant*) to *hy involution, in .naval architecture. That is 'probably-the real reason ivhy tho

low free-board midget has not been adopted us tho standard battle pattern now. Mr. Fitzherbert also states that if tho new ship is "fifty per cent, faster than filly battleship" (as I stated sho would he) that, would mean an alarming velocity of 51.4 knots per hour, since tho Princess Royal is already credited with 31 ftnots. Not so. Tho unthinkable speed of 51.4 knots per hour .might bo all right if one .were trustful enough to believe trnt tlio fancy speeds to which'ships aro "whacked up" on tlioir trials could ever bo repeated under conditions of actual battle. Mr. Fitzherbert 'possibly knows that the paper speed 'of the Japanese battle 6<|uadron present at Tsu-shima ran from IS to 23 knots. Possibly, however, ho docs not know that, at tl'.o supremo moment, when the japa'.leso were about tn cross tho head of the Russian line, Togo was only able to call 1M knots. And tk> Russians (who on paper! should havo been able to coinpass a fleet speed of between 13 and 11 knots) were actually making loss than ten. In regard to Captain Anson s letter,. one would like to sharo his breezy optimism in respect t" tho future of Britain and her present prowess, but it is uphill work when one looks squarely at fact, llio case of the Captain (which he cites) as illustrating the alertness of Britain m new : designs seems to bo a rather unfortunate one, since tho Captain, on the first occasion on which sho ran mto real "weather" capsized and yank, and it is difficult now to understand how any naval architect could have expected that sho would do otherwise. ■ • ; Captain Anson, in defending the claim of 'the big ship, speaks of the necessity for a typo which can keep tho sea for long stretches in all weathers, and so exercise a world-wide domination. Unfortunately for us, that is not quite the terrible problem that seems to bo lying ahead of Britain. It is not a question of maintaining a wide control of the ocean of tho globe, but .the question of denying the passago of the narrow ]Sorth Sea to some fraction of tho invincible German \rmy For this purpose the Germans, bavin" always tho initiative, may choose any time or weather they please, and so the whote of the long list of catch phrases, "stability," "sea radius, steadiness ot gun platform," etc., falls with a crash. In any case, there is no trouble about making the midget ship a very stable .one. whatever her free-board may bo. A good deal of nonsense is talked one way and another about "stability, but Tcally it is nothing moro than the architect the ship sufficient metacentric height. And that is easy.—l am, etc., uiKU.