THE SUBMARINE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2350, 5 January 1915, Page 7

THE SUBMARINE

IS IT SUPERIOR TO THE BATTLESHIP CONFLICTING VIEWS OF EXPERTS. When the last mail left England a little over a month ago, tho naval experts on tho Staffs of various papers were divided as to the value of the submarine. Some there were, notably Mr. H. WWilson, of the London "Daily Mail," who contended that the submarine, by its performances, had justified all that Sir Percy Scott predicted for it. On the other hand, the expert of the "Daily Express" holds that the sub--marine has done nothing to justify alarmist ideas as to its utility. Protection of the Sea. The "Mauchester Guardian" says:— "Even if the German submarines were to maintain their present level of execution, it would take them the better part of a 'century to make the North' Sea a place of anything less than deadly danger for German batt'eahips er cruisors. . . . Even it the course of the war were to show that, as some theorists have held, tlhe day of the big battleship is past, and tho submarine is destined to take its place, that revolution itself would not open the North Sea to Germaji transports. For in submarines,' as in battleships, we have the stronger hand ; and a revolution in naval offioers which made the open sea unsafe for Dreadnoughts, would make it doubly unsafe fov transports. If the submarine were, in the fullest sense, the ship of the future, th, security given to England by sea woulonly be enhanced." «

Invisible Deldllness. Now to turn from this to Hr. Wilson. "Up to the beginning of September," he says, "not a single ship had been sunk by a submarine, while five vessels had been sent to tho bottom by gun-fire. Then there was a complete and startling change. The first vessel over destroyed by a genuine submarine wa-s the Pathfinder, sunk by tho German submarine U2l on September. 5. From that fatal date submarine victims have followed in quick succession—tho Hela, sunk by our British E9 on September 13; the terrible sacrifice of the Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy to the TJ9 on September 22; the destruction of the German destroyer 5126 by the British E9 on Ootober 5; tho sinking of the Russian cruiser Pallada with all on board by U26 on October 11; and now tho loss of the Hawke. Thus for the last six weeks the naval war has heon a business of submarines. The deadliness of the submarine lies in her invisibility." All this, Mr. Wilson contends, appears to justify tho claims of the prophets who declared before the war that the submarines would carry all before them in the narrow seas.

The writer goes on to give particulars of.the German undor-water fighters, tho latest of which exceeds 760 tens, has a radius of possibly 2000 miles, certainly over 1000, can remain under water for 24 hours at a stretoh, and carry eight or more torpedoes. The latter explains why it 16 possible for a single submarine to sink three British cruisers.

CuiWire the Faotor. From Mr. Wilson we go to the "Daily Express" extiort, who thus deals with the work of tno torpedo and the submarine in the battle of Heligoland: "In commenting on the action a day or two after it occurred," he says, "I. ventured to point out the absence of information as to the use of the torpedo. That gap in the story is now adequately filled in. There is only one instance in the whole of the dispatches in which a torpedo is recorded as having reached its mark, and that was from the destroyer Laertes, which succeeded in hitting the almost stationary Mainz, already badly battered by gun-fire. "The total, number of torpedoes fired is not given, but there is internal evidence that at least seven were discharged by enomy ships at the British cruisers, not one of which hit. We may presume, therefore, an average of 12 per cent, of hitsj-as compared with 2 per cent, recorded in the Russo-Jap-anese war ten years. The increase in power and reliability of the torpedo, to which reference was made recently by Mr. Churchill in the House of Commons, amounts apparently to an addition of only 10 per cent, to the fighting power of this weapon. Three enemy cruisers and two destroyers were sunk by gun-fire in the action. All the damage sustained by our ships—and in one or two cases it was obviously heavier than was at first supposed—was caused by gun-fire." "A hundred suggestions have been offered in' the past few weeks for defence against submarine attack, but the Navy has obviously discovered its own defence —mobility.

" 'Our high speed, however, made submarine attack diffioult,' says Sir David Beatty in one place, and again: 'The attack was. frustrated by rapia manoeuvring.' 'The attack was avoic ed by the use of the helm,' he reported in regard to the Queen Mary. Use of Speed, . "Speed in this connection is not used to run away; it is U6ed to produce fre-' quent and rapid variations of oourse and position, so that the finding of the range is practically impossible. "The following is a simple example of this use of speed:— "A torpedo travelling at 45 knots will reach a ship travelling at right angles to it at .25 knots 2000 yards away in 80 seconds—but, of course, nearly 1000 yards ahead of the original position ot the ship, since she is also moving. The torpedo must therefore be aimed ahead of the ship when discharged. If the ship changes course she naturally wiii not pass over tho spot at which the torpedo is aimed, and therefore tho attack fails.

"The 6hip must, of course, have good steering way on her, and her 'advance,' or the distance from the position when the helm is put over until the ship turns through the requisite degrees, must be short. This 'advance' varies considerably with different ships, but is always known to the navigating officers and tho captain, who can make their dispositions accordingly. "Commodore Keyes'6 report on the work of the submarine flotillas covers more than the Heligoland fight. It contains much valuable information, and is free from technicalities. It makes very clear the limitations of un-der-watcr craft, and it also indicates, as indeed students of naval'affairs hare all along suspected, that the mine-field is by no means the complete deterrent of submarine activity that it had been, assumed to be."