BIG OR LITTLE?

Hokitika Guardian, 25 February 1921, Page 3

BIG OR LITTLE?

I" THE GREAT NAVAL CONTROVERSY. j (.My "Jack-staff’’ in Daily Mail). "Submersible ‘Dreadnoughts’ wil never come, and the submarine is no much better than a back number. Th< Admiralty do quite right in sticking t( capital ships.” My companion who made this startlingly heterodox assertion, as sonic may deem it, lias been familiar witl submersible craft from their infancy Few know the possibilities of war under water so thoroughly as be. At the time lie spoke we were standing on a strip of beach that is well known to all naval men, watching—well, something that brdliglit warships of the future into the conversation. "Wliat about Sir Percy Scott2” 1 asked.

"A good gunner gone wrong in bis ideas,” answered my companion, who proceeded to quote me reasons for the views lie bad just expressed. "When a submarine-grows too big she loses invisibility—and away goes her greatest lighting asset,” lie continued. "Taken all round, the boat of about 850 tons displacement did the best work in the war. A big submarine makes a ‘bump’ oil the surface when she is ‘down,’ and thus announces her presence to those on the look-out for her. Once the boat is ‘spotted’ her Ici’tli are drawn. The only thing she can do is to seek safety by ‘sitting’ . u the bottom as promptly as possible, hoping in that way to escape the craft that are hunting her.

"Besides, aircraft will have been so perfected by the next war that they may lie trusted to keep the submarines | ‘down.’ i “No merchant convoy will put to sea ' unless it is accompanied by aerial subaiine ‘spetters’ and fast ‘chasers’ equipped with depth charges, to pounce | upon and destroy any vessel that may be detected lurking beneath the surface.

. “Although a submarine may he in | visible from a surface ship she can be j ‘picked up’ from the air, unless she he I so deeply submerged that she is practically harmless. Even now no battleship squadron goes to sea without its I “(lying ship’ or floating aerodrome from ' which reconnaissance planes can be sent up when necessary. In the next war these ‘flying ships' will accompany every mercantile convoy and provide a continuous aerial patrol for it. And what chance will the submarine have then! “As for the submersible battleship, you must not forget that a certain amount of free-board is necessary for her guns. In other words, they must he mounted high enough above water to give them sufficient range, otherwise they will not be able to carry very far. “J adyiit that we now have submaiines which carry big guns. Under favourable conditions these might prove formidable adversaries, hut they are untried as an engine of war. Anyjvay, they are something quite unlike the submarine Dreadnoughts whose advent is so freely prophesied.

“When it comos'Yo building a 30,00 b ton submersible battleship mounting ten loin or 2l)in guns on her upper deck with the necessary elevated fi-e control stations, exceedingly difficult problems in stability have to he faced. “Although I am a ‘submarine man bv training, I do not deceive myself with alluring visions of giant vessels formidably armed at all points and able to swim or dive at will. These are not practicable. “The gun will always remain the d - aiding weapon. We already possess guns of 20in calibre. The range and hitting power of modern, artillery is enormous and will he increased.

“In above-water methods of attack mul defence there are no limits. In iir.der-water methods there are. A. bluejacket sitting in a cabinet m a ship or on shore, with a thing like a telephone receiver to his ear, turns i michalantly to a speaking-tube and reports ‘Submarine coming from westward at ten knots speed.' Install ly everyone is on the alert to snap lei. That’s the kind of subaqueous scourng that lias been developed into such a line art that no sort of under-water craft, he she U-boat or battleship, can escape detection by it. “One of the points against your diving leviathan would he her eomparvive uselessness.”