DIVING DREADNOUGHTS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1921, Page 2

DIVING DREADNOUGHTS

SOAIE PRACTICAL OBJECTIONS. (Bv an Engineer Officer in the “Daily Mail”) In the future maritime supremacy will not rest with the Power that owns the most warships, but with the one that devises the most effective kind By competitive building certain Powers may provide themselves with considerable fleets only to see every unit of these made obsolete in a single hour by the appearance on the sea of a new type of warship so immeasurably superior in fighting effieincy that it will liopfe'ssly outclass all other men-of-wnr in existence It is the possibility of such a dcvelopement that invests the submarine versus capital ship discussion with so much importance As an engineer officer I would like to ask the gentlemen who profess a belief in the feasibility of “diving Dreadnoughts” how they propose to pack into the hulls of these mythical vessels the enormous engine power that would lie required to propel them. Such craft must be equipped with two vslets of machinery—namely, either steam turbines or internal combustion engines to drive them when awash and electric motors to run them when submerged. In these days high speed is essential. To be of any use your submarine-battle-ships must be capable of doing somewhere about 30 knots on the surface. To give her that speed engines of well over 100,000 indicated horse-power would lie required. And her electrical installation for submerged running would have to be equally powerful, so that twice the quantity of propelling machinery now installed in a battleship would have to be squeezed into her hull somehow. By what means can it be placed there in addition to guns, torpedoes, living quarters for, say 1,000 men, and all other necessary equipment without distending tile vessel’s size to such proportions that no existing dockyard could accommodate her? These are points upon which I, as an engineer would like some enlightenment, for they puzzle me. And my opposite number ,“The Pilot” (navigating officers), has one or two questions pertaining to his own branch sculling 'around in his mind. A distinctly pertinent one he propounds in this fashion : “Re she never so small, a submarine , must have a good depth and plenty of sea room to manoeuvre in, or she is almost useless. In shallow water or near the shore she can do little. , “if you built such a floating island affair as a submarine-battleship of some 30,000 tons, where would you operate herr She would require so great a depth of water that she could only he manoeuvred while submerged in midAtlantic or mid-Channel or in some other wide deep area, wherein she could dive without fear of bumping the bottom. , “She would not he suitable for use m the North Sea, or in any other of the places where l -boats made their best hags. And in wide, open waters she would not he a formidable enemy— no submarine is—for the surface ship has sea room enough to run away from her. “War experience showed that underwater eralt did their most effective work by hanging about such places as Beacliy Head, and Usliant, where ships made their ‘landfalls’. A our ‘diving Dreadnought’ would ho unable to adopt , such tactics," as the depth of water 1 would not permit her to do so. And as fast surface ships are admittedly more effective than submarines in ocean fighting, where would her utility come in ! J ” i Have such matters as those been thought out by the anti-surface ship school. If so, T would like to know j how these gentlemen propose to construct their “diving Dreadnought” so ns to overcome the object ions I mention.