HOW KRUPPS SOLD GERMANY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 158, 24 March 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

HOW KRUPPS SOLD GERMANY.

A REASON FOR THE POWERLESS- | NESS OF THE KAISER'S FLEET. A remarkable article appears in the "London Magazine" which, contributed by Percival A. Hislam, a well-known authority on naval affairs is worthy the careful attention. of glasses of readers. The article is entitled How Krupp's Sold Germany, and relates, of course, to the gunning of warshipThe Emperor, it is pointed out, to overcome the apathy of the German people .i regard to the creation of a. navy, was fortunate in finding two instruments to help him in the development of his scheme. One was on Tirprtl and the other was Krupp; and the «*> of them rank as probably the most important factors in the history of our time. Von Tirpitz not only made the modern German Navy, but he made the means for making it. •'What he has done for Germany (continues the writer) cannot be disassociated from what Krupp s have done; and, to put the position as briefly as possible, Krupp's have sold to Germany the most inefficient navy that could well be imagined. . . Krupp 6 play so largo a part in the make-up oi German naval and military power that wo are apt to regard the farm as part and parcel of the German nation. It is, in fact, nothing of the sort. It is a commercial concern out for profits, and it does not mind where or how it coi lects them. Its horizon is not patriot ism, but dividends; and some day the German people will .icalise fat they have been the principal mdeh U|W for umpiring thotfe J lvloends - ± Uhe Krupp's have rapped guns to nonGerman countries, they have done ro as a result of eommorml competition, and have only that their guns were (AC best obtain ab "But the Germans, who pride them, selves on their business methods, toavo riven Krupp's a free hand in fu/mshSTtht armaments of Germani warships There has been practical v nompetition whatever, an the i > -» is that German warships, ek.sby i *g are about the most leob.y atmod n Rithgumffi* otter urtJ-J "ad abandoned years before as ob olete Having the ennipnient of t . navy iwhose design the hand of the profiteer is everywhere visible. ~ «If you take a picture of anj German battleship built within tne tart 20 vearY you will find that she fairly SisS "with guns Every arable weighed toi noUll "°' t „ et r Q ot as battle guns on a d«ptae csceedmglo,ooo tow, lt means will be J*aiu>eu ~ me time, is pointed out that.at fto-n^ we were build mg tic i , 5 £ th e FormulaWe eta , o{ om . them with onlj 10 gM tlian Assess sucu u -' .= f , H-onnons were ieed, and four of the weapo moved. VrtKriVP**** { l uot for them, although they were which Germany built as a 'reply' to ths Dreadnought created a tremendous sensation when their d - •- tails first became known. The jj the names of Nassau, «csm.en, 1 hineland, and Posen; and alti.oug they are only 700 tons heaver th. ship, they are.armed vith twelve 11-inch, twelve oiln ml £ teen 24-pounde ■ guns Alongside tu.se the Dreadnought looked a weak ng, K everything goes to show Ratine German ships were designed at with the idea of doing Krupp s a good tJrn than of giving the German people value for their money "In point of fact, although 2 licavj R „ns are mounted in these ships, only n\<rht of them contribute directly to utnghttng strength. The otherfenr pre make-weights, serving no other en* than the expansion of Krupp profit.. The ideal ship of war is one that can brins all her guns to hear in an., direction, and while no such vessel ha, vet been evolved, it is at any rate essential that a modern battleship should I* able to concentrate the whole ot her battle guns on either broadside. It will rarelv happen in present-day warfare that a ship is attacked on bota .ides simultaneously. The Dogger LanK fight last January was a running action, the German ships flying helterskelter before Sir David Beatty s hat-tle-eruiscrs; but the ds : aster off Coronel, when the Good Hope and Monmouth were sunk, and the victory off the Falklands five weeks later, when the German Admiral von Spec's squadion wa.s annihilated, were typical naval engagements. Either both side- wanted to fight, or the stronger was able to compel the weaker. "In those actions only two -hips on* nf nil tlio-e eimnged were able to use nioie than half ol their guns, and they were the battle-cruisers Invincible and Inflexible, which have four turrets that can be swum; to (over either broadside. The other ships. light-cruisers and armoured vessels of the pre-Droad-noiisdit ei'i. were nimble tn n..ike any use whatever of the <runs not mounted on the actual broadside facing the onf.iny. The Good IT< in 1 Monmouth. for instant- carried iM.fi gun-, which (her wore unal I ■ Io bnn-i to bear. I: Tbe-e few facts ffi'l eiVlbl- II th '_ better to nppr"(-iaL- He a-< litem*.- of Krupp's in ■■■ Hin» I'l \ <'••■: "mi- m•■>i;nf . ~,1 in mch i.f the «f th< Nassau i/rone ; for. Ill 1 ! "' Hi'"'' "11 ro-:-nations of warfare, nn -I-- t'.-i >''«''•>' ~f them ate eve- likely to lake par' in an action. "Of th<" <ev two-rriill 1'.1.'-efs, )wn ;,r;on the middle line, one forward and one aft, and . ; o • in be fire ! on <":th<v

broadside; but the other four are nlounted at the corners of a rectangle, two on either side of tht ship, so that from whatever quarer the vessel might be attacked, two of the turrets would represent but so much dead-weight. \lthou<di the Nassau has two more heavy guns than the Dreadnought, the latter could meet the German on equal terms, so far as the number of battle guns available is concerned ; and as the British ship has 12. H. against the German's 11-in., there wouMl bo an advantage in her favour of eight Boolb. shells against eight of 7601b. "As in the case of the earlier Kaiser FViedrich's, the blunder was discovered after Krupp's had made their profits. Eight ships were built on the principle descrilied. and of the 9G big guns 32 are practically useless for war purposes. " Four vcars ago the German Admiralty gave' itself a shake and designed a group of ships in which Krupp's did not come in for their usual consideration. Several thousand tons were added to the displacement; but instead oi tlio number of guns increased, it was reduced to ten. These are r,o arranged that all can be fired on either broadside, so that when it comes to actual fighting these ten-gun ships are superior by 2- 1 ) per cent, to tlose that carry 12. . . . "The oldest battleships now in servj (V _-the ten ship- of the Kaiser Friedrich and WUtelshach classes were built between 1P96 and 1904. At that time all the importan naval Powers were arming the ; r battleships with 12 and 13 inch guns,firing projectiles of 850 or 11301b: but Germany was not content to mount nothing heavier than the 9.4 in. gun. whose shell weighs no more than 4741b. It is a remarkable f ict that the last of these ships was not completed until a year before the Dreadnought was laid down, the latter having a main battery of ten 850-pounders as compared with the German ships' four 474pounders. After completing those ships the Germans moved up to the 11 in. gun, firing a 7601b. shell, and it is this weapon that has excited the admiration and enthusiasm of naval experts in tho Fatherland to such an extraordinary degree. It wa.s mounted first in ten pre-Dreadnought battleships ; it was used as the main armament of the first Dreadnoughts; and when the last vessel carrying it was completed in 1913 (the battle-cruiser Seydlitz), not only had we a dozen ships in commission armed with the 13.0 in. gun, but the Queen Elizabeth and Warfipite, designed to mount the loin., were actually in th? water. . . . "The official view as expressed in Germany is that Krupp weapons fire more rapidly and last longer than llie British guns, and there may be a certain amount of truth in the claim. In a naval engagement, however, the object jn view is not to lire rapidly and keep on firing, but to hit first and keep on hitting, and it is there that the heavy gun scores every time. It cannot necessarily throw its shot a greater distance, but it throws it with far greater accuracy. "It has been estimated that when firing at long ranges the loin, gun is just about one-third more l.ikely to hit the target than the 12in. This at once discounts the more rapid firing of the smaller gun. and for the rest one has only to imagine the difference between the damage caused by tho two tdiclls — one of 85011). and tne other of nearly 20001b. . . . "It is said that soon after the outbreak of war the factories at Essen were set to work at breakneck speed to turn out heavy guns for the re-arma-ment of the fleet. If that is true, u means that the suicidal tendency of tho old policy had been seen all along, and that it had been persisted in for reasons that had nothing at all to do with lighting efficiency. It means also that Krupp's aiv drawing a fresh set of profits out of the same ships! "The great gun-factors (concludes Mr. Hislam) may have done some extraordinary things in the way of army equipment; but tho bulk of their profits from the German Navy has been the direct result of a policy that has rendered that navy unfit to face its contemporaries. It wi'l be a bad day for someone in Germany when + he full price of Kruppism is seen in all its nakedness."