THE GERMAN NAVY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 165, 14 April 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GERMAN NAVY.

WHY IT IS PARALYSED. Months have passed s.nce the fleet of our enemy last exchanged shots with us. Little or nothing has been heard of that once proud array of ships bearing the German official label of "High Sea Fleet," which cost the ratepayers of the Fatherland eighty millions in good money. The only thing it has cone to justify the proud title and enormous expenditure, was the shelling on the never-to-be-forgotten December morning of three British East Coast towns. So isolated a performance is pitifully insufficient to vindicate its reputation, for, even reckoning''the damage wreaked at Hartlepool and; Scarborough at a million sterling—a sum'amply covering it—that figures out at only a trifle over a half per cent, of the cost of the German Navy. WHAT HAS HAPPENED? fIP * ■I r I Waht, therefore, call nave happened to this compilation of huge warships, every one of which, had been blessed ai launching by no lessJi personage than the Kaiser himself. iSht possible that its effectiveness has ''been so seriously i educed by elimination and the ceaseless tear an J : wear .of war since last winter as to account for its singula;* quiescence P And mhy it even be that the tall Teuton tales qfrnany new warships on the Stocks nearing completion is only so much"bombast to keep the German people's spirits up? What we do know beyond all question is that before the war was many weeks old the enemy recognised he had made a bad, almost fatal mistake in the equipment, arid, what was much worse, in the build of his b.g warships. He sacrificed projectile resisting properties to speed, ana speed'cannot be everything to ships which keep to narbours and But above all, he sacrifices big-gun power, Estrange thing for Germans, who are such ardent believers in monster ordnance, to do. inus we find that the enemy's battle cruisers, from which so much was expected by officials arid 'peiple alike, carry no heavier guns than 11, inch, and nothing between that calibre and 5.9 in. Even the battleships of the much-vaunted Kaiser and Heligoland types do not mount anything more formidable than 12-inch ordnance, arid here again the next largest gun drops almost violently in calibre to 5.9 inch. Then take the Deutchland and Braunschweig classes, which, thougK big Isfiips, have each nothing heavier aboard than 11 inch guns, while the Wittelsbach type is still less powerful with big ordnance confin. Ed to four 9.4 inch guns. FATAL UNDER-GUNNING. This war may not have been prolific in bloody encounters on the sea, but it has seen enough to demonstrate hoiv signally helpless is ari undergunned ship against a formidable rival. AVe had eloquent testimony of this in the greao Sunday battle in the North Sea, when the German ships had to trust to toe noughts with the former calibre plus many 15-inch guns, about which so an! heel power for partial safety, and stiil more was this trait justified to in the Coronel battle, when brave Admiral Cradock's under-gunned squadron had not a dog's chance of existence. When we think of our half-score of magnificent battle cruisers, each with eight 13.5 inch guns and a galaxy of six inchers, of our leading Dreadmuch has been heard of late, we begin to.sec eye to eye with a belated German realisation —the realisation of a fatal error when it is too late. Irue, it has been affirmed in some quarters that the enemy, while recognising that he lias been badly beaten by the British shipbuilder, saw no bar to the shortcoming being mace good by the substitution of heavier guns; but naval designers will tell you that a warship is built to ' mount a certain calibre of big gun, and to exceed that size is to endanger tiic super-structure of the vessel. PARALYSING LOSSES. But there is another and perhaps more convincing reason for Germany's naval stagnancy of the past few months, and it is to be found in her lcg,es. The process of naval elimin- | ation has been, and is still proving, a most serious thing to the enemy. In August 1914 he began maritime operations with 33 battleships, 20 of them Dreadnoughts, 4 almost new battlecruisers, and 50 cruisers, either armourod or protected, apart from tn6 usual small fry. Three of the very pick of his armoured cruisers lie at the bot- I torn of the Paciffic and Atlantic Oceans, a fourth fine cruiser is hopeless scrap on the Cocos, and yet another is rotting on Robinson Crusoe's Island. Then three very useful cruisers have gone far from home waters never to return, while the 15,000 tons Blucher is aaplay ground for North Sea fishes. The first real naval battle of the war, that off Heligoland, cost the enemy the loss of the splendidly equipped Mainz, in addition to a third-class cruiser, and another large warship of unknown name eluded capture, burning furiously. m Nearly all these ships were of great speed, invaluable in guerilla tactics of the sea, and, therefore, a most serious loss to the enemy. Then, every one of the huge auxiliary cruisers with which Germany sought to establish a reign of terror in the Atlantic have been accounted for in one shape or another. And what of her four superb battlecruisers, each costing a couple of millions sterling—thought to be well-spent money at the time? The finest ot all is in the Black Sea, anc the Seydlitz, easily the next best, was only able to crawl into port after the great Sunday battle. The Moltke, if not sunk in the Baltic, as was reported, was certainly badly damaged, and the Von der lann remains a mystery, nine months having passed without a scrap of information concerning her. Better for the enemy that he should lose a score—aye, two scort —of ordinary cruisers than havr these four placed" hors de combat, for they stood head and shokors above the others. CONCEALED DISASTERS. So far we have only dealt with losses either admitted by the enemy himself or lieyond all doubt. But what of th*** disasters which have been indifferent! concealed, or concealed altogether? L What of the powerful cruiser Freder.cn LKarl, sunk by the Russians in the Bal®*tie, 'and of "two others, if not mor?, which shared the fate from the toroeooes of British submarines? Then theie

have been many circumstantial lales of German naval losses, which, thougc they have not been officially confirmed by us, must in some instances oe true. Certainly several of the enemy's warships have escaped by the skin of their teeth to friendly ports when in a inking condition or blazing furiously. But even if the problematic losses are disregarded, we will find, on summing up those which are beyond question, that Germany has ajready parted company with a compilation of ships sufficient to make a mosb formidable navy for any second-class Power, the expense of an almost fatal weakening of her navy. There is no need to look for further reasons for the seeming German naval apathy. It is helplessness, pure and l simple, the natural consequence of a navy reduced to tatters and shred-3om in the face of an antagonist, who, despite his losses, is stronger to-day than he was in August 1914. —Archibald Douglas.