UNDER THE SEA.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 191, 14 July 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

UNDER THE SEA.

FUTURE WARFARE

■SUBMARINE SUPREME. | The future of tho seas lies with lhel super-submarine, just as it was thought- : to lie ten years ago with tne super- j Dreadnought. The whole character of ; naval warfare has been entirely chaug- j cd by the development of this typo of , craft, when has become the paramount weapon both for attack and for de-len-e. Submarines alone compel England to realisa that Germany still has a hostile navy with which to threaten her shores (thus writes E. Ashmead Barllett, the war correspondent, 'n j " Hearst's Magazine/') He continues: Tho presence of the enemy's under- j water craft is a constant menace to her, mercantile marine and to her navy, and a great obstacle in tho path of the over-: seas expeditions in the Near Ear,t in | which Great Britain has been engaged. One of the great, problems, therefore.' with which all the Powers will bo faced • when the wor'd war finally comes to an j end will be that of constructing the; right type of warship to insure "home; defence" and the protection of the over- j seas trade routes. The two Powers; most deeply concerned are Great Bri- j tain and tho United States. i THE DARDANELLES. j The Dardanelles expedition, if it i served no other purpose, is an object-j lesson on tho difficulties encountered j by a hostile fleet operating many hun- j dreds of miles from it<s base in the face j of submarjnei ia<titaek. Every ilesson, | \l' : t!i will apply to naval warfare in I tho future, can be learned from a care-! ful study of the time facts—only with this difference, that at the Dardanelles I iho Al'ies were dealing with submar-j inoi m their infancy, whereas in the future there is no reason why there I should bo any limit to their size and . capacity. j THE BRITISH LOSSES. j What happened at the Dardanelles?! Tip to May 20, 1915. an immense fleet! of pro-Dreadnought battleships was' able to lie off the coast and render \ the expeditionary army immense moral j support by protecting its flanks and j encouraging the troops, who love to! hear "V great shells whistline over I their heads. On May 13 the Goliath j was sunk in the Straits during the j night by torpedo attack. On Mav 20 the first submarine was sighted. The entire, fleet had to weigh . anchor and steer about to avoid giving I n sitting shot. The more valuable bat- j tloships like the Queen Slizabeth, the ; Agamemnon, and the Lord Ne'son fad-1 ed away toward the west and were net j seen again. On Mav 2o the Vengeance ; was narrowly missed by a torpedo, and j 4 he battleship Triumph was sunk. On: Mav 27 the battleship Majestic was also ; sunk. On the following day there was j not a single battleship iff the. Gallipoli j coast. All had l>een obliged to fly to i protected harbours for safety. No } longer could transports lie off the j heaches. The protection of the armyj had to be left to light cruisers and de-1 stroyers. and al' the supplies of muni- 1 t.'ons and men had to be carried from j tho protected bases in trawlers of light draught and limited carrying capacity.! Fortunately the army had been landed. J and, with a month's respite, was tool firmly established to run. the risk of • incurring a disaster. I

The Dardanelles expedition did not fa 1 beoausa of the enemy's submarines. On the other hand, the expedition could have been brought to complete fai'ure at the start had the German and Austrian T'-lMjak been in a position to strike at the commencement of tho campaign, and had the Turks themselves possessed any submarines. Nothing was more surprising than the late arrival of the German C-bonts in the E I'strrn Mediterranean and 'the hick of enterprise of the Austrian boats in the Summer of 1910.

WHAT SUBMARINES MEAN. On April 25 the day of the historic landing, tlie A'lies' forces succeeded in getting ashore and maintaining themselves there chiefly owing to the tremendous covering tire which a mass of warships was able, to bring to bear on the en;mv's defensive works and on his

vigorous counter-attacks. But sup-, posing the German submarines had been present to counter-attack the warships as they lay at anchor off the roast. Why, no admiral would have dared to keep his fleet in position, neither would the transports have been able to discharge their cargoes of men and munitions. Half a dozen wellhandled submarines could have paralysed the whole expedition and forced the entire fleet of transports and wars'! Ips to scatter to the nearest protected harbours.

The moral effect of tiie presence of submarines is tremendous. No one has any sense of security once their presence is known. The life of an admiral is rendered absolute Torture. He is responsible for the safety of his fleet and yet he has no means of insuring himse'f against attack. It is like an epidemic of cholera which finds a man perfectly healthy at ten in the morning and cold and stiff an hour later. No one knows, in fact, who will Le the next victim. THE FUTURE. The submarine of tlu future will not have a radius of three thousand miles but of ten thousand and even more. She \yi!l bo a great underwater cruiser, self-contained and able to start on her commerce raids, eros-ing the Atlantic if necessary without touching at any port. Her attack will not be made in lionie waters, but far out on the world's trade routes and there she will have to be met and her activity circumvented. Submarines wi'l become the supreme weapon both in attack and in defence. I will deal with their defensive role first. The submarines intend.;! for home; defence will be different from the boat ] designed for thousands of miles of I ocenii. She need no; have the same fuel-capacity and she need not be accompanied by a depot ship. Two or three of these craft'can lie in any sheltered port, which may be quite unsuitaUYj for larger vessels.. Should an enemy appear at this particular locality they will paralyse the attempts at binding by a single successful attack! oif a. warship or a transport, and immediately tbe exact (locality of the enemy's attack is known othert submi runs can hasten to the same spot to still further embarrass- the aggressor and the battle, fleet will thus be given j time to come up. But even supposing I th■> battle fleet is absent, fully occupied e'=cwhere. a sufficient, number of submarines are perfectly capable of i protecting the coa*t against a hostile landing on a sufficient scale to threaten 'he stability of the defence which the | defender is able to offer on laud. | i