SEA WEASELS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 235, 15 December 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

SEA WEASELS.

MOTOR BOAT v. SUBMARINE

ADMIRAL BACON S DICTUM

.Submarine-destroying is still one of •tthe secret arte, says H. C. Ferrahy in ihe Daily Express. We do not know, And we may not know, more than a inaction of what has been done by the .navies at war to cope with the underwater peril. We have only the very > .obvious fact that the measures taken <hy the British Navy have been excellently successful in results. And a certain idleness in the Baltic during this -Summer would seem to indicate tint vfclie enemy also has found out certain • things for himself. The United States is the one important naval Power whose operations are free from the ban of censorship, an J ..naval students over there have been very open in their comments on submarine warfare, so that ai little study vof their writings may be useful to us.

There is, for example, Captain W. S. :3ims, U.S.N., who laid before a Naval Affairs Committee a suggestion that 'the near future would see great semisubmcrsible torpedo battleships. He -subsequently elaborated the idea into a vessel 600 ft. in length (about equal .to the length of the Queen Elizabeth), with sixteen torpedo tubes, but only a tqw small guns. He mentioned 20,000 tons as a possible displacement, and thirty knots as an estimated speed. He was careful, however, to say that such ,craft would only he supplementary ships. "It would be a fundamental -mistake to sacrifice the battleshipbuilding programme for a particular type of vessel which would be of great help as an auxiliary to the fleet, but in no sense destined to replace the bfit"ileslup," were his words.

AMERICAN SCHEME. American naval constructors who were invited to comment on the suggestion wore most cautious, and it is, I think, a very remarkable fact that they promptly divided the displacement allowed by Captain Sims' estimate uy seven, reducing the semi-submersible io a 3000-ton ship at the most, and the speed they foresaw was only twenty.five knots. At the other end of the scale we ha ve Rear-Admiral Knight and other senior on active service advocating -and organising the establishment of a Motor Boat Patrol on the Atlantic seaboard as a guard against submarines. A motorboat is hardly fit to tackle a '2O 000-ton armoured semi-submersible., and! so presumably Admiral Knight and .his colleagues are on the side of the .naval constructors. The British Navy has had its Motor Beat Reserve since the early days of the war, and the Order in Council instituting it stated that its work would ■'be principally to act as tenders to the . -,-hips of the Fleet and for patrol work inshore among shallow waters. the Americans, however, foresee a wider field than this. They classify the motor-boats according to speed and seat-keeping caapcity, the Class A boats ;being twenty-knotters minimum speed, .carrying four men, and capable of 1000 miles cruise or forty-eight hours continuous sea work. The fertile American brain promptly .christened these craft the "weasels of the sea." They are 60 feet in length with a 10ft. beam, and a draught of 2ft lOin. Their maximum, speed is .Teiierally forgotten, as the maximum is • over thirty knots, and to ensure immunity from machinery 'breakdowns they carry double, and even triple, installations of motors. If one gives out .there are the others to fall hack on.

CARRIED ON BOARD. \ i A vessel of this sort, small, handy, .and self-contained, could be carried on .i>oaxd a big man-of-war likto a picket ••boat, and used on the high seas in .Teasonablv smooth weather. Larger types have naturally been ■&u° r gested. Some are 90ft. in lengui, .-also wtih 30 knots spied, carrying two ■ three-pounder guns and two deck torpedo tubes. The bridge again would "bte an armoured conning tower as in the smaller types. Another type acvqiyred bv the United States Navy is • only 45ft! long, with a draught of 30in. and 25 knots speed. Now, all those types of 1 woasel have one feature in common which •..does not appear on the surface, but it is really of considerable importance, it will be noticed that they are all small, and that they all carry small guns. "They a,re designed, in fact, to destroy submarines, on the assumption that the submarine itself will remain small. There is no provision against 20,000-ton .-semi-submersibles. This fact seems to me extraordinarily significant. The United Statss Navy Board is in a good position to estimate the lessons of the past two years' campaign at sea. It is able to gauge, aproximately at any rate, the progress in submarine warship design of all the naval Powers. In the ifa«e of that knowledge it confines its sunlti-submarine craft to small fast ; motor-boats. That is one interesting lesson to ie deduced from a study of American naval matters at the present time. There is another, however, closely related to this subject that seems to me oven more interesting.

U-BOATS WORST FOE. An interview with Sir Reginald Bacon, the admiral commanding the Dover Patrol, was circulated to the American papers a while ago. • I asked Admiral Bacon if destroyers were not the worst foes of the submarine,'' s.iid the writer. " 'They are,' was his quick reply. •'They have great speed, excellent guns, ond skilled crews. 1 lie British destroyer is the U-boat's greatest fear.' " That is not theorising. That is the outcome of practical experience in waters in which the German submarines long and earnestly endeavoured to operate, in which it would well have repaid them to Ik' ahl-e to operate. 'J hoy i'ailed. Mr. Alfred Xoyes was recently allowed to tell us that in the week of th<> battle of Jutland Bank, when we lost eight destroyers, there were 15 new mies completed on the Clyde alone. Link tip that fact with Admiral Bacon's statement. Compare the dost rover, ewith its 4-in eh cutis and its cutting ram. with the frnil motor-hoat. Tn the matter of speed there is nothing to choose between them. In seaworthiness the destroyer is ten times lietter than the lest motor-boat. Tt is the real weasel of the pea.