DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 126, 18 August 1927, Page 16

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

THE END OF THE BATTLESHIP f Copvr-Xght. 1927 J jyjANY writers and thinkers have often said that the day of the battlesbip. over. The wars of to-morrow will he fought by the airship and the marine. Armies that move upon the surface of the land only, and v< sail only upon the surface of the sea, cannot hope to compete with craft circle freely through the air or under the water. These writers are now heartened by the fact that Rear-Admiral S. Sims, a retired officer of the Navy, declares that in another war the - thing to do with our battleships would be to send them as far as P°® sl j" c ' : a river out of harm’s way, and send out submarines and aircraft to - fighting. c; The government authorities still cling to the idea that the backbon the fleet is the battleship. Admiral Sims thinks that the submarine' clipped the wings of sea power and changed the whole strategy of the The airplane is still very much in its infancy. What it will do in the future can only be conjectured. All indications, however, point to its improvement. | The use of the airplane simply lengthens the course of a projectile. can be carried on part of its way on aircraft carriers, and thus its rang ls be made exceedingly long. : The big new submarines can now do around one hundred mne water at seven or eight knots. Whereas on the surface they use power, under the surface they use electricity from storage batteries. can lay mines anywhere, even across the wildest ocean. The Britis e p € * alty in the war was using six hundred vessels constantly as mine-= jjjj . to keep clear the approaches to harbours, and these vessels * ere other services for w r hich they would have been enormously usefulThere is a constant contest, as Jules Verne pointed out, betwee is, d of offence, that is, of shooting bullets, and the art of defence, t armour. It looks very much now as if the art of offence were in the l ea _ t herr with aircraft and submarines and the possible damage they ma?nation is as yet no adequate means of protection from their assault. That be best served that has the greatest supply of these craft. pTpeh^ Ye There should be added to this the fact that battleships are very while submarines and aircraft are comparatively cheap. fdock*^ Admiral Sims says that even a minor power could confront a mil* force with such a force of submarines and aircraft as would tenance of the blocka-de entirely impossible*