SUBMARINE MENACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 151, 21 November 1914, Page 7

SUBMARINE MENACE.

OVER-RATING TORPEDO WORK. |: GUNS THE 'MAIN FACTOR. ? Everybody I met yesterday, -said to rtae:— Well, Sir Percy Seott was right when he said that the submarine was the only warship worth building." Thus is public opinion formed by hasty conclusions on inadequate data, from an isolated instance, comments H. C. Eerraby, on September 30, in the Express. The public confidence in Sir Percy Scott's naval judgment in naval matters is based on the very remarkable services whicli that distinguished officer has rendered to the Navy in the domain of gunnery. It would ill become anyone who has not the lifetime of naval experience that is his bluntly to contradict his conclusions even in the widely different domain of submarine warfare with the torpedo. But his doctrine is so contrary to all the teaching of naval history, it recalls so insistently the now dead heresy of the ram, it is so hampered by the natural limitations of the submarine, that one may be pardoned for offering for consideration a few of the many points that require elucidation before the new doctrine can conscientiously be subscribed I to.

\ Every important naval action in the I world's history, every action, that is to say. on which the fate of nations depended', has been fought out by the largest ships. Throughout the record of naval construction, we always find that when seme small type of useful offensive power is evolved, some larger power is rapidlyevolved as an antidote. So the tor-pedo-boat was superseded by the tor-pedo-boat destroyer, so in turn the. destroyer is being challenged by the destroyer of destroyers, the new "light armored cruiser class," whose usefulness Hie Arethusa showed in the fight oft Heligoland. OUTDONE.

So again, the protected cruiser of tin .Minerva type was outdone by the Powerful and'tlte Terrible, which in turn found an antidote in the now defunct Aboukirs, the first armored cruisers with two !).2in. guns and twelve (i-in. guns. This type reaches its limit in the llino- • taur class, with four o.2in. K"" s '«" l ten 7.5iu. The next step was the l>at« He-cruiser, which, when all is said and done, is a battle-ship, and the two types have indeed been merged into the nv\l Queen Klizabeth class of battleship. LVow tin- whole essence of success for the torpedo-boat and for the submarine i s stealthiness of approach. That quality is lost in proportion as the size of the craft increases. Invisibility is impossible to a largo submarine only a few feet under the water by reason of the wash that its bulk will 'cause. Yet the large, submarine, if it is to act on the offensive, must run at shallow immersion pretty frequently if it wants to know where the enemy is.

11 may be co'iteud 'd tl'.at the submarine need not lie large. Hut the command of the sea in every sense of the word can only be won ami held by vesscls that can go to sea. keep to sea, and fight at sea in all weather* That demands a large ship, well provisioned, well engined, with a large; crew, so thai the strain may be evenly divided between men who have rested and men who have watched,-.

RAM?. The heresy of the ra:'i is well worth remembering at. t!i : s moment*. J'.ecausc the gunnery of tin- Italian fleet at Lissa was poor, the Austrian:; were able to close with and ram the Austrian ships. The ellVct alon.. w.-.s noted; tins cause was overlooked. The result was that for twenty years battleships were built with ranis;' the battle formation of fleets underwent a radical change, and ih< gun, which is the final arT)ltc» in all battle, was neglected. , It was not until ]S!)7 tiiat the heresy \!was discovered, when the clear-sighted ') lectures of Hear-Admiral H. -T. Hay reI 1 called men to an appreciation of the I fact that no battleship could ram another that was pouring' withering broad- , sides into her. For 30 years all the best brains in the naval service had j been obsessed by the ram, with a sub- ; ' sequent neglect of the gunnery. What j would have happened if we had gone i to war during that time hardly bears 3 thinking about. ( Tt i s urged by some that the torpedo is a great advance on the gun, and the rapid destruction of the three cruisers lately will support them in that belief. But they overlook the fact that whereas a ship is always armored above water against gunfire, no ship has yet been armored below water as a guard against torpedoes. The matter is one that has received the most careful attention hy architects, and it is for them and naval otlicers benefiting by the experience of the present war to decide whether this is the best means of defence.

" * SIX TO ONE. The torpedo, it must l>e remembered, is an unreliable projectile. The 33—"iin. gun can place 125011) projectiles on a few square yards of target in the time it takes one torpedo to travel the same range from the submarine to the battleship. Jf the battleship is stationary, the torpedo may hit it, but if she is in motion the chance of a hit is considerably reduced.

'ln the course of the Russo-.Tapancsc war, only five torpedoes out of about 250 that were fired hit warships in motion. In this respect, of course, the submarine has an advantage in that its invisibility enables it to approach nearer to its" victim than any surface ship can do. The underwater warship has its uses: in the hands of daring and experienced men it is capable of-doing much damage, of supplying much valuable information, and, by reason of its stealth iness, of affecting' adversely to some extent the nerves of those who are on watch for it. But its lack of sight, its weak means of self-protection, its low speed, and. its comparatively low sea-keeping capacity are all-important factors that limit its effectiveness, and deny it any claim to the mastery of the sea. Tour at least of our battle-cruisers were in the thick of the submarines at Heligoland, and came out unscathed. But a single broadside from one of them blew the German cruiser Qoln out of the water. That is a fact to set beside the loss of the Aboukiiy and her sisters, and to ponder over.