NAVAL PROGRAMME.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17061, 4 February 1921, Page 8

NAVAL PROGRAMME.

FATE OF THE CAPITAL SHIP. (from ora own* correspondent.) LONDON, December 16. The Admiralty .-; reported intention to ask for a battleship programme in the coming year has raised tlu» question of the value of the battleship in modern naval war. Tlie accepted v imv in staff quarters is that the battleship is the vital weapon of naval war. It is further hold that there is as enormous a difference. in efficiency between the postJutland battleship and ths pre-Jutland battleship as there was betwoen the Dreadnought ana the pre-Dreadnought. In the case of the Dreadnought Great Britain led all the Great Powers. In die ease of the modem post-Jutland battleship, it is pointed out, we are now behind the only navies which count today. Tile United States is building 12 "battleships and battle cruisers, incorporating all the improvements suggested by Jutland, and all these will be complete by 1925. Japan is building 8 ships of similar pattern, and intends to begin' another 8 shortly, and her 16 vessels' will bo complete by 1928. This country has nothing to compare with these vessels, for the British Hood wai)begun before Jutland; and though her'design was greatly modified subsequently, she could not be made an ideal ship- The changes necessitated by the (lessons of Jutland are revolutionary. Much greater protection had to _ be given" against torpedoes and against plunging fire.' The whole disposition of the armour had to be altered. The position of the magazines had to be changed'. It is a practical impossibility to reconstruct existing battleships on these lines; it would inean re-build-ing them throughout. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, speaking in the House, gave the decision of the Cabinet in regard to the naval policy. "While. determined to maintain the Navy at a standard of strength which will adequately secure tlie safety of the Empire and its maritime communications," he said, "the Cabinet''are bound, before sanctioning a programme cf- new construction, to satisfy themselves that the lessons _of the war have been definitely ascertained , more particularly as- regards the place and usefulness of the capital ship in future naval operations. They have therefore decided —and I am glaa to say the Admiralty welcome tlie decision—that the Committee of Imperial Defence should institute at once an exhaust ire investigation • into the whole cuestion of naval strength as affected bv the latest development df naval warfare. They will present no programme for capital ship construction to Parliament until the results of this enquuy have been considered." . Tho Committee of Imperial Defence is an elastic body. It was established bv Mr Balfour and developed by AH Asquiih, and it had an important part in "preparing this country for war, amon n- other things compiling the "War"Book." It consists-of the Prime and such other persons as he mav select. ' It usually comprises the principal Secretaries of State, as Vidl J ys the First Lord of the Admiralty, ! and their technical advisers. _ Pre-war precedents will enable tho Prime Minister to ask scientists, naval architects, and shipbuilders to assist in the investigation which is now about to be. held. That there is ample scope for discussion is shown by "two sharply contrasted views as to the future of the battleship—that of Lord Eislier and that of the Admiralty. In fcJentetnber of 1919 Lord Fisher wrote: "'Air-fighting' dominates future war, both by land, and sea. It is not my business to discuss the land, .hut by sea the only way to avoid tho air is to get under the water. So you are driven to the internal combustion engine and oil'. . That's why »I keep en emphasising that the whole Navy has to be scrapped.'' . In Marcii. of 1920 the view of the Admiralty was as follows: '"la our opinion the capital "ship remains tho unit on which sea power is built up. Aircraft are certainly of the highest importance in naval tactics, but c-lieir role m present circumstances is that of an auxiliary and not of a substitute for the capital ship. The immediate abandonment of tlie capital ship in favour of a visionary sememe oi aircnilt and submarines would leave the JiriUsii nation destitute ol : sea power." l'resent-Uay naval authorities who are permitted to express Uieir views in public are making luii use of tlie Press to give their opinions tor and against tho lurther devi-fiomnent of capital ships. "If l am a=ked, 'Wny then, are the Americans and Japanese embarking on a big programme of monster battleships?' '' writes Vice-Admiral Sir Percy ri:ott in the "Evening Standard, "my lvpiv would be what 1 have always said". "What is _che use of them?' It is for us to take our own measures independently of what, other countries are doing. '•Germany herself—fortunately for i i,= —had not realised the value of the ;:übii".avine at the time war broke out. Had she done so, can anyone deny that we would have lost that command of j tho seas on which our very existence depends? As it was, if. acung oil. Admiral Tirpita's arivice, the Germans had undertaken unrestricted submarine warfare earlier, they would have won the war. This is one of the outstanding lessons of that great conflict.. In the light of that, how can we, having regard to the future, and considering what was then made plain to ti:c world —how can we hug ourselves in the fancied security of tiie assertion: 'But we won,' with "the inference that, on the same lines, we would be bound to win again. No serious arguments can Oe 1 roug-ht forward to disprove my assertion "that the battlesnip—unless surrounded hy protecting cralt—was driven off tie surface of tho ocean during the war. •'The Germans ought to have won the war in 1914. as their .submarines could havo come into Sea pa 1" low and sunk our ships. The harbour was entirely unprotected. Their submarines did not sink our fleet. Why? It may have baen that they had not got men. with sufficient pluck to undertake the job, or it may have been, as Jellicoc explained to me, that the German brain could not mako itself believe, tiiat we were such idiots as to have our ships in an un-

protected harbour. Our submarines I would have willingly undertaken such a job. They carried out much more dangerous enterprises than sinking a fleet ill an 'unprotected' harbour." | ''Sir Percy Scott wants all the battleships scrapped because they can be j spiik by submarines," writes' Captain j Alfred Dowar in the "Daily Mail." ! "Professors always kill their subjects. But now lot us count the exact number of modern battleships that the submarine sank during the war. The exact number is nil. It uover sank any. Ic four years of war it sank half a dozen old battleships. The old Formidable, doing a regular beat at 10 knots on a steady course up and down the Channel on a bright moonlight night, was sunk bv a submarine;. So were the Goliath, Triumph, and Majestic, old shin* lying at auchor at the mouth of the Dardanelles, with the Cornwallis and Britannia, lost in the Mediterranean. That completes the tale of British battleships sunk bv the submarine. "Submarines certainly sank a great number of merchant Vessels. They tried to do slowly and painfully what half a dozen cruisers with command of the sea could hare done in a month. And then they did not do it. They never drove our merchant ships off the sea. Again, what they achieved in this way they achieved only at the expense of Violating neutral opinion and bringing the United States, with its vast ro sources, into the war. Subjjiarine warfare is merely a stratagem to circumVent the surface craft, and the real answer to Sir Percv Scott is to imagine ourselves with nothing but submarines at the beginning of the war." Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, sneaking at a public meeting, said that the battle of the Falklands was a good illustration that wo must liavo surface vessels <to protect our trade routes. He never remembered on any occasion whotl the Grand Fleet was, prevented from going to sea because' of _ submarines. Supposing all the navies did away with all capital ships and only had submarines. It was difficult for one submarine to fight another, and they were no good for defensive work. They would arm the surface vessels, and then they would say that they must have some other craft to defend the merchant ships. They would build destroyers, and these would be followed by superdestroyers. To meet the, super-destroy-ers they would build cruisers, and then Igo on till they had battleships, and come back to where they The Government would have to settle it one' way or the other, and they could not go on too long, because they were risking the security of the Empire. .