SUBMARINE WARFARE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28528, 6 March 1958, Page 11

SUBMARINE WARFARE

Transformation With Nuclear Fleet

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, March 4 Fleets of nuclear submarines were inevitable and were bound to transform naval warfare, Mr Robert Allan, Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, said today. Opening a House of Commons debate on the British Navy, he said the most effective counter to a nuclear submarine might be another nuclear submarine. Mr Allan said the tactical superiority of these submarines might be minimised by new defensive devices, but their strategic value was incalculable, especially when armed with the Polaris, an intermediate-range ballistic missile being developed in the United States.

These submarines could place themselves within missile range of almost any target in the world with little fear of detection or counter-attack.

This made the development of Britain’s own nuclear submarine, the Dreadnought, even more urgent.

The “Daily Express” said that Mr Allan further disclosed that each submarine fitted with a battery of Polaris rockets would have the fantastic firepower of at least 20,000,000 tons of T.N.T.

The newspaper claimed that this was the equivalent of 20 Vbombers fully loaded with Hbombs. The punch which such a force envisaged would be infinitely greater than that possessed by all the war-time navies of the world put together.