BRITAIN'S NAVY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 48, 25 February 1921, Page 2

BRITAIN'S NAVY

THREATENED SUPREMACY

THE VANISHED GRAND FLEET

ADMIRALTY'S SCRAPPING POLICY.

"Writing in the London Daily Telegraph, Mr. Archibald Hurd says: — We cannot regard the.naval outlook ■ with any satisfaction. In the light of the lessons enforced by the Battle of Jutland, all our capital sliips—battle-; ships and battle-cruisers, with the sole exception, perhaps, oi the Hood—are • obsolescent, if not already obsolete; for various reasons there is a great shortage of specialist officers for gunnery work; insufficient men are also available in the seamen ratings, ..as well as. in the tech- ; nical departments. Ships have recently been-withdrawn from commission because it is al, present impossible to man them, and an undue proportion of the I complements of ships in the Atlantic Fleet—our only force in home waters— consists of boys.. The impressions which the war has left upon'the minds of the Sea LordE and the principal officers of the Naval Staff are reflected in the rigorous scrap- . ping of ships which has taken place since the, armistice was signed. Of the Grand Fleet, with its numerous auxiliaries, which was in existence two years ago, only a. meagre shadow remains. Smoe He made his speech on the JJavy Estimates last spring, the First Lord of the Admiralty has given no explanation of official policy, but its trend is apparent from the decisions which have become known during the past few months, reactin" '"■"■jtantly on the sta-nding of the fleet a u '-<ea. By the end of the war, practically all the pre-Dreadnought ships "wefre out of commission, and vthe early Dreadnoughts "have also since disappeared ; there remain in the post-war fleet only twenty-eight battleships and wen b>ttlc-Rruisers.

- The explanation of the Board's action in carrying out its scrapping policy is to be found in two words—reconomy and efficiency. It isa very expensive- bufljness to maintain obsolete-ships,, everi- in reserve. • If they arc-to be kept efficient, they must be given, nucleus crews, which moans money, and they nvast be periodically docked and ■ repaired, which, means more money. This expenditure can be justified if there is an assurance that in war the vessels will prove useful. The naval authorities have evidently come to the conclusion that the ships which have been discarded could, in no circumstances that can be. foreseen to the limit of vision, prove of fighting value. In these circumstances, the Grand Fleet of. imperishable memory ha« disappeared. We now haver-in commission in the Atlantic Fle«t only ten battleships, and there are;six other battleships on duty in the Mediterranean. ' Those vessels represent the sadly . reducedspoarnead cf British sea- power, in associ-' afcion with four battle-cruisers. The remaining fifteen .heavy ships which participated in the war are in reserve, and their lives are worth only a few years' purchase They can no longer be regarded as.tally"efficient,'and experience declares that it would be a ruinous policy to attempt to reconstruct them, incorporating in them the dearly-bought lessons of the war. The strength of the , British Fleet in-commission lias'beeii.,ve: duced to a lower point than this generation has known, and the student of nayal affairs, as ho glances over the.list, 1s forced to wonder how much further tho process will be tarried. NO MEN-OF-WAR BUILDING, That is the position so far as'the existing fleet is. concerned. Ite armoured ships no longer answer, to tho require: ments of the officers who were 'mainly responsible for tho winning of victory, and though we still possess a considerable superiority in light cruisers, our lead in destroyers and aubmarines has already disappeared.. Those are statements which are not calculated to minister to that sense of pride which is said by some foreigners to be the besetting sin of the people of this country, as wellas of the Dominions oversea. But if the position is depressing to-day, it will soon bo,a great deal more depressing, for no ships are'being built to tako the place, of those which wore constructed from plans prepared before the Battle of Jutland was' fought, and are now obsolescent. So far as men-of-war are concerned, our shipyards are now empty, and when sentence to the shipbreakers' yard falls on battleships, battle-cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, or submarines, as it iiiiist fall in the next few years, we have no prospect of having anything to take the place of the discarded-vessels. During the war-almost the whole of our yards were so pre-oecupied in turning out small craft to hunt and destroy submarines that we had neither material nor labour for .larger; .. units, such, as battle-ships and battle-cruisers. It is a. common misconception that great additions were m-ade to the Grand Fleet during tho war of heavy vessels designed before the opening of hostilities. That is not true. Of battleships none was built; the Hood, the Renown, and the Repulse are the only battle-cruisers which were, constructed, and the latter two possess only 6in belts. At the time of the Armistice the Admiralty had ; it is true, a great fleet under construction. Asfsoon as peace was'assured, the orders for over 600 vessels irere cancelled. There were four large armoured ships in hand, but- only one cf these, th« Hood, was completed. Even this vessel cannot be regarded as a post-Jutland unit, for she was designed before that battle was fought, and had made such progress that it was only possible slightly to vary the construction. So it is true, in a very literal sense, thatsince our shipyards are empty of men-of-war we have no promise of the British Fleet being reinforced in the immediate future by vessels embodying the .varied lessons derived from war. experience. . * > DECREASING BRITISH MARGIN. There is some satisfaction to be extracted from the knowledge that no capital ships are being built by any other European Power, and that, apart from two little cruisers in Italian yards, the work of creating naval armament has for the time being been arrested. But what is true of tho navies of the Old World is not truo of the navies of the United States and Japan There was never a tims when these two countries were so intent upon fleet expansion as at pre-. sent. Tlie United States is completing sixteen capital ships, as well as many cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, and Japan is pressing forward six . great armoured vessels, and has this year decided- to lay down- eight more units. The relative strength of the British Fleet in all types, of ships will consequently steadily dcclino during the next few years. If the eight projected vessels for': the Japanese navy bo ignored, "and account taken only of those vessels either completed or completing, the relative standing of the British. American, and Japanese fleets in battleships and battlecruisers, including the lightly-armoured Rapnlso and Renown, will be fl-s follows in 1924 at the latest:— No. ' Displacement (tons). Britain 36 ... 883,290 United States 35 ... 1,150,650 Japan 17 ... 497,950 __ In 1924, Great Britain will be the only first-class naval Power in European waters, but, viewed from the standpoint

oil a world-.Power, it will already have surrendered the trident, so far, at any rate, as 1 -material is concerned, to the United States. ■ We shall possess one more capital ship than the Americans, but ttte character of our vessels is revealed by their displacement tonnage in comparison with the American figures. Whether in four years' time the familiar type of battleship, such as is being built in the United States and Japan, will still be accepted as" the criterion of naval strength opens up problems of great complexity. All that can be said is that during the war the lieavy ships of the Grand Fleet remained the deciding factor; that no unit of that force»was destroyed by torpedo, whether discharged by submarine or destroyer; and that the naval authorities of the world which have given serious consideration to the lessons of'the waihave decided that some sort of heavilyarmoured and 'heavily-gunned ship will remain the unit around which future fleets will be-created. That is not to say. however, that the post-war capital ship will resemble either the vessels which are now included in the British Fleet or those which are being built in the United States. On the other hand, it. can be asserted that it will be indestructible by, torpedo. The sea" defence of a world-wide Empire cannot, in the opinion "Of tho highest authorities, be confided to either submarines or destroyers, and, if judgment were otherwise, the expense involved in creating and maintaining such a mosquito fleet of vast- proportions would be so colossal as to rule out this solution of our defence problem. * \ '