AIR MENACE TO WARSHIPS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1936, Page 4

AIR MENACE TO WARSHIPS

DISPROVED BY TESTS. Hector C. Bywater, “Daily Telegraph” Naval Correspondent, writes: Experiments with bombs aimed at battleships have convinced the Admiralty that a modern battleship is in no great danger from aircraft. Our new battleships to be laid down next January will bo virtually bomb-proof. The tests involved the explosion of numerous bombs, both above and below water, against actual warship tar-| gets. They showed that from even, a heavy bomb, carrying a big charge of high-explosives—the superstruc- T : ture of the ship suffers surprisingly l

little damage. Experiments have also been made with the U.S. battleship ’Washington, a post-Jutland ship which had to be discarded under the Washington Treaty. Three 2,0001 b air bombs and two 4001 b torpedo warheads were exploded under water near the ship’s bottom. The only effect was to give her a list of sdeg„ and in this condition she rode out a gale for three days. 'rhe shock of these explosions did not even put out candles stuck ov deck at the end of the ship. She re-i mained afloat for four days without j repairs or pumps, and finally had to bo sunk by gunfire. ; I was informed by one of the U.S. I ,delegates at the London Naval Con-' 'fcrenco that these tests have led the U.S. Navy to retain battleships as I ;he backbone of the fleet.