THE SILENT SUBMARINE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15488, 14 December 1910, Page 8

THE SILENT SUBMARINE.

The proposal of the Admiralty, mentioned in a cablegram this morning, to send six submarines to the Far East next year has been a subject of discussion in naval circles at Homo for several months past. The official policy is to shroud the operations of the submarine branch, of the service in a ,veil of mystery, and efforts ill this direction have been so successful that the general public knows very little about the "daylight destroyers:' The popular verdict probably is that the craft which have been responsible for a series of horrible tragedies are entirely overshadowed as fighting units by the big battleships and cruisers and the speedy destroyers. The men who are j„ a position to weigh all the farts evidently take a different view, and during the last nine years the British Admiralty, working without any advertisement of its intentions, has created the strongest submarine flotilla in the world. The first Holland boat, known simply as "No. 1," was commissioned in 1901. Its displacement was J2O tons, its surface speed eight knots and its radius of action, owing to the small supply of fuel carried, less than 400 miles." Year after year the type lias been improved, and "D 1," the prototype of the ten boats now under construction, displaces 600 tons, has a surface speed of 10 knots and can travel 2000 miles in the open sea. The " D"' class is being produced undercover of the utmost official reticence, but one authority has committed himself so far as to- state that it " embodies features far in advance of any other submarine afloat." At the present time Great Britain lias between sixty and seventy submarine vessels in commission, while France, which has been building vessels of the type tor over twenty years, possesses between fifty and sixty, more than half of thorn limited in capability to the work of harbour defence. The only other country which has commissioned more than twenty serviceable submarines is the United States. The object of the proposed despa tch of six British boa ts to the Far Fast has not been explained, but it is probable that units belonging to the older types nro to bo stationed at Hong Kong and Singapore. The. long journey, which would be made in the company of a " parent" ship, would not present any very serious difficulties to the little craft.