MEETING U-BOAT THREAT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIII, Issue 23, 26 December 1942, Page 2

MEETING U-BOAT THREAT.

NEW METHODS PROPOSED.

(Rec. 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 25

Technical advisers to Cabinet’s Anti-TJ-Boat Committee are considering a new plan for smashing the U-boat offensive which is expected to develop nnprecedently in 1943, says the Standard’s naval correspondent. The plan forwarded through the Institute of Marine Engineers involves a complete change of policy, the methods of the plan being based oil the proposition that it was a cardinal mistake to build merchantmen which, because of their slow speed, arc highly vulnerable to Üboat attack. The most important proposal is that cargo ships should combine speed and much of a warship’s armament, with a merchantman’s carrying capacity, and also be almost as inconspicuous and silent as a submarine.

Mr W. S Burn, of tho Institute Council, said that the present policy of producing adapted pre-war types of cargo ships is inadequate for coping with a technically proficient adventurous enemy, who is building progressively better and faster U boats. Mr Burn, gives technical details of his proposed cargo-warship. He says that any naval engineer will agree that such ships can be built. We need ships fast enough to out-distance a submarine; also constructed to have a chance of surviving hits from torpedoes and bombs, and armed sufficiently to enable them to beat off any but the heaviest attack. MEDITERRANEAN CONTROL. The Official Wireless states: The steady expansion of British naval control into tho Central Mediterranean was illustrated by Admiral Harwood at Alexandria yesterday. The Admiral said that a scries of small convoys had reached . Malta recently. Some of these convoys wore not molested, which was a contrast to the days when Malta convoys were one of the most hazardous operations. As for the part Malta was playing in the offensive, one of the first considerations was to get naval torpedo bombers into the island. That had been done and the planes had been extremely successful in attacking- enemy shipping.