GERMAN SUPERIORITY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 12 June 1939, Page 5

GERMAN SUPERIORITY

CRUISER ARMAMENT NOT A CHANCE FOR BRITISH NAVAL EXPERTS OPINION LONDON. 3rd June. “Britain's trade-protection cruisers would be liable to be blown out of the water by the new German 10,000ton armoured cruisers,’ says Mr Hector Bywater, naval correspondent of the 'Daily Telegraph.” He urges that Britain needs to lay down a series of heavily-armoured cruisers, mounting eight-inch guns. "Germany,” he continues, “has commissioned her first 10.000-ton cruisers, of which lour are being built, and a further five will probably be included in the 1942-43 programme. “These will all be nominally equal to Britain’s 13 ‘County’ class cruisers, but will actually be more heavily armed and armoured. “Furthermore, the 25 British cruisers at prescent being constructed are to be armcJ only with six-inch guns and would not have a sporting chance against mght-inch guns, for which they would only provide target practice. “Britain is fettered by the London Treaty, which forbids her construction of eight-inch-gun cruisers before 1942, but it is understood that her co-signa-tories, America and P’rance, would not object to her revision of the undertaking.”