NOTES ON THE AVAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15715, 16 September 1914, Page 6

NOTES ON THE AVAR.

STOPPING NEUTRAL SHIPS. The question has been raised whether a. warship may stop a neutral ship. A .man-of-war has in war time always the right of forcing any neutral steamer to stop and allow herself to be examined. She can even stop a neutral mail steamer, although it was agreed at The Hague that mail steamers belonging to neutrals should be allowed to pass unless it was urgently necessary to overhaul them. But as for ordinary merchant steamers, they can always be stopped for the following reason: —It is legitimate for any hostile ship, whether war vessel or merchant vessel, in war time to fly the flag of any neutral country it pleases. The only check which the opposing warships have upon this practice is the search which they can make through the ship's documents. The evidence of a -hip's nationality in war time, is not her flag, but her papers. For this reason it is, of course, legitimate for a, British warship to request any neutral ship to stop.

THE NAVAL GUN. The naval gun has had an interesting history. James's Military Dictionary says that cannon were used as early os the thirteenth century in a naval engagement between the King of Tunis and the Moorish King of Seville. The earliest mention in the records of the Royal Navy, however, is in 1558, an "Indenture " nowlying in the Public Record Office, "between John Starling, formerly clerk of the ships, galleys, barges, balingers, and others the King's vessels, and Helmyng Leget, keeper of the same,"' supplying a number of brass and iron guns to the Christopher, Bernard, and Mary, "of the Tower" in each case, the suffix having apparently been in general use then to express the meaning of the present day "H.M.S." Many of the earliest guns in naval use were breech-loaders, and some were actually rifled— features generally looked upon as essentially modern inventions. The construction was, of course, primitive, the breech arrangement dangerous, and the weight of the shot thrown, for the most part, insignificant. It is nevertheless a matter for some astonishment that there were as early as 1514 guns in existence firing as heavy a shot as the Victory was able to discharge at Trafalgar, nearly 300 years later. It was at the end of the seventeenth century , when guns were first designated by the ; weight of the shot they fixed, and" this practice remained until the middle of the nineteenth century. An official list of ! 1743 shows 10 different guns in use, but! there were frequently several patterns or I lengths of guns having the same calibre, j so that there were altogether 23 different, patterns,, grading from the 42-pounder, 10ft long, weighing 65cwt, and having a bore of 7.03 in, to the £lb " Paterero," 3£ft long, 1.69 in bore, and weighing ' Hcwt. A great change was effected in 1779, when the carrona.de was invented and introduced for naval purposes. A 44gun frigate, the Rainbow, was converted to carry the new gun, with the result, that her broadside increased from 3181b to 12381b. Carronades named from Carron, where they were first, —were constructed in sizes Tip to the 68-pounder. The Victory carried two such guns at Trafalgar, the rest of her guns being 32, 24, and 12-pounders. To-day the latest British Dreadnought* are being aimed with 15in, 96-ton guns, firing a projectile weighing nearly 20001b. This gun can throw its shell a distance of over 25 miles, and it can pierce 25in of hard steel plate at a range of 3000 yds.

THE SUBMARINE. Owing to the flight of the German fleet there has been little opportunity provided by the war for the final settlement, of the controversy aroused in England by Admiral Sir Perry Scott's declaration that the submarine would supersede the battleship. The Pathfinder has been sunk by a German submarine, but another German submarine proved a sufficiently good target for the Birmingham's guns, and the Heligoland tight was won by battle cruisers, not by submarines. Speaking on the subject inst before Britain declared war. Admiral Mnhon, the American naval authority, said : ''The question of the use and increased effect of the submarine is assuredly one of the most important questions to be tested in actual warfare. They had, of course, no opportunity' in the Russo-Japanese War. but in the present confined theatre of nations they should lie seen at their be.-t. I do not. he said, share Sir Percy Scott's views of the surpassing power of the submarine to the complete effaremont of battleships. Torpedoes, as used in the Russo-Japanese War. were utilised chiefly to put the finish to a ship almost silenced already by gun-Jire, and for such purposes were effective, but torpedo boat; are night craft: they cannot be effective in daylight against modern guns. But most, of these problems of the technical science of warfare are too abstruse for the general observer. They are really even too technical for experts 10 agree on. As General Sherman said, one may demonstrate something in manoeuvres, but you really need the element of human fear to be conclusive."