UNDER-WATER ARMADA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17909, 13 October 1932, Page 2

UNDER-WATER ARMADA

GREATEST IN WORLD 69 SUBMARINES IN EIGHT YEARS THRICE AS A!AN YAS BRITAIN France's submarine armada, already the most powerful in the world, is being heavily reinforced during the current year, writes the London Daily TelcAraph’s naval correspondent. ° Fifteen new boats of the largest type will be commissioned before the late autumn. Four others of the same class are soon to he launched. Besides these ocean-going craft, many smaller undersea craft are due to hoist the Tricolor this year. Twenty have already been completed or are finishing their trials. Fourteen more are under construction. Finally, four mine-laying submarines are ahqut to enter service. In all about ,25 new submarines will have been added to the. existing ileut before next January—an average of rather more than two per month. They represent an increment of not less than 24,000 tons.

In the past eight years Franco has laid down 69 submarines, or nearly three times as many as have been built for the British Navy in the same period. Oi this total many are ocean-going vessels of 1380 tons, with a speed of 18 knots and a cruising endurance of 30 days, equivalent to a, continuous voyage ol 9000 miles. The other submarines com prise : Nine of 974 tons, Five, minelayers of 670 tons, and Thirty-one coastal boats, averaging 560 tons.

All these craft possess a wide radius of action.

Every new submarine is dispatched on an endurance cruise, lasting live to six weelcs, as soon as she has run her trials. In spile of the severity of this test-, it is very rare for a new boat to report any defect. ITALY RANKING SECOND

Owing perhaps to congestion of work in the shipyards no new submarines were included in the 1931-32 programme. Next year, however, construction is to bo resumed.

The French navy law provides for mi establishment of 99.C00 tons of oceangoing and 30.000 tons of coastal submarines. At the present rate of construction this enormous undersea fleet of nearly 130,000 tons will be completed at no very distant date. For some years Italy lias been second only to France in the submarine building race. Fifty-four Italian boats have been laid down in the last seven years, no fewer than 22, with ail aggregate of 18.000 tons, having been put <m the stocks in 1931 alone. In contrast to the eventual French total of .129,000 tons, and the Italian aggregate of 50,000 tons (which will probably bo increased in the next few years), it may be pointed out that under the Treaty of London the British Empire, the United States, and Japan are each limited to a maximum of 52,700 tons of submarine craft.