GERMAN SEA POWER

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19665, 27 August 1935, Page 4

GERMAN SEA POWER

NEW NAVAL PROGRAMME. DANGERS AND POSSIBILITIES. (By Captain Bernard Acworth, D. 5.0., R.N.) The new German Naval programme, published last week, consists of two battle cruisers of 26,000 tons, two cruisers of 10,000 tons, sixteen destroyers of 1625 tons, and twentyeight small submarines of about 250 ■tons. Germany is further credited with the early laying down of two 35,000 ton battleships and an aircraft carrier. This programme is causing comment which, in many quarters, amounts to alarm, notwithstanding the agreement jby 'which the 'total German ’tonnage will never exceed one-third of the total tonnage of the British Navy. The reason for this uneasiness is two-fold. First, by rapid construction the German ratio will he reached whilo its basis—the British Fleet— consists largely of old vessels. Thus, it is argued with reason, the ratio of strength, from the fighting point of view, will quickly become apparent rather than real. To overcome this source of weakness lhe rate of future British construction would have to undergo acceleration and additions which vvoulld immediately bring the nation lup against the self-imposed restriction of the Washington and London Treaties, which do not expire for another eighteen months. Secondly, the technical features of all the German vessels are generally assumed to have advantages over past and present characteristics ol their British opposite numbers. The Extra Knot. For example, the two German battle-cruisers, though of smallei tonnage, and armed with conslderanly smaller weapons than the British, are regarded as having put our own ships, with the exception of the Hood, out of action, because of an extra knot or so of speed, speed now Jaeing treated, though with diminishing confidence, as the chief criterion of fighting power. The German destroyers mount heavier guns than do the latest British destroyers, thus giving rise to the same uneasy feeling of inferiority. In the case of submarines, on the other hand, their smallness, and consequent increase In, numbers, Is regarded as menacing, one expert having pointed out that “size is no criterion in submarine coiKstruetion, a small submarine being capable of doing as muc’li damage as a large submarine. Lack of Standard. ’Germany has oPored to abolish submarines and that most costly form of vessel, the aircraft-carrier. Like Japan, she has pressed foi f a great reduction in the tonnage of future ships and for the substitution of a total tonnage system of limitation in place of the category system favoured by the Admiralty. 11 is this insistence on categories and rigid individual tonnage regulations which is mainly responsible for the annually recurring disquiet, coupled with the now almost universal belief that a ship or weapon laid down ’this year must necessarily register progress over previously constructed vessels or weapons. The truth is that our naval doctrine is still without standards, and consequently without the conviction that particular ships and technical characteristics stand on their merits rather than on mere comparisons. In short, the naval doctrine of the world continues to he inspired by a relative instead of an absolute philosophy. A way out of this vicious circle can only he found by the substitution for category limitation of a system of global tonnage limitation, with perfect freedom to every nation to build what 'types of ships it likes within the agreed limit.