Connecticut western news., 1908-02-20
NAVY LACKS QUANTITY
Our Ships Are Inferior to None,
 Converse Tells Roosevelt.
LEAD IN MANY FEATURES.

Criticisms of Battleships Are Un-
 founded-Cites Japs' War Experience.
 Washington, Feb. 19.-By direction of the president Secretary Metcalf has made public the report of Rear Ad- miral Converse on the fighting ships of the American navy, called forth by many criticisms recently published in magazines and otherwise. This report was prepared primarily to satisfy the president as to the exact state of our naval ships compared with those of other navies, and its publication is au- thorized with the design to reassure the American sailors as to the quality of the weapons with which they must go into battle. ...... .
 "The quality of the material of our navy is inferior to none," says the ad- miral in his report, 'in quantity of ves- sells alone are we lacking. With an increase in number of ships the Amer ican navy will have been supplied the only feature necessary to make it sec ond to none in all that tends toward fighting efficiency"
 Praises Personnel of Navy. +
 The admiral says in treating of bat tie drills that it was not until the spring of 1903 that our "new navy" achieved the size of squadron-eight battleships-and not until last spring that we acquired a feet-two squad rons It then for the first time be- came possible to carry out fleet tao tics. These were begun in July, were interrupted for target practice and re- sumed again in the present voyage to the Pacific coast. Battle drills, training to meet the enemy under con ditions probable or liable to occur, have been given much attention in re- cent years, he says, although carried out with the limited number of ships available In this connection the ad- miral remarks:
 "The personnel of the navy in ambi- tion and professional knowledge is sec ond to none in the world" @
 Considerable space is devoted to refutation of the criticism that Amer ican fighting ships do not set as high out of the water as those of foreign navies. 1t is admitted by the ad- miral that the Indiana and Kearsarge classes, the first battleships of the navy, are too low forward for efficient fighting at sea in fairly heavy wealth CT, "but the remainder of our battle ships could without doubt give good account of themselves in fight at sea in any weather in which it is at all likely for fleet to engage"
 Answers Armor Criticisms.
 'It may not amiss,'' the report adds, "while dealing with the subject of gun heights and freeboard, to add that the Japanese in their most recently design ed ships have not raised their gun posi- tions nor the freeboard, which is one of the results gained from their expe- riences from their recent war, and which seems to uphold the good idea of our system of building ships with out the excessive heights deemed to be necessary by some critics"
 It is noted that one of the lessons learned from the Russo-Japanese war was that the three and six pound guns were not heavy enough to repel a tor pedo boat. As a result all our battle ships now carry heavier batteries for such service.
 Tn answering the criticisms of the po- sition of the armor belt intended to protect the vitals of a battleship, the admiral again refers to the RussO-Jap- anese contest. The criticisms, he ex- plains, are based upon the assumption that vessels will always strive to, go into action at their deep load draft To show that such is not the correct as- sumption, he says: Nt
 cone of the principal causes of the defeat of the Russian fleet in the bat tie of Tsushima straits in May, 1905, is attributed to the fact that the ves- sells of that fleet were overloaded with coal and stores of all kinds. On the other hand, the Japanese fleet, in antic- ipation of meeting the Russian fleet, had been completely stripped by re- moving everything possible in the way of weight, equipment and superfuous stores. It may be reasonably assum- ed, because of their lightness, these vessels were near what we would call their normal draft Still the critics OI our navy WOulu nave us D0ll0N0 Ludt ships should always, as a preparation for battle, put themselves in the condi- ton of those that met defeat
 New Hoists Are Needed.
 Devices to prevent the danger of fiareback and ignition of grains of pow. der in turrets,' the report says, "have been installed in our ships. Otherwise in turret design we are like the Brit. iSh, French and Japanese navies. Ou1 ammunition hoists are not inferior to those of other navies, although nc hoists have yet been designed capable of supplying the guns in the recently developed rapidity of gun fire in target practice. The increased capacity oi the guns is due to the development o1 .smokeless powder"
 A present lack in the supply of torpe does is admitted, due to the inability of manufacturers to meet the demand This is to be remedied by the comple ton of torpedo factory at the New mort (R IO naval station, It is assert