The Washington times., 1914-11-06
THE NAVAL LESSON.

The naval battle off the coast of
Chile contains a lesson which the
United States navy does not need to
learn, for it understands already;
but which the legislative dominators
of our naval program most decidedly
do require to study and take to heart.
A pre-dreadnought battleship is a
vessel armed with a small number
of guns of the largest caliber-eleven
inches or more-and larger num-
Der of guns Of much smaller caliber.
For instance. the Maine has four
12-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch
guns; whereas the dreadnought
Pennsylvania not only has over
twice the displacement of the Maine,
but has an entirely different arma-
ment. For the Pennsylvania carries
only the biggest guns in her main
battery, having twelve of them of
14-inch caliber.
The battle between the German
and British squadrons in the South
Pacific was very much like contest
between a squadron of Names and
one of Pennsylvania. The German
vessels had main batteries of all-big-
guns; the largest British vessel had
small number of guns that were
slightly larger than the largest car
ried by the Germans, but a very
much larger number of big guns
that were practically a match for
the Germans largest. The result
was that the German vessels were
able to take such positions as en-
abled them to use their heavy bat
teries to the best advantage, while
keeping out of effective range of the
secondary armament of the British
vessels.
Suppose the Pennsylvania were to
fight two or three Names. She
would have the initial advantage of
greater speed, for she is built to
make twenty-one knots an hour,
while the Maine is credited with
eighteen. Thus the Pennsylvania
could maneuver herself so as to get
whatever distance she liked; she
could prevent the slower Names
closing in to such a point that their
smaller guns could do real execu-
ton, while herself standing off where
her 14-inch rifles would do their
deadliest work. The result would be
perfectly certain-gunnery and sea-
manship being anything like equal.
The lesson for the American naval
authorities has to do with the fact
that this country has altogether too
many Of the old-fashioned battle
ships, with a small number Of the
largest guns, and of less speed. The
building of the first dreadnought, by
England, only nine years ago, prac-
tically served to relegate all the
earlier battleships, of that country
and of others as we'll, to the sec
ond line. Germany realized this, and
plunged into the building of dread
noughts as fast as possible. The
change of naval type, resulting in
starting entirely new construction
programs, gave Germany a chance
to start on practically even terms
with her great rival. AS a result,
Britain now has twenty dread
noughts, and Germany has thirteen
actually in commission. The United
States, which was ahead of Ger
many in naval power when the first
dreadnought came out, did not fol-
low the example of Germany and
proceed to build the new type as fast
as possible. Instead, it Jagged; and
the result was that as soon as the
all-big-gun German ships began to
come off the stocks we dropped to
third place in naval rank. Today we
have eight dreadnoughts, Germany
thirteen, Britain twenty.
1t is true that the battle in the
South Pacific included no vessels of
the foremost battle line. All were
cruisers. But the parallel with the
battleship situation was there. The
Germans won because they had pre-
ponderance in the heavy guns that