The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-06
NAVAL PROGRAM
 GIVES PROBLEM TO US. OFFICERS
Look to War in Europe to Furnish Data For Con
 struction Work.

pean war, has not been definitely framed notwithstanding the fact that Secretary of the Navy Daniels and his advisors have had the subject under consideration continuously for m onths
 The building plans for the coming year will not be completed until the last month, when probably, President Wilson will say the final word as to the number and type of ships the Navy Department will request. Mean while Secretary Daniels hopes for more information from the war zone upon which the United States can build with profit and safety.
 So far little information has been received to aid the naval constructors. All the belligerents are naaihtaining the strictest secrecy as to their plans or the lessons they have drawn for themselves from the few sea battles American naval attaches at London, Paris and Berlin, have had little op portunity to furnish enhghtening re- ports and there have been no foreign observers aboard any of the war fleets at sea-
 It is said that the American at tache at Beer1fn has had opportunity. to see considerable of the work going on in German yards, but if so he has not to reveal what he has observed even in official reports, during the. continuance of the war.
 The greatest question that has come out of the war is considered by many American naval officers to be. the future of the dreadnaught. So far as is known not a single capital ship has been engaged and the value of those enormously expensive fighting machines is still as prob1ematical as. it was when England launched the first a1I-big-gun ship, the dread-s
 
 dreadnaught, the Queen Elizabeth, has bonabarded the forts at the Dar-s daneIles ;buf so far as Navy Depart ment adyices go, she is the only ship of her class to have fired a shot SO far.
 The reason for that, navy officers say. is the full realization of predic-1 tions made for submarines when the first undersea boat was constructed. Against those small and comparative ly inexpensive weapons, no adequate means of defense has been found and the first line ships of the fighting na- vies are behind mine field or screens of torpedo boats and destrcyers Ieav- ing the active work Of the war to the solder-pre pre-dreadnaug1lt batt1eships, tn ebattle cruisers and lighter and less expensive craft
 When the first manoeuvres of the American navy in which submarines participated took place, some officers declared the day of the battleship had passed In theory every big ship which approached shore during those operations was destroyed. Events of the European war, so far as they are known, apparently bear out that submarine and that is proving vex- ing problem in deciding what shall be the future American policy of naval construction.
 Navy engineers now are deeply en- gagged with experiments looking to the discovery of some practical defence against submarine attack. Should they find a solution of the problem. the big ship program will be vtndi- cated While nothing has been re- veaIed of their experiments, 1t is as- sumed that questions of greater sub division Of hul1s and stronger bulk heads. or armor to extend about the nnidship sections of battIeships below the water1ine and capable of resist ing the blow of a modern torpedo, and also the location of submarines at a considerable distance and their pursuit by swift, light, easily handled craft such as destroyers are being con- sidered. The latter defense is the only practical one which seems to have met with any success abroad. so far as is known, yet officers here point out that at best, it is like searching 1OE d @n00019 III scIs 1S1yk5tScA S1LR0 L1AcSb the destroyer defense does not meet the problem in anything like an ade- quate way.
 Location and destruction of sub marines by aerop1anes also is consid- cred impractical in any but special cases where weather, depth of water and other conditions make it possible. l Bomb dropping from aeroplanes, even over far reaching land fortifcations and other easily visible stationary ob- jects has not proven so successful as to give much promise where a, small dinly visible shape beneath the sur face of the water is the target.
 Similarly, submarine against sub marine is not considered, a possible development of undersea warfare un-d less some new and startling device to give submarine commanders the pow CT of underwater vision is discovered. A submarine is blind thing, once it's periscope is below the surface. One of the novel exploits of the war; how ever, was the sinking of an Italian submarine by an Austrian under water boat. The reports of the en- counter, however, were not sufficiently complete to indicate the value of that sort of warfare
 The result of the development of the submarine with widening range of action, mounting disappearing guns for surface action. and with increas- 1AS OI HSIOTPSQO CuD0S dS shown by reports from Europe, has been to create school of navy off, cers here who are said to be urging the abandonment of dreadnaught building in favor of a huge submar- inc fleet. Other officers declare the backbone of a navy must always be in first line battleship pA~ and are urging larger and more heavily armed dreadnaughts than ever. Some place between these two schools of theory, it is said. the course of the department will lie in it's recom- mendations to Congress.
 Officers who advocate the submarine navy say that it is thoroughly practi- cable for the United States because the mission of the American navy is