New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-29

a long. lean, shallow hull Of the finest
possible lines, built as lightly as sea-
worthness will permit. Her engines,
the acme of lightness and strength, are,
for her size, of enormous power, weigh
ing 33 per cent of her displacement, as
compared with per cent for the dread
nought. Her propellers are machined
all over for accuracy and are then pol
ished like jewelry. Ii is evident that
for a vessel TO be as effective as the
destroyer these conditions must be met
in their entirety.
Now, the conventional submarine
hull-circular in cross section to resist
external pressure-is unsuitable for
driving at high speed on the surface
] The destroyer-s would there
fore require a double hull, ship shaped
without and circular within. Such
hull, substantially built TO withstand
pressure, would be necessarily much
heavier than that of the destroyer, thus
reducing the weight available for en-
CINE power and speed To this excess
weight must be added that of the stor-
ag. batteries and motors for submerged
running. Finally, a propeller has its
m .6imum efficiency only at the fixed re-
D
| destroyer submersible, on the contrary,
would have two wholly different resist
ances-that in surface running and that
when submerged, since in the latter
/ case the body to be driven through the
water not only differs in shape but is
greater in volume. Apparently, both
| the destroyer and the submarine must
keep to the distinct fields which they
fill so effectively now.
! Admiral Mahan was quick to predict
! the primary value of the destroyer in
+ close blockade. Count Won Reventlow
reluctantly admits that it is the subma-
rine's worst foe. The United Service
Gazette" of London, says: Submarine
successes have shown that if our pre-
war provision of destroyers had been
six times what it was we should not
possess one vessel too many in that
! type for the patrol duty that enemy
submarines have driven us to-" Dis
/ cussing the torpedoing of the battle
I ship Formidable in the Channel Adj
miral Lord Charles Beresford notes the
absence of destroyers, "the natural de-
| fence against the submarine" and
adds at is objectionable that officers
{ and men should be thus gratuitously
exposed TO conditions under which they
4 are sent to the bottom without a shot
being fired" And yet, with our gravely
inadequate force of destroyers, these
! conditions of unnecessary sacrifice and
/ futile death might readily confront our
own fleet in war with an effective
enemy to-day.
( We have forty-four battleships of the
/ first and second lines. built, building
and authorized. The General Board of
the navy states that for every battle
ship built four destroyers should be
/ provided. On this basis we should have
] now building or authorized 176 sea-
going destroyers, tit TO accompany a
feet Instead, we h c paper
strength" of only Sixty-eight built and
building and six more authorized by
the last Congress. and of this total only
/ twenty-siX are modern vessels, of l,036
TO 1,l50 tons displacement and 20 to 80
/ knots speed. There are twenty-siX of
/ ZOO TO 740 tons, and the remainder are
small vessels of 420 tons, which can
operate only from a nearby naval base.
In the most optimistic view, the navy
is therefore short by at least 1902 de-
stroyers. If only those fit to attend a
fleet on the high seas are considered,
the shortage is much greater The cost
of a destroyer is about SS00.000. ex-
elusive of armament, and the time re-
CURED to build il is about twenty-five
months.
The vital Importance of the destroyer
to modern fleet can be realized if we
assume that the British had had none
during this war. Their force of light
cruisers is far too limited for full
blockade or patrol. In order to restrain
the German fleet and to convoy troops
to France they would have had to keep
their heavy vessels off the coast and in
the Channel, and by this time German
submarines would probably have taken
heavy toll in ships and lives In its
efficiency as a close blockader and as a
constant menace to submarines the de-
stroyer has been the key to the complex
problem which confronts the British in
the North Sea.
lCopyIlght. 1915. BY The Wheeler syndic.te Inc 1