The Cordova daily times., 1915-07-21

heads, Of armor 10 extend about the midsh'p sections of battleships below the waterline and capable of resisting the blow of modern torpedo, and also the location of submarines at a con. siderable 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, 1t is like search. ing for a needle in a haystack and that the destroyer defense does not meet the problem in anything like an adequate way.
 Location and destruction of sub marines by aeroplanes also is con. sidered impractical in any but special cases where weather, depth of water and other conditions make it possible. Bomb dropping from aeroplanes, even over far reaching land Notifications and other easily visible stationary ob. jects has not proven so successful as to give much promise where a small. dimly 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- less some new and startling device to give submarine commanders the power of underwater vision is dis. covered. A submarine is blind thing, once it's periscope is below the surface. One of the novel exploits of the war, however, was the sinking of an Italian submarine by an Austrian underwater boat. The reports of the encounter however were not suffi- Iciently 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. ing numbers of torpedo tubes as shown by reports from Europe, has been to create a school of navy officers here who are said to be urging the aban donment of dreadnaught building in favor of huge submarine fleet. Other officers declare the backbone of a navy must always be in first line battleships and are urging larger and more heavily armed dreadnaughts than ever, Some place-betweer these two schools of theory, it is said the course of the department will lie | in it's recommendation to Congress
 Officers who advocate the submarine navy say that it is thoroughly prac ticable for the United States because the mission of the American navy is to defend the United States from in vasion, not to prepare the way for ar American invasion of an enemy coun try. That, they declare, has alway. been the theory of the navy depart ment and accounts for the fact that no great efforts have been made ,S obtain appropriations for swift battle cruisers such as those employed by | the British and German navies. Lack ing merchant marine to be protected and being self-contained nation fully able to support itself with thu resources within It's own borders, they argue that battle cruisers have no been considered a necessity to thu United States navy and the attention has been concentrated upon gettinf ] the greatest possible number of heavy battleships, floating fortresses to de l fend the coasts. That theory. also accounts for the lower speed of Am erican superdreadnaughts it Is said and the greater concentration of gur power in ships of American desigr compared to similar ships abroad
 | With fleets of submarines stationed