Bisbee daily review., 1915-07-11
OF POWERS HALTS OWN PROGRAM
 FOR STORAGE NAVY
Building Plans for the Coming Year Await Better Information as to Lessons Taught on Sea in Conflict.

in Conflict.
 WASHINGTON. July 1O.-The Naval program to be presented to Congress, in the light of the lessons of the Eu- ropean 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 months.
 The building plans for the coming year will not be completed until the last moment, when. probably, Presi- dent Wilson will say the final word as to the number and type of ships the Navy department will request Meanwhile 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 maintaining 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 10 furnish enlightening re- . ports and there have been no foreign observers aboard any of the war fleets at sea.
 It is said that the American at i tache st Berlin has had opportunity to see considerable of the work going on in German yards, but if SO he has been under the strictest injunctions not to reveal what he has observed, even in official reports, during the con tinuance of the war.
 - The greatest question that has come iout of the war is considered by many American naval officers to be the fu
 ture of the dreadnaught So far as is - known not a single capital ship has e been engaged and the value Of those , enormously expensive fighting ma
 chimes is still as problematical as it q was when England launched the first | al-big-gun ship the Dreadnaught ,. England's newest super-dreadnaught
 the queen Elizabeth has bombardet .l the forts at the Dardanelles; but sc g far as Navy department advices go
 she is the only ship of her class tc
 have fired a shot SO far
 The reason for that. navy officers @ say, is the full realization of predic |. tions made for submarines when thr
 first undersea boat was constructed Against those small and comparatively ! fr. a q r means of defense has been found anC
 the first line ships of the fighting nav lies are behind mine field or screens oi n torpedo boats and destroyers leaving n the active work of the war to th' .oIderpro-dreadnaught battleships th' battle cruisers and lighter and less eX '- pensivc craft
 e When the first manCeuvers of th' American navy in which submarine. participated took place. some officer. 10 declared the day of the. battleship haC
 passed In theory every big shiI which approached shore during thosD ' operations was destroyed Events O IF the European war SO far as they arr a- known. apparently bear out that as
 sumption of the superiority of sub ' marines and that is proving a veXinl ie problem in deciding what shall be ta IT. future American policy of naval con struction.
 Navy engineers now are deeply er 's gagged with experiments looking to th m discovery of some practical defenc ,d against submarine attack. Shout
 they find a solution of the problem
 the big ship program will be vindicat n- ed While nothing has been reveale .o of their experiments, it is assume
 that questions of greater subdivisio ns of hulls and stronger bulkheads, e ht armor 10 extend about the midshi fla sections of batteships below the wa
 erline and capable of resisting th
 blow of a modern torpedo, and also th he location of submarines at a conside n. able distance and their pursuit
 swift, light easily handled craft sue 'n as destroyers are being considere' ho The latter defense is the only practice -v one which seems to have met with an
 success abroad, SO far as is knowi '0 yet officers here point out that at bes -al it is like searching for a needle in -aI haystack and that the destroyer d
 fense does not meet the problem N anything like an adequate way. ny Location and destruction of gu
 marines by aeroplanes also is consi
 cred impractical in any but speci
 eases where weather, depth of watt -it- and other conditions make 1t possibl nd Bomb dropping from aeroplanes, eve
 over far reaching land fortifcauol
 and other easily visible stationary O i- iects has not proven SO successful he to give much promise where a sma ,. dimply visible shape beneath the su
 face of the water is the target led Similarly, submarine against su
 marine is not considered a possib
 development of undersea warfare u
 less some new and startling device lne give submarine commanders the pow his of underwater vision is discovere I, A submarine is a blind thing. once
 Y periscope is below the surface One ins the novel exploits of the war, howev' the was the sinking of an Italian subn