Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1915-09-03
WHAT OUR NAVY NEEDS
FIRST EFFICIENCY
Advisory Board to Aid Scientific
and Inventive Activities.
PERSONNEL AND MATERIAL.
Daniels in An Interview Says He Has
the Whole Navy Within His Vision.
IFfom the WashinEton Sundaf Staf.I
Part III.

Il can ueieal It's enemy WNen IL COMES 10
grips. The supreme object of the navy
is 10 maintain an absolute line Of de-
tense against invasion. and il may be
| that this can be done best by means of
the swift ships able to escape or to
choose attack.
| The swift.heavily armed battle cruis-
| er. wherein armor is sacrificed to speed
is very expensive to build. and to main
| tain. Whether It should supersede the
| slower but more powerful dread
| naughas, whether they are a necessary
| supplement TO them, or whether for the
purpose of defense, armor should make
way for speed. are questions to be de-
| termined only by most careful study by
| the ablest men Of the facts when they
are known of the European naval war.
The United States Navy has no bat
/ tie cruisers and no provision for their
| construction. 1t has ten old armored
cruisers of about $4,000 tons displace-
ment. one-time speed of % knots, and
main batteries of four S-inch and four
teen 6-inch guns II has FIVE first class
/ cruisers, of about $500 tons and a
speed of 81 knots: four second-class
/ cruisers, fifteen third-class cruisers of
between 5000 and 1000 tons-all old
boats of type no longer constructed
and some monitors thirty gunboats of
varied size, slow speed and of vener-
able age. In July. 1914. England had
ten battle cruisers of more than o..
600 tons; Germany eight of nearly the
same class; Japan two of $4,000 tons.
Torpedo boats, as originally conceiv-
ed were small. of very high speed, de-
signed to dash snigly or in flottillas
upon hostile ships which they sought TO
destroy by means of torpedo launch
ed with considerable accuracy from the
torpedo tube with which they are pro-
vided. They have been superseded by
the destroyer, which was designed TO
drive off the torpedo boat, and by the
more lately developed submarine. The
torpedo boat has become of little con
sequence, but the destroyer-is one of
the most important classes of boats,
and the one about which still fingers
some of the picturesqueness of the
fighting ship, even though their grace
full hulls are filled with powerful. COM
plicated. whirling machinery.
Shortly before the outbreak of the
war England had 167 of these destroy
ers, of which some of the latest were
credited with speed of &c knots; Ger
many had 130. France, S4, besides l35
torpedo boats: Italy 6S, and Austria
Hungary, 80 The United States has
62 of them The best are about 800
feet long, 80 feet beam draw 8 feet,
have a displacement of 900 tons, burn
oil fuel, have a speed of 30 knots, have
a ships company of a hundred men and
officers and carry two or more 1S-inch
tubes for Whitehead torpedoes The
oldest of these boats were completed in
1900. Six new ones TO be a little lar
ger and rather more speedy than any
of the others will soon be under con
struction.
"Bushnells torpedo" the first Amer
lean submarine. in 1777 failed to de-
stroy the flagship of the British squad
ron in New York harbor only because
his torpedo could not be properly dis
charged. But submerged, he sailed un
der the fleet and demonstrated the pos
sibility of this type of boat. His in
vention was, through the aid of Thomas
Jefferson, American minister to France,
made known TO the French. About
1896 Holland, in this country construct
ed his submarine. somewhat similar to
the Bushnell, with engines added. Lau-
beuf, in France, completed his design
about the same time. Later the Ital-
ian laurent, designed a type of subma-
rine. These are the three leading de-
signs in use.
In 1883, Ill years after Bushnells
attack, the French built the first mod
ern submarine for their navy Other
nations soon followed, Germany being
about the last of the great nations to
adopt them. One can do no more than
/ guess at the present numbers of these
boats. Just before the war, according
| 10 Domville-Fife, an English engineer,
the leading nations were supplied about
as follows: England had 50 built and
% building nearly all of the Holland
| type. They ranged, their Glass A with
length of $50 feet,a speed of IL knots
on the surface and Z knots submerged; !;
/ to their r class, with a length of 176
| feet, a displacement of 500 tons and a
/ speed of 1910 knots, and a cruising
range of 5000 miles Two of these
boats sailed from England to Sydney.
Australia without convoy, 10000 miles
| OF the % new boats then building some
were of the laurent, some of the Lau-
beuf and some of the new, the vicker's
type. Some of these are OF $500 tons
displacement and have a designed
/ speed of 20.12 knots.
| When war was declared France had
90 submarines in active service with
nine large ones under construction.
| Russia had 81 submarines in service
and 10 under construction. AT this
time Germany was said to have 80 sub
marines. all of which had been put in
perfect condition their older boats
modernized and six new ones neary
completed. A large personnel had been
trained and their submarine fleet was
ready Their speed is supposed to run
from 2 TO knots in their early boats
to the L 29 class of 800 tons and a
speed of is to 10 knots. The German
heavy oil engines have stod the hard
est tests and probably stand up" bet
ter than any others.
| The Austrian navy had six subma-
rines and the Italian 10 when war was
declared The latter also HAVING aierb,