The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-17
ARMY BILLS READY
 FOR CONGRESS IN
 NEXT THREE WEEKS
(Continued from Page One)

talk since Speaker Clark has come out strongly for preparedness that he would | engineer the whole matter. It was stated positively tonight, however, that while l tho speakers aid was counted upon, the committee chiefs would lead their own forces.
 The naval committee struggled again 1 today with the problem of submarines l Rear Admiral Grant further outlined his plan to establish submarine shore bases l along the coasts and repeated his state | nent that 1S3 underwater boats with 30 1 reserve craft were needed. He said Amer ican submarine builders, public and pri- vate, could produce 4S of the S00-ton boats he recommends within F months.
 TWO MUCH STRONGER
 Representative Galloway questioned the admiral as to the relative strength of the American navy among those of the world. Admiral Grant said he believed the Ger man as well as the English navy was considerably stronger.
 There is today" he said, lone power that has enough navy to land on our coast, even if we had the 1SS submarines and our present feet
 And only one?" interjected Represen- tative Kelly.
 T think only one" agreed Admiral Grant
 And you think it would not be neces- sary to build navy as large as that power?' asked Representative Calla- way
 The admiral assented and to Repre- sentative Callaway's demand to know why he thought so, said:
 The relations between the countries is pretty close. My personal impression is there will never be a war between this country and the power l have in mind.'
 Admiral Grant declared any enemy fleet must be considerably larger than a defending fleet to force a landing
 We played that very problem on the game board this summer at the War col lege and I was beaten" he said. 'The enemy landed. His fleet was larger than ours and heavier. We lost because he had battle cruisers which destroyed our scouts and left us without information" !"
 NEED BATTLE CRUISERS
 Every maneuver or board game the de- partment had worked out, Admiral Grant said, had shown the need of battle cruisers and scouting craft It was for that reason, he added, that while he be- lieved the dreadnaught to be the basic fighting unit of any fleet attention should be concentrated on building bat tie cruisers and scout ships in addition l to submarines before more battleships were authorized.
 Representative Callaway sought to 1 show that a battleship was a useless ele- l rnent of fleet in water where subma- rines lurked, but the witness did not agree. In recent target practice with submarines, the admiral said, it had been 1 found difficult to sight the target through | the periscope at a greater distance than l mile. The periscope of a submarine was clearly visible at two miles to look
 outs aloft on a battleship, he declared,
 and it was not at a great task to hit it
 with gunf1re.
 1 Experiments with aeroplanes to detect l submarines while submerged had shown 1 disappointing results, Admiral Grant | said, because at a greater depth than 2( 1 feet aircraft could not follow the move ments of the submerged boat except un-
 der most favorable weather conditions. | Admiral Grant thought Great Britain Germany and France now had more thar l 100 submarines each in commission, as
 against 37 in the United States navy
 Russia and Italy also had added to theil flotillas, he said. and had big building programmes.