Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1946-04-09
Tomorrow's Submarines

If the advent of the atomic bomb
has placed a great question mark
over the future value of giant battle
ships and aircraft carriers, it has at
the same time raised the submarine
to a remarkable new level of i'm
portance.
During the war our own and the
enemy's undersea marauders were
deadly in the extreme, but still their
role was subordinate to that of our
mighty. surface task forces. In the
era ahead, however, they may we'll
become the dominant and most de-
cisive part of sea power. The har-
messed atom endoWs them with such
tremendous potentialities that they
have already come to occupy prob
ably the most prominent place in
the hard and revolutionary thinking
now going on in the Navy
Thus Admiral Nimitz, chief of
naval operations and top commander
of our wartime Pacific fleet. feels
that the submarine may be the cap
ital combat vessel of the future, a
view shared by other key authori-
ties, including Rear Admiral Bowen,
the Nays director of research. It
is being envisioned now as some
thing of practically unlimited under
sea cruising range and of a sub
merged speed heretofore thought
impossible-a speed rivaling that of
surface ships. More than that, the
expert view is that this spectacularly
increased range and speed will be
possible at an extraordinary new
depth, where submersibles of cur
rent design and structure would be
crushed by pressure.
Such new vessel is made possible.
even probable by the fact that it
could be powered by atomic energy.
AS fuel this energy, besides being
very small in quantity and hence
a space-saver of first Importance,
would be entirely smokeless and give
off no exhaust gases. In other words,
since the supply of oxygen would not
be affected, the submarine of to-
morrow would seldom have to sur
face for air and in all likelihood
would be not only bigger, much
faster and much more far-ranging.
but also able to stay submerged for
weeks on end at depths greater than
is possible today.
Obviously a craft of this type
would be extremely difficult either to
detect or to attack, and as an often
sive instrument it would have few
equals. For as Admiral Nimitz has
suggested it could cross oceans sub
merged, lurk unseen off an enemy
coast and from a safe depth bonn
bard cities with effects not even
hiroshima suffered" The lombard
ment. OF course. would be with
atomic or bacterial weapons launched
as rockets or guided missiles from
under the sea. According to Admiral
Bowen. the Navy does not necessarily
nave all this in the blueprint stage
at the moment. but he makes clear
that there are no insurmountable
technical obstacles standing in the
way
1t is important to add in this con-
nection, however, that if these sub
marines are built in the world of
tomorrow, our own Navy is not likely
to have monopoly on them. Other
powers will have them, too. In short.
nearly everybody eventually will be
able to destroy nearly everybody else
II men and nations now engage in
an atomic ornaments race instead
OF working urgently together to es-
tabllsh some such internati onal con-
troll as that recently suggested by a
special State Department committee
of experts.