the vessel built in substitution. Naval experts of other countries are practically unanimous in holding that twenty years is the real limit of usefulness for a modern fighting ship. The decision to declare vessels obsolete five years earlier does not increase the number of warships to be constructed under the Navy Act of 1890,fifty-eight capital ships, of which thirty-eight are to be battleships and twenty large armored cruisers. It does bring about alterations of an important character in the program now extending to 1917, and means that at least four more battleships than have heretofore been authorized by the Reichstag will be laid down between 1908 and 1912, and that two battleships instead of one may have to be laid down in each of the four years ending with 1916. The adoption of this project would give the German navy thirty-eight battleships in 1915.

Under the new program seventeen German battleships will be replaced in the period from 1908 to 1917; three each in 1908, 1909, and 1910; two in 1911; and one each year from 1912 to 1917. Six large cruisers would be replaced in successive years; while nineteen small cruisers would be replaced, two each year from 1908 to 1916, inclusive, and one in 1917. In addition to the ships thus replaced, there will be four new armored cruisers of the British Invincible class built between 1908 and 1912, one each year, under the original Navy Act of 1900.

The German program for 1908 is three Dreadnoughts, one Invincible, two small cruisers of 24.5 knots, and twelve large destroyers, the latter constituting two "half" flotillas. This program is to be repeated in 1909 and 1910. The building program during the period 1908-1917 will, therefore, be as follows:

3 battleships of Dreadnought improved class to be built each year in 1908-9-10.

2 battleships of Dreadnought improved class to be built in 1911. 1 battleship of Dreadnought improved class to be built each year from 1912 to 1917.

I armored cruiser each year from 1908 to 1917 including six to be replaced.

2 scouting cruisers each year from 1908 to 1916.

I scouting cruiser in 1917.

12 large-sized destroyers each year in 1908-9-10-11.

Total built after 1907: Seventeen battleships and ten armored cruisers, making twenty-seven ships of the line; in addition to nineteen scouting cruisers and forty-eight destroyers, to say nothing of destroyers to be built after 1911.

Colonel Gädke, in the "Berliner Tageblatt," estimates that by 1914 the German navy will consist of thirty-seven battleships and fourteen large cruisers "in commission."

Of these, thirteen battleships will be of 19,000 and more tons displacement; ten of 13,200 tons; ten of over 11,000 tons, and four of 10,000 tons. There will be five large cruisers of 18,000 tons at least, one of 15,000 tons, two of 11,500 tons, one of 10,500 tons, and five of 9,000 and 8,500 tons. The total tonnage of the fleet would amount to 700,000 tons, or more than double its present figure of 320,000 tons. By 1920 the rate of construction would bring the strength of the navy up to the required number of thirty-eight battleships and twenty large cruisers, of which twenty battleships and twelve cruisers would be of the large class, all in commission.

There are now twenty German battleships classed as effective in commission. The Ersatz Baden, Ersatz Wurttemberg, Ersatz Bayern, and Ersatz Sachsen are to be ready by 1910. In 1920, under the proposed project, our high sea fleet would consist of twenty-four battleships of the Dreadnought class, ranging from 19,000 tons to over 20,000 tons; ten of the Deutschland and Braunschweig classes of 13,200 tons each, and four ships of the Witteslbach class of 11,800 tons, not one of which would be over nineteen years of age.

The total amount of the navy estimates for 1908 is $81,567,943.17, divided into non-recurring expenditures, ordinary expenditures, and ordinary non-recurring expenditures. There are provisions for strengthening the coast defenses, for the construction of docks on the river Elbe, reinforcement of the personnel, the construction of new training ships, and a considerable outlay for submarines. The largest non-recurring expenditure will be upon new construction. There will be first installments required for three new battleships, an armored cruiser, two small cruisers, a river gunboat for China, and a flotilla of twelve destroyers. There are estimates for structural changes in battleships of the Kaiser class, increased ammunition for ships and forts, reserve guns, and the extraordinary items provide for extensions and improvements at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven and a turbine factory at Kiel. There is a large grant to aid Count Zeppelin for his airship experiments, and another large item for the widening of the Kiel Canal. Heligoland is being strengthened, and diplomatic movements are on foot to obtain certain important naval bases. The memoranda attached to the Estimates set down large sums for armaments, pointing out that the navies of the other powers are working constantly to perfect their ordnance and torpedoes and our navy cannot lag behind. The Estimates also fix the navy personnel for 1908 at 50,323 officers and men crease of 3,576 over last year.

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DISARMAMENT THROUGH INDIFFERENCE

PARIS, January 9, 1908.

The attitude of the French Senate towards the navy is apparently one of negation. The American Navy has taken second place, through numerous recent additions of fighting units to the fleet. The French Navy has been thrust out of second place, fallen back into third place; and those who thoughtfully observe this set-back in actual military power are wondering whether the weakening of national purpose will cause France to drop back into fourth place among the principal navies of the world.

Our German neighbors across the Rhine are actively developing their naval armament, and even aspire to oust the United States Navy from the latter's position next to England on the charts recording the strength of the world's fighting fleets. Other Governments are acting upon the theory that universal peace is very distant; and since the fiasco of disarmament at The Hague, plans for the augmentation of armament have progressed rather rapidly before every important Government but France. Germany is seriously preparing for the construction of seventeen battleships, six armored cruisers, and nineteen smaller cruisers within the next decade. This colossal German program has set the British Admiralty thinking. The United States and Japan propose important fleet increases. Russia and Spain propose to rebuild their navies. Italy and Brazil show signs of full recognition of the activities of other nations toward armament. But France is confronted with Senators and Deputies who fail to rally round Minister of Marine Thompson.

Since the Spanish-American War, France has launched. but nine battleships, ranging from 11.800 to 14,630 tons, and the Henri IV of scarcely more than 8,000 tons. The latter is classed as obsolescent. Another, the Jena, has been wrecked by internal explosion; and four others, the Democratie, Liberte, Justice, and Verite, have not taken. their armament aboard and are, therefore, not ready for sea. During the same ten years elapsing since the war over Cuba, England has launched thirty-four battleships each having a displacement of over 12,950 tons, including four Dreadnoughts ranging from 17,900 to 18,500 tons. All but five of these thirty-four additions to the British Navy are in active sea service, and the two Lord Nelsons will soon be in service. The United States has launched in the same period twenty-one battleships, ranging from the Alabama class of 11,000 tons to the 16,000-ton New Hampshire, and all but three of these are completed, while the three exceptions are more than nine-tenths completed. Germany has launched eighteen battleships, ranging from

While the French Navy is now generally rated as third in sea strength, it really ranks but fourth in the number and effectiveness of the vessels launched and completed since 1898. Scarcely more than four of these are now complete enough to be ready for instantaneous action. In spite of the exhortations of Minister Thompson, and of only a few others outside of the Navy, France seems willing to close her eyes upon the situation; and M. Messing, the Reporter of the War Budget, has declared that "France will not seek to surpass her neighbors if they persist in the ruinous policy of armaments a outrance." This is an appeal to the acceptance of the inevitable, and means that France must "pay the piper" if the Republic deliberately refrains from investing in naval insurance against national danger. The Chamber of Deputies has seemingly acted upon the theory that the results of The Hague Conference have strengthened the peace of the world, and that strong armament is contrary to national economy. It remains to be seen whether the French Chamber will fall into line with the Deputies or heed the appeals of the Minister of Marine.

Negative legislation is not the only blight upon the French Navy. Military indecision has baffled the Ministry. Minister Thompson is sincerely anxious to develop and enlarge the French fleet, but has been perplexed rather sorely by the difficulties which have been experienced by the military element in its efforts to arrive at a definite decision over the character of the armament proposed for the new ships and other important questions of policy. The French Superior Council of the Navy considered not less than six widely different plans of armament for these future battleships. There was an allbig-gun project and various plans for mixed armament. While other naval powers have gone ahead developing plans for single-calibre ships, the French Superior Council has proposed a mixed armament of six 12-inch, eight 9.4-inch, and eighteen 3.9-inch guns. Discussing the proposition of the Council, the assertion is made by M. Pierreval, in the semi-official "Moniteur de la Flotte," that the compromise "solution" thus reached is the only one which it believed it possible for the Council to adopt. He points out that the proposition of two calibres of heavy guns is equivalent to the substitution of two 12-inch guns, and four 9.4-inch guns, in a vessel of the Danton class at a cost of some three thousand tons additional weight in displacement. "It is essential," he declares, "that the reasons should be explained by which the duality in the

calibre of the heavy gun has been determined by the Council. Either the advantage of unity of calibre must. be disputed or greater inconvenience must be demonstrated."

The system under which plans are made for new French vessels is very elaborate. The program of new construction is prepared by the Superior Council, which consists of the prefects of the five naval ports, four admirals employed in the central administration, and the chief of staff, who constantly supervises the plans in the genesis and during their progress through the various committees. The Superior Council indicates the general type and the number of vessels to be put in hand, as well as all matters pertaining to the distribution and employment of the fleet. In regard to ship plans, the General Staff, consulting with officers in the departments of construction, ordnance, and electricity, prepares a sketch plan for each of the types indicated by the Superior Council. These sketches are submitted for examination to the technical branch of the naval construction department, composed of members of the genie maritime and an ordnance officer. The design takes shape in this branch, and principal characteristics, such as displacement, armor protection, armament, propulsion, and range of action, are determined. After that the plans go to the technical committee, which was created by Minister Thompson and is headed by a vice admiral, who presides over a group of senior and junior officers of the navy, engineers, constructors, and several officers of colonial artillery. This committee, after deliberating with the Chief of Staff, studies, analyzes, and either adopts or modifies the plans, which then go back to the technical branch of the construction department for completion. The plans go back once more to the technical committee for final approval, and are then submitted, with the recommendations and comment of that committee, to the Minister of Marine.

After being thus considered, the six plans for future French battleships were this year reduced by the Superior Council to the single plan for mixed armaments, but it is not certain of adoption. Minister Thompson went on record to this effect before the French Senate. The majority of French naval officers favor unity of calibres, and the Minister of Marine has informed the Senate that the French Senators and Deputies will be given an opportunity of determining the character of the armament, several single calibre plans -Plan A calling for ships carrying twelve 12-inch, and Plan B proposing sixteen 10.8-inch guns - having been prepared for the purpose of selection.

In his report to the French Chamber of Deputies, M.

Chaumet, who had charge of the preparation of the French Naval Budget, discussed the naval situation at some length. The following sentences are taken from an abstract of that report:

"The relations between the different countries are of too variable a nature to make it possible to constitute a fleet with a view to fight any particular eventual enemy. Torpedo-boats and submarines are required because of their military value, and not by reason of so-called economy, seeing that their construction and armament are proportionately more costly than those of larger units. . After the construction of a ship has been decided, it should be possible to give to the naval arsenal, within six months at most, all the required data to allow the latter to place contracts for all material and machinery. It is not proposed that the Government yards should be done away with; for besides their military character, they should also play a part in economics. They are, however, far from exercising such a beneficial action, for they are too numerous, badly equipped, and badly organized. They should, to say the least, be specialized, and the heavy battleships built at Brest and Lorient, the smaller craft being built and kept up at Rochefort and Cherbourg, Toulon forming the repairing yard for the maintenance of the Mediterranean squadron. Bizerta might be set apart also for the latter squadron. . . . French naval artillery does not appear to be inferior to British. In the case of the 12-inch calibre the muzzle velocity of French guns has always been higher than that of the British guns. But the French guns, on the other hand, are less satisfactory in the matter of rapid firing, this being due mainly to defective installations on board French ships; and these defective installations are a consequence of red-tapeism, which entrusts several departments with the organization of work in which unity of views and co-ordination of efforts should form an indispensable factor. . . .The conditions for the testing of projectiles have been rendered more stringent. New systems of priming are being devised. For firing in times of peace, and for sake of economy, cast-iron projectiles are maintained in use. For use in war-time steel projectiles will be resorted to exclusively. It has been decided, at last, to unify these projectiles and to replace the armor-piercing and semi-armor piercing by one single type,- much heavier than the former types,—which, besides having a higher perforating power, will carry a greater explosive charge. A projectile with a high capacity for explosives is also being designed for firing under the same conditions, as regards velocity and pressure, as the regulation projectiles."

When the old battleships bring such small return under the auctioneer's hammer it is certainly surprising — in view of the success attending the gun-fire attack upon the Hero that more of these obsolete craft are not devoted to various kinds of experiment by the Admiralties of the world. When such ships are sold to junk dealers to be broken into scrap-steel, only a modicum of money is received. But, when governments are wise enough and strong enough to order old ships to destruction on the altar of naval science, the results obtained must always more than remunerate the nation for the loss of the vessel.

There are hundreds of things that we do not yet know about the effect of modern gun-fire. In spite of the complete revolution in naval ordnance and the extremely valuable lessons learnt in battle target practice such as now obtains in the American and British navies, there are numerous unknown elements that can be determined only by actual experiment, under service conditions as nearly as possible identical with those obtaining in a naval war. There are many studies to be made of the effect of modern gun-fire upon both materiel and personnel,- the efficacy of fire-control apparatus above the protective deck of a modern Dreadnought, the relation of electrical fittings within and without turrets to the explosions of an enemy's shells, and many of these lessons can be studied properly only under simulated war conditions. The real test of these things is their subjection to gun-fire.

The British Admiralty selected the obsolete secondclass battleship Hero as a target for experimental firing exercises by the modern first-class battleships Hibernia and Dominion of the Channel Fleet. The Admiralty wanted information concerning the effect of high explosive lyddite shells upon the delicate electrical instruments connected with the fire-control equipment of an up-to-date battleship. For this purpose a complete installation of electrical fire-control instruments of the standard Admiralty type was made on board the Hero; in addition, there were loud-sounding telephones such as are used in all British ships, and "dummy" men of wood were placed aboard the ship at all positions where, in actual combat,

officers and men would be stationed. While it was the intention of the Admiralty to keep the results of the firing strictly confidential, enough has been learned to demonstrate that the test was a complete success, so far as the development of valuable results is concerned.

The bombardment of the Hero was not ordered so much to ascertain the effect of modern gun-fire on armor as upon highly developed fire-control systems, yet, incidentally, it was ascertained that the armor of two decades ago gave a good account of itself, although not designed for such terrific hammering as that delivered in the lyddite blows from the big guns of the Hibernia class.

THE TARGET

Built in 1888, the Hero carried fairly modern compound armor, comprising 12-inch plates on her waterline, 12 inches on the turret containing the main armament of two 12-inch guns, and 111⁄2 inches on the bulkhead. The armor belt tapered from a maximum of 12 inches at the water-line to 81⁄2 inches, and extended to within six fathoms of the stern. The turret of the Hero at the level of the forecastle deck was placed at the low elevation of not more than ten feet above sea level, and from about midships to the stern the freeboard was raised by the height of one deck, increasing the maximum freeboard to about sixteen feet at this end of the ship. She had a single smokestack, in front of which, below the bridge, was a conning tower, and astern of the stack was the one mast carried by the ship. A dummy fire-control platform was rigged up at the proper height upon the mast, and the hull of the ship was painted off with white lines into separate sections, all duly numbered and lettered, in designation of the modern instruments and appliances of a vital character to be found behind them.

WHEN THE CHANNEL FLEET PASSED

The firing experiments with the Hero were conducted. at the Kentish Knock, off the Kentish Coast, in the vicinity of Sheerness, on Friday and Saturday, November 28 and 29. Admiral Sir G. H. U. Noel, Commander-inChief of the Nore, went from Chatham in the special

service vessel Undine to witness them. The cruiser Topaze and the despatch vessel Surprise took a number of officers from Sheerness to view the firing, including Rear Admiral F. T. Hamilton, Inspector of Target Practice; Captain R. H. S. Bacon, D.S.O., Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes; the officers commanding gunnery establishments at home ports, and members of the Ordnance Committee. Lord Charles Beresford was present, with ships of the Channel Fleet. The Hero was moored in an east and west direction, so that she presented her full broadside to the attacking ships. The battleship squadron steamed past the ship very slowly, closing up to 6000 and 8000 yards for the bombardment.

The King Edward VII, serving as the flagship of Lord Charles Beresford, led, followed by the rest of the ships in pairs. These were the Hibernia, flagship of Vice Admiral Sir R. Custance; the Illustrious, flagship of Rear Admiral Foley; the Dominion, Ocean, Jupiter, and Vengeance, all of the Channel Fleet. The firing ships were the Hibernia and the Dominion, two of the finest ships in the British Navy, both belonging to the King Edward VII class. The Dominion was launched in 1903; the Hibernia in 1905. Their displacement is 16,500 tons each, making them the heaviest class afloat in the Britiish Navy, next to the 17,900-ton Dreadnought. Each of the two firing ships is armed with four 12-inch, four 9.2-inch, and ten 6-inch guns, which were used in the tests. They did their work so well that the Hero is practically a wreck, with her mast and funnel shot away. At the conclusion of the firing, Lord Charles Beresford signalled to the Dominion and Hibernia that their brilliant shooting reflected great credit upon all concerned in the experiments.

EFFECT OF GUN-FIRE UPON FIRE-CONTROL

While the Admiralty's deductions are to be withheld from publication, any one in England may, with a boat, roam all about the helpless hulk of the Hero near Kentish Knock. The effects of the gun-fire upon the exterior of the ship are plainly apparent, and good photographs of the Hero have been shown in nearly all of the London illustrated papers. The wrecked interior of the Hero cannot be seen by outsiders; but the effect of the gunfire of the Dominion and Hibernia upon every part of the British fire-control system, above the protective deck, is understood to have been disastrous. A 6-inch shell burst in the improvised fire-control top on the mast and carried away the range-finding station, in the very beginning of

this simulative combat. The quickness with which this was done has been discussed a great deal in British gunnery circles, but too much emphasis seems to have been placed upon this feature of the test by the daily journals.

For instance, a special correspondent of the London Daily Mail and Express said, in connection with his description of the Hero experiment: "There was a hole through the funnel; but, most significant and important of all, a splinter of shell-not a direct hit-had gone through the mast, and, although this still stood, it had severed every control wire in it. Thus was the most urgent problem of the trials solved in the first two minutes. Would the modern system of fire-control withstand for long the attentions of a straight hitting enemy? Here was a ship fitted with the control apparatus, whose maintenance is absolutely essential during battle, and here were ships which hit their target once in every four rounds; and the whole fire-control system had been reduced to impotence in two minutes."

The most advanced gunnery men do not pretend to claim that the fire-control station in the mast is invulnerable. With any sort of good shooting maintained reasonably long enough, masts, stacks, and other super-deck attachments are bound to go early in an engagement. Neither the range-finding instruments in the mast-station, nor the wires and voice pipes within the mast, are regarded as permanent. Advanced ordnance students consider the mast-control appliances only as adjuncts to the real system of fire-control below the protective decks.

VALUE OF THE INITIAL ADVANTAGE

The value of the devices in the masts must be demonstrated within the opening moments of an engagement. With the Britannia making four hits a minute, the result might have been entirely different if the Hero had been returning the fire at the rate of eight hits a minute; and, if the former ship recorded three misses to every hit, she might very easily have been placed hors de combat if antagonized by a vessel scoring from 50 to 75 per cent of hits in the very beginning of an engagement. The firecontrol station in the mast has this very end in view, and, if it can be accomplished the loss of the mast a little later is considered well compensated for.

The mission of the range-finders high in the air is to pick up the fighting range for the gunners and to do it quickly. The golden rule of modern gunnery is to hit your enemy first, hit him hard, and hit him as often as