FOREIGN NAVIES

GREAT BRITAIN

The keel of the Dreadnought Delhi, the fourth of the Iron Duke class, was laid during the first week of June, at the works of the Vickers at Barrow.

The Conqueror

The battleship Conqueror, fitted with Parsons turbines, four shafts, completed her trial runs and developed over 1,000 H.P. more than the contract required, which was 27,000. On her 8-hour trial, she averaged 28,400 s.h.p. and 22.1 knots. On her 30-hour continuous sea steaming trial, she developed an average of 19,000 s.h.p., making 286 revolutions per minute, and a speed of 19.5 knots. Bilge Keels

The report that the new English battleship Iron Duke is to be fitted with bilge keels to prevent her from rolling is believed in this country to be somewhat premature, inasmuch as she is one of last year's ships, and will not be launched until about October.

The relative value of bilge keels and rolling tanks, however, is under discussion by British naval constructors, and their decision is being looked for with interest by foreigners. It is expected that the Admiralty may select some of this year's type of ships upon which to place rolling tanks. The Orion, which was fitted with 6-foot bilge keels, is found to be still rolling badly, which will necessitate extension of the keels longitudinally.

GERMANY

The battleship Oldenberg made 22.2 knots on her recent trials.

It is reported that the new cruiser Goeben, fitted with Parsons turbines, has made 301⁄2 knots on her trials. If the report prove correct, the performance will have been most remarkable.

Naval Program

On account of the recent modification of the naval program, the following will be the laying of keels for the capital ships from 1912 to 1917:

1912, one battleship and one battle cruiser; 1913, two battleships and one battle cruiser;

1914, one battleship and one battle cruiser; 1915, one battleship and one battle criuser; 1916, two battleships and one battle cruiser; 1917, one battleship and one battle cruiser.

JAPAN

The Kongo, recently launched at Barrow, is one of four battle cruisers already laid down by Japan. The others are: the Hiyei, laid down November 4, 1911, at

BOSTON PHOTO NEWS CO.

LAUNCHING OF THE JAPANESE CRUISER KONGO

Yokosuka; the Haruna, laid down March 16, at Kobe; the Kirishima, laid down March 17, at Nagasaki. These ships have a length of 704 feet; beam, 92 feet; draught, 27.5 feet; displacement, 27.500 tons. They will be fitted with turbines, and have a speed of about 28 knots, and will carry eight 14-inch guns, all on the center line, four firing forward, four aft, and eight on a broadside.

LETTER FROM LONDON

Submarine Disasters

The discussion of the latest French submarine disaster brings into prominence the fact that the British navy holds the unenviable position of heading the list. Since 1904, we have had five disasters: A-1, in March, 1904, eleven lives lost; 4-5, in February, 1905, six lives lost; 4-8, in June, 1905, thirteen lives lost; C-11, in July, 1909, thirteen lives lost; 4-3, in February, 1912, fourteen lives lost, giving a total death roll of 59. France comes next, with three disasters costing 53 lives; then Russia, two disasters and 46 lives lost. Italy and Japan are generally credited with one disaster each, which cost, respectively, thirteen and six lives.

Several nations have never had any disasters, but, with one exception, their flotillas are so small that they may be considered outside the law of chances. The exception that creates comment is the United States Navy, which either (according to our view) has had a wonderful run of immunity, or else is singularly lax in practicing evolutions under war conditions. We incline to the former view, but Americans know better than we which is the correct one. The view of our submarine service is that efficiency and taking risks are closely allied. It is unpleasant to write that we are expecting "America's turn," but that is just how things are.

In the days of the war with Russia, when submarines were, comparatively speaking, new things, the Japanese bought many which never seemed to have done anything. Report has it that all those shared the same fate which befell Confederate "Davids" in the Civil War. There is no evidence how many Japanese died, seeking to serve their country under the water; but rumor has it that at least five boats, intended to operate against the Baltic Fleet, drowned themselves and their crews and were not brought to the surface till after Tsushima had rendered them superfluous.

The Mediterranean

As I write, the air is full of rumors about an arrangement with France, whereby the French Fleet will safeguard British interests in the Inland Sea. Mahan (or an imitator) once stated, in effect, that the Trafalgar of the future would be settled in the Mediterranean, or that

"Waterloo was won there." Anyway, for many a year Britain's position in the Mediterranean has been regarded as a fetish, although it is now many years since Admiral Fisher recorded his opinion that it was "d-d rot.”

Thinking this and saying that torpedo craft had made the Mediterranean impossible for battleships, nearly cost Admiral Fisher his then post of Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. Even to-day, popular opinion is demanding that the Mediterranean must be held by battleships at all cost or the British Empire will go under. This may be correct. But there does exist a body of naval opinion which holds that Admiral Fisher was right, and that analogies about what Nelson did well over a hundred years ago do not prove anything about what is the proper course for to-day.

The contrary argument is that a British Mediterranean Fleet, superior to any possible combination, is a guarantee for peace, should Italy and Austria decide to pull chestnuts out of the fire for Germany.

There, at present, the matter rests. The government is said to lean to the idea of getting France to look after our Mediterranean interests. This is just the one thing that many interested in the subject are convinced is utterly wrong. Few persons outside the government and its perfervid supporters give such a policy a second thought.

Germany in South America

It is gospel here to assume that the German navy can have no possible objective except England. Suggest the possibility of a Greater Germany in South America, and you are at once laughed down. It is useless to point out that a footing in Brazil would bring Germany ten times what any defeat of England could produce. It is equally useless to draw attention to the huge coal supply of all new German ships, to the great auxiliary fleet colliers quietly provided, to the vast coal stores accumulated at German bases. So much is this the case, that, if I had not seen a hint at the possibility in THE NAVY, I should not have ventured to mention that there are thinkers over here who believe a place in South America to be Germany's real objective.

We cannot view the matter through American spectacles. We have no direct interest in the Monroe Doctrine. We have, of course, a dim notion that even apart from

other matters- American sentiment would be all against a foreign European flag in South America. But we can calculate the probabilities of the two fleets fighting it out more or less both equidistant from their main bases.

The problem is mainly an American one, and so rather outside my province. It therefore behooves me to say no more than that those Americans who protest against neglect of the United States fleet, however much without honor they may be in their own country, can easily find many in Europe who by no means consider them "scaremongers." A large section of European opinion thinks that the United States Navy League has hit the right nail on the head.

Naval Aircraft

The fact that we now possess at least one machine capable of rising from water is accepted by the public as conclusive proof that Britannia rules the waves from the air, as well as from the sea. Commencing with a lecture at the United Service Institution by Lieut. F. I. M. Boothby, R. N., who mothered the first naval airship, and was the principal actor in the smash-up of the last essentially British aeroplane, a really strong body of naval opinion is now demanding that attention shall be paid to the fact that whereas German aeroplanes depend on their mother-ship getting them near enough, German dirigibles of the Zeppelin type can rise from the Fatherland and drop bombs on most of our dockyards, without bothering about intermediate naval assistance.

It is argued that, if these dirigibles carry guns, aeroplanes attacking them are likely to be disabled at once, and that the dirigible's ability to remain stationary when dropping bombs and the large bomb-carrying capacity of mastodon-dirigibles, may mean a great deal. The

argument runs that a battleship (restricted to two dimensions) can certainly destroy a torpedo boat in daylight and probably evade her at night. The assumption therefrom is that a dirigible, moving in three dimensions, is at least one-third better off, even in a cloudless sky - and cloudless skies are not very frequent. Hence the argument that, even assuming the aeroplane able to destroy the dirigible, the odds are all that it will never secure the chance to do so. The big Zeppelins that Germany is now building can rise from German soil, drop bombs on Portsmouth, and get back again on their proved radii. People with aeroplanes to sell have spent much time in proving that if the wind didn't suit, the dirigible might have to do this, that, or the other thing after the event; but they have never figured out that any Power would calculate that eleven destroyers were well lost if the twelfth sunk a battleship. It would certainly pay Germany to sacrifice fifty destroyers to ensure the destruction of say Portsmouth. And a dirigible, no matter how big, costs only about the same as one destroyer. Fred T. Janc.

LETTER FROM PARIS

THE LOSS OF THE SUBMARINE VENDÉMIAIRE

The loss of another submarine, under circumstances similar to that of the Pluviose, has cast a gloom over the French navy.

On the 8th of June, the l'endémiaire (400 tons, of the Pluviose class) attacked, along with the other units of

the Cherbourg flotilla, the third squadron, which was making for the harbor. The surprise took place in thick weather, in the narrow passes of the raz Blanchard, near Cherbourg, where the currents, varying in intensity and direction, have a strength of seven to eight knots at the time of flood tides.

In accordance with usual practice, the l'endémiare first navigated under water, intending to come up to the surface when within about 300 or 400 metres of the line of the battleships under way, in order to fire her torpedoes from a favorable distance. But the current carried the craft away from its course and it came up at a point less than 100 meters from the ram of the battleship St. Louis, flying the admiral's flag. The latter, perceiving a periscope, backed her engines at full speed, but in less than twenty seconds (the squadron was steaming at ten knots) she was on top of the l'endémiaire. There was noticed a commotion on the sea, like water in ebullition, and patches of oil spreading on the surface, but no other sign of the awful tragedy. The submarine, cut in two, had sunk in fifty meters of water. The St. Louis at once marked the place of the collision with a buoy; but soundings made in the vicinity failed to reveal a trace of the

submarine; and all hope of saving the wreck was abandoned.

This is the fourth French submarine which has been lost with all on board. The Farfadet was lost in 1905, and the Lutin in 1906, both at Bizerta; the Pluviose, in 1910; and the l'endémiaire, 1912. It is worthy of notice that those four disasters correspond to about 40,000 plunges, made in a little over twenty years.

The early accidents were due to defective material, but we are now dealing with disasters in navigation, which bear no comparison with the powder explosions.

The submarine, like the aeroplane, presents some risks, and those risks notably increase in attacks against vessels under way, especially when the operations take place in narrow channels or waters difficult to navigate.

Exercises in attacks under those conditons always present serious dangers in case of submarines of 400 tons. Those dangers are likely to increase with submersibles of 800 tons and 75 meters in length. Unfortunately, we must add that, in the present situation, no means of rescue, however perfected, can be of the least use to the personnel, when the submarine is wrecked in a collision, as was the case of the Pluviose and Vendémiaire.