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780 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
MEETING THE SUB
(Continued ft
our first armed merchantmen, was sunk
off a French port. It was in command
of a picked officer from the United
States Navy and it had a gun crew of
picked men from the Atlantic Fleet. Yet
it never had a chance. It was hit by a
torpedo before it knew that a submarine
was in the vicinity.
Consider what a steamer mounting
three-, five- or six-inch guns to protect
itself has to shoot at in a periscope.
Have you ever seen a periscope at, say,
800 yards? It looks like a bottle. If you
hit it with a shell, you are lucky. To the
man in the submerged submarine the
image of your ship reflected down by the
periscope is a good target; and remember
a submarine can discharge a torpedo
without showing its hull above water; it
has only to push its periscope above
water. And remember that the range of
a modern torpedo is forty-five hundred
yards; that it goes through water at express
speed; that even if a steamer's
lookout sees its white wake, it is impossible
for the steamer to dodge.
All this would indicate that an armed
merchantman has small chance against
submarine attack unless the submarine
comes up and shows its hull, presenting
a target, and opens a regular naval engagement.
By that I mean that when
the submarine rises, a six-inch gun on a
disappearing platform comes up too.
Then begins a fight between the gun on
the submarine and the guns on the
armed merchantmen. In such a fight,
the merchantman has the advantage because
its gun platform is more level; the
men can aim better. But a submarine
isn't going to open gun fire on an armed
merchantman, and thus expose itself,
unless it has used up all its torpedoes.
Thus, by technical fact and procedure of
submarine warfare, an armed freight
steamer has little chance with a subtna- ,
rine.
What, then, are we to do? How are
the steamers of the United States and
the Allies to bring supplies to Europe?
MARINE PROBLEM
m page 100)
Obviously the steamers must be convoyed
and the United States Navy is not
going to convoy merchant steamers with
dreadnaughts for the reason that the
dreadnaughts wouldn't have any more
chance of dodging a torpedo than a
steamer would. Remember that one of
the functions of torpedo-boat destroyers
is to protect dreadnaughts from submarine
attack. In Europe, each dreadnaught
is allowed four destroyers. In other
words, dreadnaughts have to be convoyed
to be protected against torpedo
attack.
The proper convoy for merchant
steamers is the submarine chaser. The
principle is the same as outlined. Just as
the destroyer protects the dreadnaughts
from submarines, so do submarine
chasers protect merchant ships from submarines.
The chaser was evolved by this
war. It is a boat about one hundred
feet long and is fast and agile enough to
dodge torpedoes. It carries light guns
that can sink a submarine—a five pound
shell will do it. These chasers will be
used to convoy merchant steamers in
fleets to Europe. We will not use our
naval destroyers for this work, for the
very excellent reason that we haven't
enough destroyers in our navy to protect
properly even our dreadnaughts from
submarine attack. But the chasers can
be turned out quickly: they are now
being built by the thousands. They are
being obtained also from the thousands
of pleasure craft owners of this country..
Seaworthy motorboats are being transformed
into submarine chasers.
On May twelfth, as this article was
being written, a cryptic announcement
appeared in the papers which stated, in
effect, that a newly invented means for
destroying U-boats was in the hands of
the British Admiralty and the United
States Navy Office. What this new and
terrible means may be we cannot surmise,
but some basis of fact must exist
else the public would not be given this
new straw of hope.