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Show I " x E?j Dsttlsshli'Apsir to Ei t)cc:J. Students of the science of war may well find food for thought in the destruction of the great Russian battleship Petropavlorsk. . Such a striking evidence of the inherent weakness and insufficiency of the monster battleship, built as it was with expenditure ex-penditure of millions and the exercise of the greatest great-est skill, raises at least the question as to whether or not warfare on the sea will not soon be radically' changed. It is not so many years ago that sea fighting was largely a test of personal prowess. In many actions the bringing of opposing vessels alongside and the boarding of warships in a desperate hand-to-hand encounter was the acme of heroism and glory. But the battleships of today, equipped -with wonderful long-range guns nd weighted down with heavy armor, ar-mor, .seem to be easier victims of destruction than the- lighter ships pf a century ago. .! All of which goes to show that the-means of destruction de-struction have kept ahead of the expedients of. protection. pro-tection. No armor has been invented hat will with' stand the projectile of the modern gun,' and the biggest big-gest and best battleship that ever floated is helpless. 1 against the torpedo or the hidden mine, . It is one thing to die fighting, with the frenzy j and fury of combat crowding lout all other thoughts, i It is 'quite another experience to' go down to death' without an 'instant's warning with a few hundred pounds of nitroglycerin so hidden that human ingenuity inge-nuity has not yet. been able to provide any safeguard safe-guard against it. . i , Nations, even the richest, cannot afford to spend millions in the building of battleships and then have them destroyed by means that cost only a few thousand. The next few1 years may bring great changes. .. , " " . . |