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Show Uncle Sam Mav Surprise 'fern 'M-M'fe . , !' v irfeS ,wir At that institution the ship is commonly known SH as the Schofield, because Commander Frank H. ffMSS' . j SSSr i.?-"'1-' Schofleld was the first to suggest the type. In s$ftttAr)HS B&rafifeM2 the strategic problems worked out on the game SMpra'' SMiS&BSSo:.. .a'sSlfftSlJP board the ship has led to some startling results. 3p Mg- fe&m Because armor is not necessary for turrets, I ' .'MmmJ' weight is not required for big guns, and as the At that institution the ship is commonly known as the Schofield, because Commander Frank H. Schofleld was the first to suggest the type. In the strategic problems worked out on the game board the ship has led to some startling results. Because armor Is not necessary for turrets, weight is not required for big guns, and as the craft lies low in the water it is possible to give her a very effective defense against subaqueous attack, and it is feasible to subdivide her below the water line into many compartments, the very number serving to localize damage. Accordingly the Schofield is assumed to be proof against torpedo tor-pedo attack, while above water her protective deck and sturdy sides would stand off shots even from the largest guns because of the glancing blows that hostile projectiles would strike. Possibly the best evidence of what the Naval War college thinks about the Schofield can be gathered from Captain Sim's own statement. While admitting that he did not know what such n vessel would actually do in time of conflict, he plainly expressed his apprehension of his chances if attacked by a craft of that order: "If I were in command of a fleet arid one of those things came down on me I think I would turn the vessel over to the second in command and go down below." be-low." It is not commonly understood by the layman that there are times when the torpedo even at long ranges stands a better chance of hitting than the big gun. The big gun may be seriously handicapped handi-capped or impaired in its efficiency by reason of the weather. The torpedo, on the other hand, dives below the1 surface of the angriest sea and holds its depth despite tumbling waves as it speeds on toward its target. It Is for this reason that the Schofield is armed almost exclusively with torpedoes. , Any guns that might be placed on deck would be only rapid flrers intended to stand off destroyers or to deal with armed merchantmen or commerce raiders. Success in a naval action depends very much upon gaining the advantage of position so far as wind and light are concerned. In moderate weather, with a moderate breeze blowing, a commander com-mander wants to have the wind in his face. That Is to say, the wind should blow from the direction of the enemy, because then the smoke and gas from his own guns blow back and away and leave the commander with an unimpaired view of his foe, while the enemy's discharge hangs for a while on his lee and interferes with his vision and the speedy working of his ordnance effectively. ft is not an easy thing to gain the position of advantage, and half the success in doing this hinges upon invisibility. A vessel like the Schofield, Scho-field, lying low in the water and capable of making mak-ing 35 knots an hour, would have the whip hand in this particular, because she could slip along at full speed unobserved, whereas a ship rising higher above the surface would be sure to betray herself against the horizon. The part that the weather plays in battle tactics tac-tics is thus described by one of the navy's eminent emi-nent officers : "If you have been fortunate enough to get into position with' the wind in ypur face and the foe to windward and it comes on to blow and kicks up a sea sufficient to splash water up over the sides of your ship when you are steaming steam-ing 20 knots, then there Is another difficulty. The spray will interfere very seriously with your firing because It keeps your telescopes wet. Instead of looking through a clear telescope the situation is not unlike looking through the water when you are In 6wimmlng. Your vision is obscured. Water also may get into your turrets tur-rets and into your fire control connections and possibly may put you at more or less of a disadvantage. disad-vantage. "Remember this, fleets fight nowadays at very long ranges, and If you sight an enemy that Is bearing east from you and the conditions of wind and weather are such that you would like to have him bearing west, it would take you all that day to get him there if he does not want to do so, because be-cause if you try to steam around him he simply keeps you bearing abeam, while turning in an enormous circle, and after you have turned around about half way, he will turn and go the other way. "In the olden days when they fought at short range it was possible by certain maneuvering to get the advantage of position with reference to the wind and sea, etc. It is nowhere near so easy to do It now. In fact, it Is practically Impossible, despite superiority in speed, within reasonable limits." Because of her' unusual features a ship patterned pat-terned after the idea of the Schofield would not have to bother so much ahout advantage of position. posi-tion. Even while nearly buried under stormy seas it would be practicable for her commander to bring his broadside of torpoaoes to bear, and every one of ihose wpapons would be a good deal more formidable thun the biggest of armor-pler--ing projectiles. could do when one of theo comes down in its midst," he says?' f;y - 'There would be nothing to hurt if you did happen hap-pen to hit her, and she could fire all the torpedoes torpe-does she wants to at you. One of our young officers offi-cers recommended a vessel of that type. Natural conservatism on the part of the older men who control the upper end of all services and it is the natural conservatism of large bodies that control con-trol our government stands in the way of just such a proposition; those men do not quite like the radical idea. But just the same one of those novel craft will pop up one of these days; and for all we know it will come out of Wilhelmshaven before this war is over." It is a well-known fact that the destroyer has proved the submarine's worst enemy, and for two reasons : First, because of its speed, combined with effective gun power ; and, second, owing to the difficulties of retaliation through torpedo attack, the submarine's only sufficient answer to the destroyer's rapid firers. More often than otherwise oth-erwise the underwater boats principal weapon has sped harmlessly under the destroyer without scoring, scor-ing, simply because the destroyer draws far less Water than the submarine's intended quarry, the big vessel. ' The torpedo is ordinarily set to run deep enough to strike well below a Marge ship's armor belt, and therefore is apt to pass without hitting below the keel of a destroyer. It was this Idea that Captain Sims had in mind when he said that the novel battle craft was to be built so that "noth-Ing "noth-Ing could get under it." 1 There is another advantage, too, in this arrangement. arrange-ment. A ship so constructed would be able to operate in waters where ordinarily only light gunboats or destroyers could maneuver in safety. Accordingly it would be easy for a craft of this character either to hide where least expected or to run to cover when the odds offered by armored ships were too heavy against her. Great Britain has found is necessary to utilize monitors, especially modified for the work, in her offensive operations against the German positions on the coast of Belgium. Shallow draft and fairly heavy armaments have made these vessels reason-' ably effective. However, the monitors have not been able to destroy the German naval station at Zeebrugge and the kaiser's designers have no doubt long been busy devising a naval foil to the British attack. This probability in part is warrant for Captain Cap-tain Sims' assumption that something out of the ordinary was likely to issue from AVilhelmshaven before the end of the present struggle. It te takes the form suggested the ship will not be a formidable formid-able foe only for England's monitors, but it would certainly prove a very dangerous antagonist for well-nigh any of Great Britain's heavy fighting ships. As with so many things concerning our national defences no secret has been made here of this proposed order of war craft. Captain Sims has said : "It has been before our people for a long while. It has been discussed at the War college and papers pa-pers have been written on It." Foreigners have undoubtedly made themselves familiar with everything that has been given out about the ship and certainly the type would go a long way toward offsetting the disadvantage in numbers under which the German fleet labors. Moreover, there are economic reasons why a fighting ship of this peculiar type would commend itself especially to a people circumstanced as are the Germans now. As Captain Sims says : "I have always believed that a vessel could be designed in that way without with-out any necessity for a waste of side armor, because be-cause she would have nothing above her water line to protect; that is, substantially nothing. She would have, no turrets, which cost so much in weight, and she would have no big guns, which cost In the weight of the gun, ammunition, etc. "She would carry two towers, from either of which the ship could be controlled: One fo be used in case the other was knocked out. They would be of sufficient size to hold the people who maneuver the craft. Her smoke pipe would be armored so that It -could not be shot away so close to her deck as to do any particular damage. She could be armed with eight torpedo tubes on her side and she could carry a great many torpedoes tor-pedoes for each one of those tubes." At the Naval War college strategic experts have given this suggestion numerous theoretical tests. American ml?al experts believe they can build a sea fighter that wilt aston- J w-- IV- . tsh the Ifrorld; it is a semi-submerged semi-submerged torpedo cruiser 4 , 'r!'l'ZT' HAT is the next surprise that naval y K-' :'i J architects have in store for the fc VJr Is it possible to modify radically rZ w W existing types of battle craft? W J Has the naval strategist nny- J thing in mind that will be totally , unlike present warships something some-thing that will upset the prevailing order of battle tactics upon the sea? These questions ques-tions are asked by Robert G. Skerrett in the New York Sun, and he goes on to say that experts an-, swer yes to questions two and three. One of the foremost of American naval officers said not long ago:' "I believe we can build a ship here that will make the whole world sit up and take notice if we want to do so." This assertion was brought out by a debate on the subject of naval increase, when the genesis of the modern dreadnaught was discussed. An interesting light was thrown upon the origin and reason for being of that era-making type of heavy ship of the line. The disclosure illustrates how kindred forces may be at work in calling into being another and no less startling departure in naval architecture. According to the officer in question : "England has been criticized for inventing the dreadnaught type on the ground that if she had not done so she would have maintained a greater preponderance over every other navy in her pre-dreadnaught pre-dreadnaught types, and as the dreadnaught type is far more efficient she therefore had to start even with other nations again. The reply to that is that she did not invent the type, but it was absolutely forced upon her. "In the days when we were firing at each other at 2,000 or 3,000 yards a dreadnaught was not a logical thing at all, because at those ranges you could use an eight-inch gun with great effect or a six-inch gun. But as soon as Admiral Sir Percy Scott showed us how to train gun pointers with his new device it changed the situation materially. material-ly. His whole invention was a method of training train-ing gun pointers. "We applied it on our side and we talked to people on this side and to people on the other side of the Atlantic about it. I went over to England Eng-land and talked to the gun people there and we finally, tentatively going from one range to another, an-other, found out that we could hit a target at 8,000 or 9,000 yards, which were considered enormous ranges in those days. "You cannot hit .anything with a six-Inch gun at those distances. It was therefore perfectly illogical for them to build any more battleships except with all big guns. Accordingly, the all-big-gun ship had to be built. "We would have built the first one on this side if the authorities here had listened to us. England Eng-land did not Invent the all-big-gun ship. It was Admiral Sir Percy Scott who thought out how to shoot at long range, and the other fellows followed fol-lowed as a natural consequence. Big guns are the only ones that will do any particular damage at long range. "The present conflict has made It plain that In actual warfare the nation with initiative will have a great advantage, and Germany has undoubtedly kept her foes guessfng. No one knows what she Is likely to spring next upon her antagonists, but past performances h'.nt at certain possibilities." Capt. William S. Sims thus describes a thoroughly thor-oughly practicable, ncvel order of battle craft. Its theoretical advantages are so evident to the experts ex-perts that the likelihood of its appearing before long Is more than a possibility. "If you build a ship of 20.000 tons that has nothing but a protettive deck, and so Ant that nothing could get under It, that only has two towers, one forward and one aft, to control the ship, and no guns at nil, but armed with eight or ten torpedo tubes on a side, nnd capnMe of .nak-I .nak-I leg 35 knots, I would like to know what a Qeet |