Submarine warfare

“ In the present state of the science of submarine warfare it is certainly impossible to fight submarines with submarines, and it is recognised that the best chance of destroying an under-water vessel is when it comes to the surface to take a momentary glance at the position of its victim before launching its torpedo. ”

“ The German submarine forces have had, in fact, orders to conduct the submarine warfare in accordance with the general principles of visit and search and the destruction of merchant vessels recognized by international law, the sole exception being the conduct of warfare against enemy trade carried on enemy freight ships encountered in the war zone surrounding Great Britain. ”

“ I asked her to consider what would have been the loss of life if the battleships, cruisers, gunboats, destroyers, etc., had met on the high seas and fought as they were intended to fight. A submarine carries a crew of but a few men, while a battleship may carry a thousand, consequently thousands of men would have been killed in the old-time methods of fighting, compared with the few that have been killed in the submarine warfare. ”

“ That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. ”

“ The idea of sending a fleet of submarines out on to the high seas was a new one, and had been impossible in the last war in which they had been used—that between Russia and Japan. But the improvements which had been made in their design and equipment since then had made an actual cruising submarine possible, and made possible the new phase of naval warfare inaugurated by the German admiralty. ”

“ The submarine renders 1, 2 and 3 impossible, as no man of war will dare to come even within sight of a coast that is adequately protected by submarines. The fourth function of a battleship is to attack an enemy's fleet, but there will be no fleet to attack, as it will not be safe for a fleet to put to sea. Submarines and aeroplanes have entirely revolutionized naval warfare; no fleet can hide itself from the aeroplane's eye, and the submarine can deliver a deadly attack in broad daylight. ”

“ I do claim, however, that the submarine is a perfectly legitimate naval weapon, and that it deserves a place in the [197] armament of any nation whose military power is maintained for purposes of self-defence.
Above all, I believe the submarine most fitted to act as a weapon in coast-defence operations. Coast-defence submarines will probably be found to be the most important adjunct to the navies of every country whose policy is to defend their own coast lines, rather than to attempt aggressive warfare. Vessels for this purpose do not need to be of great tonnage nor of high speed. ”

“ The events of the past two months have clearly indicated that it is possible and practicable to conduct such submarine operations as have characterized the activity of the Imperial German Navy within the so-called war zone in substantial accord with the accepted practices of regulated warfare. The whole world has looked with interest and increasing satisfaction at the demonstration of that possibility by German naval commanders. It is manifestly possible, therefore, to lift the whole practice of submarine attack above the criticism which it has aroused and remove the chief causes of offense. ”

“ The early experiences of our destroyers with submarines were of this kind; but the work of chasing U-boats under the water, escorting a small proportion of the many cargo ships, and picking up survivors, important as it was, did not really constitute effective anti-submarine warfare. It gave our men splendid training, it saved many a merchant ship, it rescued many victims from the extreme dangers of German ruthlessness, it sank a small number of submarines, but it could never have won the war. ”

“ A powerful torpedo might fracture the outer armoured skin and release the oil in that particular section, but having the thickest plating inside it was considered almost a matter of impossibility for the latter to be holed and thus admit the burning oil--a source of danger that had long been recognized--into the vitals of the ship.
Submarine warfare, in the opinion of many naval experts, had had its day. At the height of five hundred feet a scouting aeroplane could easily detect the presence of a submarine so long as it was daylight. ”

“ At the utmost, the submarine will be used in narrow waters, in rivers, or to fluster or destroy ships in harbour, or with poor-spirited crews—that is to say, it will simply be an added power in the hands of the nation that is predominant at sea. And even then, it can be merely destructive, while a sane and high-spirited fighter will always be dissatisfied if, with an undisputable superiority of force, he fails to take. ”

“ A submarine cannot aim at a ship without some object as a sight. So one submarine often acted as a "sight" for the submarine firing the torpedo. Submarines, which at first were unarmed, were later fitted with armour plate and cannon were mounted on deck. The biggest submarines now carry 6-inch guns.
Like all methods of ruthless warfare the submarine campaign can be and will be for a time successful. Germany's submarine warfare today is much more successful than the average person realises. By December, 1916, for instance, the submarines were sinking a half million tons of ships a month. ”

“ But the conduct of submarine warfare on the grand scale requires far more than flotillas of submergible warships and their daring crews. This new branch of naval science is ever widening in its scope, its means of offence, and in its attendant ramifications. Every important naval base has its curious submarine 10floating docks, ready for crippled members of its attached flotilla; every naval construction department has its corps of submarine experts ”

“ So far as we are aware the only nation that has seriously taken up the question of an antidote to submarines is Great Britain. At present the submarine boat, owing to its slow speed and narrow radius of action, is more suited for defence than attack, though as it is year by year improving it may soon become a valuable attacking weapon. ”

“ Besides having proved of great value in the land campaigns, the aircraft has shown itself to be one of the most effective devices of warfare for use against the submarine, and all manner of naval craft. From the heavens they can see the submarine under the water, and as either the dirigible or the aeroplane can develop a speed greater than that of any battleship or cruiser, it is not difficult for it to soar over the vessel and drop bombs upon it. Even gas bombs have been used in the raids by the aircraft. ”

“ A submarine like the U-38, which sank the Armenian, carrying one or more outside guns, capable of discharging various kinds of shell, from blank shots to shrapnel, represents an important evolution in the development of marine warfare. Such a craft has the equipment to enable her to visit and search a passing merchantman, and to provide for the safe removal of officers, crew or passengers from a challenged steamer, before the destruction of the vessel. It is only necessary for such a submarine to fire her torpedoes as a last resort for the destruction of the steamer. ”

“ You may of course throw out a torpedo or so with as much chance of hitting vitally as you would have if you were blindfolded, turned round three times and told to fire revolver-shots at a charging elephant.... Given a derelict ironclad on a still night within sight of land, a carefully handled submarine might succeed in groping its way to it and destroying it; but then it would be much better to attack such a vessel and capture it boldly with a few desperate men on a tug. ”

“ A French naval writer commenting on the sums expended by the French Government on the construction of submarines writes—
“The cruiser which can guard itself from the ordinary torpedo-boat will be without defence against the invisible enemy slowly creeping up to it to discharge its torpedo. It will be no longer possible for it to enter narrow waters and to approach the enemy’s coast. Its only safety will be in flight, and it will become a relic of the past. The naval battles of the future will take place not on the surface but in the depths of the ocean.” ”

“ The fanciful descriptions of the submarine battle of the future have one fatal defect. You cannot see under water. Hence you cannot fight under water. Hence you cannot defend yourself against an attack under water except by running away. If you cannot run away you are doomed. Wharves, shipping at anchor, the buildings in seaport towns, cannot run away, therefore the sending of a submarine against them means their inevitable destruction. ”

“ Huge warships, built at a cost of millions of dollars and tenanted by hundreds of hardy sailors, are torn and rent by shot and shell and at times sent to the bottom with all on board by the explosion of torpedoes beneath their unprotected lower hulls. The torpedo boat, the submarine, with other agencies of unseen destruction, have come into play to add enormously to the horrors of naval warfare, while the bomb-dropping airships, letting fall its dire missiles from the sky, has come to add to the dread terror and torment of the battle-field. ”

“ This simple fact that the submarine, even when the danger had been realized, insisted on rising to the surface and approaching the vessel which it had torpedoed, offered the Allies an opportunity which they were not slow in seizing. There is hardly anything in warfare which is more vulnerable than a submarine on the surface within a few hundred yards of a four-inch gun. A single, well-aimed shot will frequently send it to the bottom. ”

“ The essence of maritime war is, it has been well said, its suddenness, and a day gained in striking the first blow may make the difference between the fall of an empire and the annihilation of the enemy. To wait to consider to what use we can put submarine vessels and to postpone the question of discovering the most effective method of destroying the boats of the enemy until war breaks out is a suicidal policy, which, however, seemed for many years to appeal to a “Government of Amateurs.” ”

“ The men in the submarine cannot acquire 145familiarity with this in peace; not till war will it operate. Then, whenever they are rising, they will know that a destroyer may be within reach, and that, if so, absolute annihilation is certain, and annihilation in a particularly horrible form. ”

“ To say that if a submarine rises anywhere near a destroyer armed with a spar, her destruction is absolutely certain, is, we think, going too far. To blow up a stationary barrel is not a very difficult task, but it must not be forgotten that if the destroyer sights the submarine, the submarine will also sight the destroyer and will endeavour to launch a torpedo at the destroyer before the latter can explode its weapon. ”

“ It exists for the benefit of the traffic and the annoyance of the enemy. Its doings are recorded by flags stuck into charts; its casualties are buried in obscure corners of the newspapers. The Grand Fleet knows it slightly; the restless light cruisers who chaperon it from the background are more intimate; the destroyers working off unlighted coasts over unmarked shoals come, as you might say, in direct contact with it; the submarine alternately praises and—since one periscope is very like another—curses its activities ”

“ As soon, therefore, as the submarine had been developed to a point where it was clear that it was the coming weapon of modern naval warfare, inventors began to rack their brains for some scheme which would do away with the danger and uncertainty of the old-fashioned bomb, and to make the submarine safer for its crew and deadlier for the enemy. ”

“ The day may come when it will cause all the cruisers to disappear, but to-day the submarine is a weapon about whose efficiency one cannot be very certain, or at least whose use in warfare is limited to special circumstances. ”

“ When a means of distinguishing objects beneath the waves has been evolved then it will be time enough to discuss the possibility of constructing a submarine boat destroyer which shall itself go beneath the surface and seek out the submarine to deal it its deathblow.
Every advance in military and naval science that tends to strengthen the attack has been met by some invention or device calculated to enable the defence to withstand it. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the popularity of the submarine craft with ministers, writers, journalists, and populace is due very largely to the idea that these vessels will in warfare prove capable of meeting and defeating the battleships and cruisers which Great Britain will send against France when the “Real Thing” arrives. ”

“ It would naturally be supposed that a submarine carrying eight or more torpedoes is about as destructive an engine as human ingenuity could devise; but not so, for there are other munitions of warfare with which it is equipped that make it even deadlier. ”

“ They have made it appear that the submarine cannot play a humane and legitimate part in warfare. While I have firmly maintained, and still believe, that a submarine blockade is a legitimate use of this weapon in warfare, I do regret that many acts committed by the submarines of one of the belligerents in the present war have been little short of outright piracy. ”