Are Big Ships Needed ?

By ADMIRAL SIR HERBERT RICIIMOND, K.C.B.

CIF the various proposals which have been made kl recently at Geneva for effecting a reduction of naval armaments, three appear to occupy predominant positions : the abolition of capital ships, submarines and aircraft ; the transfer of capital ships and submarines to the League, in permanent lien ; and the abolition of those weapons whose character (to use the formula adopted by the President of the Naval Commission, M. Colban, at the meeting on April 26th) " is the most specifically offensive, or those most efficacious against national defence or most threatening to civilians "—the underlining is the President's.

There appears, however, to be yet another avenue of approach, as yet unexphired„ an avenue which, to my mind, is not only more promising but is also based upon sounder principles ; which is to abandon this subjective treatment of the problem and adopt the objective, by determining the smallest size which a man of war—. not a " battleship " or " cruiser," but a fighting ship— can be in order to attain the object for which she is brought into existence. What is that object ? It is to provide security against those injuries by the infliction of which the instruments of sea power impose, or assist to impose, compliance upon another nation.

Within the lifetime of many of us, no more, in fact, than fifty years ago, it was not considered necessary that even the largest men of war should be greater than 10,000 tons ; and that figure itself was arbitrary and was based upon purely technical considerations as distinguished from considerations of a strategical or tactical order. The fighting- ship- of that size was believed to be large enough to conduct those operations by means of which- effective opposition could be made to the two measures by which the country—this or any othermight be forced to submitto the demands of an opponent. Those measures arc the occupation of its territory by an invading force- and the interruption of its essential external supplies.

If, fifty years ago, ships of 10,000 and less (for many were of 8,000 and 9,000 tons) were competent to prevent. what Raleigh in his day called these " afflictions," what has happened in the interval to cause those successive' increases which have raised the size from those moderate dimensions to those of to-day, three or four times as great ? The introduction of the submarine and of aircraft were not the causes, for the increases were taking place, and vast dimensions had already been reached, before those weapons had come into use or had even been foreseen. Nor since they came into existence can it be they which compel this increase; 'for the War demonstrated clearly that the vessels which feared the submarines least were the smallest. Decrease in size, not increase, afforded security. The great ships were protected by the small. The small vessel mastered the subMarine at little cost— eight 'British destroyers only were sunk by sulanMrines in the four years of war. •-

These small craft are not, however, able to perform all the duties of a fighting ship. They do not possess the endurance which the defence of shipping on long sea passages demands. . For that a greater size is needed. How great ? Before the War, ships of under 6,000 tons' were deemed sufficiently large ; and during the War they proved So.'

In view of these undoubted facts, and of the further fact that developments in the manufacture of steel and improvements in Machinery have taken place which make a ton of steel or of fnel do far more " work " than

it could fifty years ago, sonic reasoned justification for the large ships of to-day is needed. There is no difference in the object to be fulfilled. They are, as they then were, as they were 300 years ago, and as they were seventeen years ago when each year's programme saw the ships larger than those of the previous year, the defence against invasion and the defence of trade.

The problem has been sadly confused by the use of the terms " battleship " and " capital ship," in senses wholly different from those in which they originated. The word battleship is merely a corruption of an old term " ship fit to lie in the line of battle " ; hence " ship of the line of battle," and hence battleship." It never was supposed that battles could only be fought by ships of a particular class, called " battleships." All that it meant was that the ships must he large enough to meet the largest ships of which an enemy composed his fleets. The size was not intrinsically absolute. It was relative to the size- of the opponent's ships. The word " capital ship " has similarly been compiled to mean one of a particular great tonnage ; whereas the word " capital " had no other meaning in the past than that in which it was commonly employed to denote " principal." So we read of capital East India ships, capital frigates, capital cities and capital statesmen.' In truth a capital ship was never one of a particular size, but merely the largest.

Thus it is hot the capital ship which can be abolished, but the ship above the minimum necessary size. . In a. fleet of destroyers, the destroyers would he the "ships of the line of battle," and the flotilla leaders the capital ships.

If the line of investigation pursued should be the objective one of (liseovering how small a ship cart achieve the object. of her existence there can he no doubt that the size would be found to be appreciably less than 10,000 tons : and as the German delegation appears to have offered to get rid of the ' Deutschland,' there would be no need to limit the process of reduction to that 'Versailles figure.

The effect on the Italian proposal to " abolish capital ships " would merely be to abolish those ships above that tonnage. A new class of capital ship would come into existence, namely; the most heavily-armed vessel of that size, which is merely the condition of things some years ago when the " battleships " and cruisers were of that, or a smaller size.* The proposal to. abolish aircraft carriers would be met by the restriction of the aircraft carrier to the determined size.: a size which, while it would suffice for the reconnaissance duties to which some attach a high importance, would not be sufficient for doing injury to civil populations—one of the reasons assigned for its abolition as an " offensive " instrument.

In the case of the French proposal to transfer capital ships to the League, the ships transferred would be the " Capital " ships of 10,000 tons or less.

So far as submarines are concerned, this would not stand in the way of their abolition. On the contrary, it would remove, to a great extent, that objection to their abolition that they afford security to those nations which cannot afford the great ships of to-day. But the question of submarines is one of very considerable ramifications, and is not one thus lightly to be disposed of. There is a common impression that if they were

* E. g.: In 1888 the Imporieuso ' of 8,400 tons was a cruiser, the Edinburgh' of 9,180 and the 'Hero' of 8,0001 were battleships.

abolished a great reduction would become possible in the destroyer forces, in oblivion of- the fact that the destroyer was originally brought into existence to combat the torpedo boat because the torpedo boat constituted a threat to trade. When all the nations proceeded to furnish themselves with torpedo boats which went under water, they simultaneously provided themselves with the necessary defence, in the form of the destroyer.

Thus there has been revived the very vessel, though in a more powerful form, which brought the destroyer herself* into existence, and destroyer forces have become necessary to defend the communications against their own kind. That is, however, a separate element in the probIe,. unaffected by the result of reduction in the size-of the fighting ships to the moderate dimensions which, on objective basis, is practicable.