Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1915 — PUZZLED OVER NAVY [ARTICLE]

PUZZLED OVER NAVY

War Lessons Leave Uncertainty as to What to Do. American Btudents of Naval Affairs Will Have Much to Learn From European War—May Change Whole Bystem. By EDWARD B. CLARK. (Staff Correspondent Western Newspaper - Union.) Washington.—Congress was at sea for some time to know what it should do for the navy. It is still at sea as to whether or not what it is doing and has done are the right things to do. Here is the trouble: The navy department made its recommendations for battleships and smaller craft prior to the time that any naval lessons had been learned as the result of sea fights between nations now at war. The naval committee of the house of representatives amplified the building pro-, gram of the navy department, adding thereto several ships of war of various kinds. Now it is admitted that the sea lessons of the present war may tend to prove that the kind of ships which are to be authorized will not meet the requirements of the lessons learned from. the fighting now going on. * In the navy department today every detail of recurring sea engagements is being studied closely. The battle between the British ships Lion, Tiger, New Zealand and others, and the German ships Bluecher, Moltfte, Derfflinger and the others seems to have shown, so American naval officers say, the superiority of fast ships of the battle cruiser class with a certain number of big guns, over smaller ships with a much larger number of guns of slightly smaller caliber. The information concerning the battled between English and German vessels in the South Pacific, South Atlantic and Ih the North sea is- not as full as it might be, but the service men are able to read between the lines and they get a lot of material out of meager reports in which laymen might

not be able to find anything, even if they applied a microscope. The result of this study pf fighting as it occurs will show later when the estimates are made for another naval appropriation MIL . Some senators and representatives seem to think that it would have been far wiser thiß year not to have appropriated any money to build American men of war, except for a few of the smaller type whose worth for certain duties is well known. There seems to be a belief tijat the great fighting ship of the future will be not a dreadnaught, but the fast battle cruiser with heavy long range guns. —; The war is still going on and as in all human probability there will be more sea fights before it is over there will be plenty of lessons yet to be learned by the American students of naval affairs. Navy men say it is possible when the European war ends that there will be a complete change of ship building procedure on the part of all the nations of the world.