Submarines to Foil Submarines 



The Germans showed us how to meet the submarine menace 

 and we haven't learned the lesson they taught us yet! 



By Simon Lake, M. I. N. A. 



(Mr. Simon Lake, the author of this article, ranks with John P. Holland as a 

 pioneer in the development of the submarine. His reputation as an inventor and 

 builder of submarines and his vast experience as an advisor on submarine questions to 

 the United States Government as well as to the leading European powers entitles the 

 following suggestions of his to very serious consideration. — Editor.) 



DURING the months of September 

 and October, the German sub- 

 marines sank only twenty vessels a 

 week, according to the dispatches. Only 

 twenty ships per week! How many 

 realize that this is the equivalent of 2,808,- 

 000 tons in a year, assuming that the 

 average vessel is about 2,700 registered 

 tons? We actually congratulate our- 

 selves that only about three million tons a 

 year are sent to the bottom by a method 

 of warfare against which the world is 

 at present powerless. 



Despite the five thousand submarine 

 hunting and destroying vessels which 

 Great Britain is reputed to have in the 

 waters of the North Sea and the north 

 Atlantic, despite the nets strung across 

 narrow straits, despite the arming of 

 merchant ships with powerful naval guns, 

 despite convoying torpedo boat destroy- 

 ers, despite all the experience gained in 

 two and a half years of submarine war- 

 fare, the neutral and belligerent seafaring 

 powers of the world are helpless to pro- 

 tect their shipping. The best inventive 

 brains of two hemispheres have been 

 racked in the effort to sweep the German 

 menace from the high seas. And what is 

 the result. Only twenty ships a week 

 have been sunk on an average in the 

 months of September and October! 



It is obvious that this cannot go on if 

 the United States and her allies are to win 

 the war. We have decided that we must 

 build ships, more ships and still more 

 ships huild them faster than they can be 

 destroyed by submarines. To me, the 

 process is like shoveling coal into a fiery 

 furnace in the vain hope that in some 

 Providential way the fire will be choked. 

 The public and some of our officials lose 



sight of the fact that the German fleet of 

 submarines must be increasing by leaps 

 and bounds, probably at the rate of about 

 one hundred and fifty vessels a year. If 

 the sinkings are fewer in number than 

 they were, this is due to the fact that to- 

 day merchant ships, like hunted beasts, 

 take devious courses. 



It is not likely that the lost ships will 

 diminish in number; artful dodging on 

 the high seas has its limits. Any device 

 available to a surface ship for detecting 

 and destroying submarines is equally 

 available to the submarine for the detec- 

 tion and destruction of the surface ship. 

 In such competition, the odds are im- 

 mensely in favor of the submarine; it has 

 the power of becoming invisible at will, 

 while the surface ship is always visible and 

 therefore vulnerable. The nets, shields 

 and protective walls, with which one class 

 of inventors would surround a surface 

 ship, are useless. They slow down the 

 speed so that the ship becomes an easy 

 prey for mines planted ahead by a sub- 

 marine. I am convinced, moreover, that 

 no object can be made to float on the 

 surface of the sea that cannot be de- 

 stroyed by the U-boat. I do not believe 

 that any way will be found which will 

 make travel safe for surface ships until a 

 method of seeing through the water for 

 distances of several miles has been per- 

 fected, so that submarines can fight each 

 other beneath the surface. 



When the Germans sent the Deutschland 

 to the United States, they taught us a 

 lesson which we have failed to learn. 

 Here is a ship which made two successful 

 voyages to the United States under condi- 

 tions that were the severest that could be 

 imagined for a belligerent cargo-carrier. 



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