216 THE SUBMARINE OF TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. 



count of the efforts being made in Europe to develop the fleet submarine, and also 

 to touch upon the possible effects upon such designs of the scouting and commerce 

 destroying duties which might well be performed by this single type. The author 

 regrets that a lack of time requires the termination of the paper at this point, and 

 at the same time presents his apologies to the members of the Society for the 

 sketchy nature of the paper which has been unavoidable under the circumstances 

 of its hurried preparation. In view of the very great public interest in and impor- 

 tance of this subject at the present time, intelligent discussion by those capable of re- 

 alizing the difficulty of the problems to be met is greatly to be desired, since from 

 such discussion helpful suggestions are almost sure to flow. Should this brief sur- 

 vey of the present situation serve to provoke such discussion, the author will feel 

 fully repaid for the work of preparation. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Ewertz (after reading the abstract) : — What is true of the requirements in the 

 United States is not true of the requirements in some of the countries of Europe. Mr. Spear 

 has tried to describe what is useful here, there, and in other places. In the United States he is 

 referring to two types, the coast defense, and the offensive or seagoing submarines. The 

 boats which we have built up to date for the United States Government are practically all of 

 the coast defense size, boats nmning up to 600 and 700 tons displacement. If we are to 

 build offensive submarines, we must solve the question of surface speed, and while at the pres- 

 ent time it is perfectly feasible to put two or more engines of from 400 to 500 horse-power in 

 one boat, it is only possible with such size engines to get surface speed of from 20 to 21 

 knots. If you desire a submarine with a surface speed of 25 or 26 knots, the problem of 

 developing power is one of the most important. As yet we have not solved this problem, and 

 we may find it necessary to use steam for motive power. This has been experimented with 

 from time to time, but up to the present no satisfactory result has been obtained by the use 

 of steam installation. 



There is probably no problem in regard to design that is so complicated as the design of 

 a submarine. There are thousands of ideas as to what they should be like, coming from all 

 parts of the world, and the designer of the submarine has to do the same as is done in other 

 lines of business — he has to take the better points of the various suggestions and compile them 

 into one design, a design that does not fulfil everybody's requirements, but is a compromise 

 of all. 



The success of submarines in the future will depend upon the willingness to concentrate 

 our requirements along certain fixed lines, and if in this country we need coast defense and 

 seagoing submarines, all our talents should be directed along the line of developing these 

 two types of boats. 



In a later part of the paper the author refers to the complications in connection with 



