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142
THE SUBMARINE TORPEDO BOAT
battleship must always remain the Queen of the Seas,
and must be the deciding factor in any naval engagement.
Without it there can be no bombardment of an enemy’s
coast nor any convoying of transports or landing of an
invading army on foreign soil.
If we are ever forced into war we most certainly want
to win. To win a war it is absolutely necessary to carry
the campaign into the enemy’s country and to stop him
there. If on the other hand the enemy succeeds in gain-
ing a foothold in this country, we may hold him back
indefinitely but cannot make him quit, unless we in the
meantime have gained a more strategic hold upon his
own soil. To be forced to fight upon our own soil means
that no matter whether we are really defeated or whether
we gain a partial victory by being able to hold back the
enemy until he is tired out, we are actually the losers in
point of comparative suffering and damage inflicted.
It is quite probable, however, that the battleship as
she now stands will be greatly modified. I do not think
this will take the form of added armor below the water-
line as do some. To do this would only mean that more
powerful torpedoes would be made which would have
greater rupturing effect upon the heavier armor than it
does even now. On the contrary, perhaps the battleship
will lighten somewhat the armor she already carries and
be constructed with a greater number of divisional bulk-
heads backed up by air pressure chambers in order to
localize the effects of explosions. I believe that her
greatest change will be an increase in speed. Superior
speed has always been and must ever continue to be her
only protection against the submarine.