The Submarine Torpedo Boat
Its Characteristics And Modern Development

20 THE SUBMARINE TORPEDO BOAT struction. This Navy has also one of the Italian Laurenti type boats which was built by the Cramp Ship Building Co. Both the Lake and the Laurenti boats are known as the G class and have practically the same distinguishing features. England, in 1903, purchased the right to build the Hol- land type of boat from the Electric Boat Co., and have con- tinued to use this type with various slight modifications from the original form and with a continual development in size. The superstructure has been increased in size as it has been in the United States Navy, and in some of the boats water ballast tanks have been added under the super- structure in order to obtain an increased reserve bouy- ancy. Great secrecy is maintained over the designs of the British, however, and really very little is known about them. It is claimed by some that the F class of boats laid down in 1914 have a submerged displacement of 1200 tons with a speed of 18 knots on the surface and 12 knots under water. In France there seems to have been no strict adherence to any one type of boat, nor rational advancement and steady development in any one direction. Development over there indeed seems to have been of a very erratic nature. They have not seemed to have decided on any one type, building extensively both submarines proper and submersibles; one year tending to increase materially the displacement of these craft, and the next year dropping back to the building of smaller boats. In fact they seem to be willing to try anything once, and as a consequence, France has probably spent more money in submarine development than any other nation, but because of the lack of systematic progress in the