The Naval Review The copyright of this article rests with the author, or the author's estate.

Fast Ships

THE most pressing problem of the day is the speed of merchant ships. For therein lies the solution of the successful war against U-boats. The First Lord has been quoted as saying that single-screw standard ships of 10,000 tons deadweight and speed of 11 to 12 knots are the most economical N.R., November, 1942, p291. I wonder if the First Lord would take the same view if he had conducted one or two convoys across the Atlantic at an average speed of five knots, which perforce includes many hours when no headway is made at all and every inducement is allowed the prowling U-boat to get into position to attack. Speed is the greatest antidote to the submarine, speed with gun power means immunity except for the accident which must occasionally happen of a U-boat finding herself at the right place and at the right distance from the target during that short space of time that the ship is in the danger space of the torpedo.

This danger space can be easily worked out with a bit of paper and pencil and varies from 100% for a ship stopped to vanishing point when the speed of the target approaches the speed of the torpedo. Having decided in order to reduce your danger angle to a negligible risk you require a speed of 17 knots; these 17 knots we must have; nothing less will suffice and nothing less will defeat the U-boat. Building 8-knot ships is suicidal, building 10- to 11-knot ships is not much better because ship designers always appear to leave out the conditions of the average voyage.

Every convoy commodore knows the problem at the Convoy Conference and the question put to the master of a ship with a doubtful reputation: "How fast can you really steam?" and the positive assurance that she will do a steady 10 knots, 11 knots at a pinch; and then the same commodore scanning the horizon away astern at dawn some days later looking hopefully for a wisp of smoke denoting the laggard, his convoy already reduced to 5 knots and his problem to zigzag and hang about and add to the risk of the whole convoy or leave her. .But, say the ship owners, we can't afford fast ships; they are not economical. To that I would say in war time any ship that brings her cargo safely across is economical, and a ship that can make two voyages for one with one master and one crew must be economical in spite of the extra fuel.

Then I am told that is all very well in war, but they wouldn't pay in peace. If such an argument had been used as regards the air, how far should we have got? There seems little hope of any air liner or transport plane ever being an economical proposition in peace, but it won't, it is hoped, stop air passenger lines or transport planes.

And is it going to be really uneconomical? I believe the shipowner who has the courage to build fast tramp steamers will win. The Japanese showed it could be done - true, with subsidy. Hall and Holt and others showed it could be done in the open market.Anyhow I venture to suggest it must be done; if we are going to retain the world's carrying trade we cannot continue to dodder along at 7 or 8 knots in a competing world.

And then the last and strongest objection for the present critical situation. It takes longer to build a fast ship; they cannot be mass-produced. They can be, they must be, if we allow there is no other equally positive answer to the menace of the U-boat.

Much valuable time has been lost. If the Government had really believed (as is so constantly stated in the Press now) that the sea affair takes preference over everything and that the U-boat is the only weapon with which the enemy can prevent us winning, if this had been visualized at once, who could doubt that by now we should have had fleets of fast cargo ships, immune from the U-boat attack and not animated targets drifting backwards and forwards across the oceans. .

HUGH J. TWEEDIE.