Chapter 13 Volume 1, Chapter 9, Air and Sea Problems

1935｜1939 Interlude on Technical Matters Germany's Blackmail Force Meets with Mr. Baldwin and the Prime Minister Ground and Air Mr. Baldwin's Invitation to the Air Defense Research Committee Some General Principles The Progress of Our Work The Development of Radar The Development of Professor Watson Watt and Radio Echo Portitzerd's Report on Coastal Radar Air Marshal Dowding's Telephone Communication Network Spring 1939 The Graf Zeppelin flew to the east coast of our country IFF 1939 to Mattersham to inspect my contact with the Admiralty Department of the Naval Air Force to build a new battleship Question Caliber of cannon Recoil of broadside salvo Number of turrets My letter to Sir Hall, 1st August 1936 Admiralty Advocacy Quadruple turrets An unfortunate result Visit to the Port of Portland: Submarines detector.

A word needs to be said here about technological decisions that have extremely important consequences for our future security.For the sake of narrative, this chapter covers the entire process from now to the four years before the outbreak of the war. After we lost the balance of power in the air, we were easily blackmailed by Hitler. If we had taken the step in time to create an air force half or twice as strong as Germany was able to build when it broke the treaty, we might retain control of the future.Even an air force equal to Germany's (no one would call that aggressive) would give us confidence in our defense in these critical times and give us a broad base from which to conduct diplomacy and to further expand our air force, but now we have lost the balance of power in the air.Our efforts to restore the balance of power in the air have failed.In the last great war the airplane played a considerable part, and in our present age it has become a magical weapon and at the same time a major military force.Ministers must imagine how terrible the destruction and carnage in London would be if we were to come into conflict with the German dictator.While these considerations are not unique to Britain, they do have a major impact on our policy, and its consequences, on the world as a whole.

In the summer of 1934, Professor Lindemann wrote to The Times, pointing out the possibility of decisive scientific results in air defense research.That August, we brought the issue to the attention of not only Air Department officials who were already conducting research, but also leading government officials.We had a pleasant conversation with Mr. Baldwin during our journey from Chaynes to Aix-Le-Bain in September, and he appeared to be interested in the subject.We call for research studies to be carried out by a senior responsible agency.When we got back to London the matter was put on hold owing to the financial difficulties of the Air Ministry.In early 1935, the Air Ministry formed a committee of scientists tasked with studying future developments.We recall that Mr. Baldwin made an impressive speech in 1933 on the advice of the Air Ministry.He claimed that the air was defenseless.Bombers can always penetrate the defenses.In this case, we all lose faith in the committees of the Air Ministry, and think that the question should be transferred from the Air Ministry to the Reich Defense Committee, in which the heads of government, the most powerful statesmen in the country, It will be able to supervise and guide its activities, and the necessary funds will also be guaranteed so that they will not be unavailable.Sir Austin Chamberlain was with us at this time, and we still speak to ministers from time to time on the subject.

Mr. MacDonald received us personally in February, and we raised the matter to his face.Between us, there is no difference of principle.The Prime Minister agreed when I pointed out what the issue meant for peace.Nothing, I said, would lessen the fear and anxiety gripping the world more than the thought of ruling out surprise air strikes against civilians.Mr. MacDonald, whose eyesight seemed to be failing at the time, stared blankly at the Palace Square and assured us that he was about to harden his heart to overcome the resistance of the Air Ministry.The Ministry of the Air Force was extremely reluctant to have any outside or superior departments intervene in their affairs, so for a while nothing was done.

I therefore raised the question in the House of Commons on 7th June 1935; I said: This question has a certain scope, and by its nature it is basically a scientific question.It's about inventing, adopting, or discovering ways that we can get ground air defenses to control the skies, and from the ground to control and even dominate aircraft high above them. I feel from experience that on these issues, Science has something to offer as long as the need is adequately addressed by leaders, both military and political.It used to be said that hunting down submarines was impossible, but a method of suffocating them below the surface was finally invented.The problem isn't necessarily more difficult than shooting down an invading aircraft.Many things that were previously thought to be technically impossible were employed in the last war.Patience, perseverance, especially in the exigencies of war situations, make men's minds more flexible, and science adapts to men's needs

The heinous idea of ​​forcing an enemy nation to surrender by massacring women and children, and terrorizing unarmed civilians, was accepted and encouraged only in the twentieth century.This is not a matter of any country.If once some ground-based device was invented that could easily shoot down bomb-dropping planes, every nation would feel safer, and it would relieve nations of the dread and anxiety of being ever closer to the catastrophe of another war. Not only do we fear attacks on civilians in our great cities, for which we are more vulnerable than any other nation in the world; Power, our fleet, is paralyzed or even destroyed.So it is not only to eliminate misgivings and the worst causes of war in the whole world, but also to restore in England the old sense of security of our island nation.Therefore, the highest leaders of our country and government should give this question some serious thought and consideration, and this work should be carried forward with all the resources that British science can employ and our national financial resources can afford.

The next day, the change of cabinet mentioned in the previous chapter took place, and Mr. Baldwin became Prime Minister.Cunliffe-Sir Lister (shortly thereafter Lord Swindon) succeeded Lord Londonderry as Air Secretary.A month later, Mr. Baldwin came in one afternoon when I was in the smoking-room of the Commons.He sat down beside me and said to me: I have a proposal for you.Cunliffe Lister would very much like you to attend the newly formed Imperial Defense Council Air Defense Research Institute, and I would like you to attend too.I said, I'm the one criticizing our Air Force's readiness, and I still have to maintain my freedom of movement.He said: It goes without saying.You have absolute freedom, of course, except for the secrets you know from the committee.

I made one condition: Professor Lindemann must be at least a member of the technical team, because I need his help.A few days later, the Prime Minister wrote: July 8, 1935 I'm glad you met Hankey.I take your letter to express your willingness to participate in the work of the committee. I am delighted and I am sure you will be of real help in this extremely important research. Of course, you are as free as the air (the correct expression in this case) to debate policy, programs, and everything general about the Air Force at any time. My invitation is not to prevent you from speaking freely in the future, but to express my friendliness to my old colleagues.

So, in the following four years, I participated in those meetings, so I knew more about our important air defense work.For several years now I have had frequent and close discussions with Lindemann, which have given me my own view on this question.Immediately upon accepting my appointment I drew up a memorandum for the committee, containing not official sources but thoughts and ideas derived from my conversations with Lindemann, research, and my own military concepts. Knowledge.What makes this document noteworthy is its views on the situation in July 1935.At that time, no one thought that radio could be used to guide bombers.There are obviously difficulties in training large numbers of pilots.At that time, it was generally believed that a large number of aircraft flying at night must be led by a few bomber captains.In the four years before the life of the nation was endangered, there was a tremendous advance in new research work on all fronts; at the same time, the use of radios to designate targets for bombers brought about an extremely important change in tactics.What I wrote in that memorandum has since been replaced by better methods, but many experiments were carried out while I was in power and certainly not all of them were successful.

July 23, 1935 It is with the utmost humility that I offer this memorandum, written hastily because of the impending meeting, but with the hope that it will contribute to our common thinking. There is interaction and reaction between general tactical concepts and what is technically feasible, so scientists must be made aware of what equipment the Air Force needs.The design of the aircraft must meet the requirements of a certain combat plan and ensure the implementation of this plan. At this stage it is necessary for us to formulate a plausible hypothesis of war in which Great Britain, France and Belgium form an alliance and are attacked by Germany.

When such a war breaks out, the most important thing will be the mobilization of the Continental Allied forces.This will take at least two weeks, as this will be diverted and hindered by the invasion of mechanized and motorized forces.The French and German staffs will concentrate on the build-up and deployment of troops.Neither side wants to be significantly behind in the first major battle.We may hope that within two or three years Germany will not be ready for such a war in which both land and navy play a major role; her navy is still insignificant; she has not yet gained command of the Baltic Sea; and her heavy artillery It seems that it is not enough.It takes years, not months, to build a navy, build heavy artillery, and train personnel. Most of Germany's munitions production is concentrated in the Ruhr, which is vulnerable to bombing by the other side.It must have realized that the supply of many of the major military imports from abroad (copper, tungsten, cobalt, vanadium, gasoline, rubber, wool, etc.) would be cut off.And, if she fails to gain command of the Baltic, even the supply of iron will be greatly reduced, so that she is not yet in a position to wage a long war.Of course, it is vigorously overcoming these difficulties, such as moving some factories from the border to central Germany to produce synthetic gasoline and artificial rubber, and to stockpile stockpiles.It seems unlikely that, before 1937 or 1938, Germany would wage a simultaneous naval, land, and air war with any hope of victory, which might take several years and in which it would There will be few allies. In such a war the first task of the British and French air forces seems to be to blow up the enemy's traffic, such as railways, roads, bridges of the Rhine and road-rail bridges, and to destroy their staging areas and munitions as much as possible. library.The second is to destroy its various military factories that are most easily exposed.It is almost certain that, from the moment of scheduled military action, if we concentrate our attack on these important objects, we should compel the enemy to adopt the same tactics.Otherwise France could mobilize without hindrance and take the initiative in a large-scale ground war.In this way, the aircraft that Germany is preparing to use to carry out terrorist air strikes against civilians in Britain and France will appear insufficient and scattered. Even so, we must expect that, even in a combined naval, land, and air war, Germany will try to blow up London or other vulnerable cities to test the will of the government and the people to resist in a terrible test.Second, the Port of London, with the shipyards where the life and death of our fleet is at stake, is the most important military object. Yet there was the unfortunate possibility that the German authorities might think that a massive air attack might bring a country to its knees in a matter of months or even weeks.The psychologically shocking tactical thinking has great appeal to the German mind.Whether they were right or wrong in their thinking is another question.If the German government thought it could use the air force to force a country to sue for peace by destroying major cities and massacring civilians before the Allied armies mobilized and attacked, it was likely to use the air force alone to attack at the beginning of the war.It hardly goes without saying that England would be the most suitable victim for such an attack if it could be separated from France.Because Britain's main method of counter-offensive, apart from air strikes and retaliation, is nothing more than a naval blockade, but the blockade will not be effective until a considerable period of time. If we could prevent air raids on cities within limits, the possibility (which is probably a fiction) of terror to destroy our morale would cease to exist, and wars would ultimately be won or lost by armies and navies.The more we pay attention to air defense, the more we can prevent the occurrence of pure air combat. I make some points.Don't forget, that was in 1935, and there were still more than four years before the official use of radar reconnaissance aircraft. The work of the committee is secret, and my relationship with the government has never been made public.I continue to criticize and attack other government departments more violently.Things of this kind are not surprising to experienced statesmen in England, just as serious differences of opinion are sometimes no hindrance to personal friendship, but jealousy is much stronger among scientists.In 1937, a rather serious disagreement arose between the scientists of the Technical Group and Professor Lindemann.His colleagues were not satisfied that he was in close contact with me, nor that I presented his views to the committee.They felt that only Sir Tizard (Head of Imperial College of Science and Technology) could state their collective opinion to the committee.Lindemann was asked to resign as a result.He was quite right to provide me with some facts for discussion; indeed, it was an essential condition of the two of us to join in this work.Although he had left, I continued to serve as a member in the public interest and with his full consent; and in 1938 I reinstated him, as will be mentioned below. In the 1930s, many people in Britain, the United States, Germany, and France thought of the possibility of using radio waves reflected from airplanes and other metal objects.We called it a radio direction finder (R‧D‧F‧) and later called a radar.Its usefulness is to rely on the reflected radio waves instead of people's senses, eyes or ears to detect the approach of enemy planes.At an altitude of about seventy miles above the ground, there is a layer of canopy (ionosphere) that reflects radio waves. Due to its existence, ordinary radio waves will not disappear into space, and thus make long-distance radio communication possible.Sending a short pulse wave into the air and then receiving its echo is a technical problem that Chinese scientists, especially Professor Appleton, have been actively researching for several years. In February 1935, Professor Watson Watt, a government research scientist, explained to the technical group for the first time that it was feasible to use radio echoes to detect aircraft, and suggested a trial.The group takes this very seriously.At that time, it was believed that it would take five years to develop the technology to detect aircraft within 50 miles.On July 25, 1935, at the fourth meeting of the Air Defense Research Committee, the first meeting I attended, Tizard presented a report on radiolocation.We have done a preliminary test, which proves that there is a need for further implementation measures.Various branches of the military were ordered to draw up plans.A special agency was set up and a series of test stations were set up in the Dover-Alford Nurth area.The possibility of radar reconnaissance of the ship's position is also explored. By March 1936, stations along the south coast had been constructed and equipped, and trials were expected in the autumn.During the summer there were construction delays and problems with enemy radio interference.In July 1937, the Ministry of the Air Force put forward a plan, and with the approval of the Air Defense Research Committee, it was planned to set up a company of 20 troops between the Isle of Wight and the River Tees by the end of 1939 at a cost of more than one million pounds. station. At this time, experiments to detect enemy planes that had already flown over the interior were also going on.By the end of the year we could track the bandit at ten thousand feet within thirty-five miles.There has also been progress in reconnaissance of ships.It has been demonstrated that it is possible to determine the position of ships from the air within nine miles.Two ships in the near-ocean fleet have been equipped with reconnaissance aircraft instruments, and experiments such as aircraft ranging, anti-aircraft gun firing command, and searchlight orientation have also been carried out separately.Work has progressed.By December 1938, fourteen of the twenty new stations planned had been temporarily equipped.It has been possible to determine the position of ships within thirty miles from the air. In 1939, the Ministry of the Air Force built a so-called coastal radar network using relatively long long-wave radios (ten meters), which enabled us to detect approaching aircraft over the sea at a distance of about 60 miles.Under the command of Air Force Vice Admiral Dowding, Fighter Command, a complex and sophisticated telephone network was established to link all these radar stations, and a central command post was established at Uxbridge, from which the observed The actions of our own aircraft are marked on the big map one by one, so that we can direct the combat operations of our own aircraft.The so-called Identifier Friend or Foe (I‧F‧F‧) was also devised, which enabled our coastal radar network to distinguish British aircraft equipped with this instrument from enemy aircraft.It was later discovered that these long-wave radio stations could not detect aircraft flying low over the sea. To deal with this danger, a set of supplementary stations was built, called low-altitude reconnaissance chain stations, using much shorter waves (one and a half meters) , but it is only effective over shorter distances. Once the enemy planes entered the interior, we had to rely on the Royal Observer for reconnaissance.The spotters had eyes and ears only, but were indeed extremely effective when linked by telephone switches, which later became our main basis in the early days of the Battle of Britain.But it is not enough to detect enemy planes coming from the sea, although this will enable us to issue an alarm at least fifteen to twenty minutes in advance.We also had to find ways to navigate our aircraft to track incoming enemy aircraft and intercept them over our territory.For this purpose, a number of Ground Command Intercept Stations (G‧C‧I‧) were constructed.But all of these, when the war broke out, were only in their infancy. The Germans were busy too. In the spring of 1939, the Graf Zeppelin flew over the east coast of England.General Martini, commander of the German Air Force Signal Corps, pre-installed special listening equipment on the spacecraft to detect whether the UK had radar reconnaissance equipment.The attempt failed, but if her listening equipment had been effective, the Zeppelin would have been able to bring back to Germany the knowledge that we had a radar, because our radar station was not only working at that time, but had detected its movements, surmised its intent.The Germans would not be surprised to hear our radar pulses, since they have built a technically efficient radar system that is in some respects more advanced than ours.But what astonishes them is the extent to which we have practically applied the new invention, and combined it all into a general system of air defense.In this we are leading the world, and Britain's achievements do not lie in the novelty of the equipment, but in the effectiveness of its practical application. The last meeting of the Air Defense Research Committee was held on July 11, 1939.At that time, between Portsmouth and Scapa Flow, there were twenty radar stations capable of detecting aircraft flying above 10,000 feet within a range of fifty to one hundred and twenty miles.A very satisfactory anti-jammer and a simple IFF have been put into production.We also manufactured a test device installed on the aircraft to guide the aircraft to track the enemy aircraft with signals, and conducted a test flight.As for the experimental device for reconnaissance of the position of ships from the air, it was found to be too bulky for use in aircraft, and it was therefore given to the Admiralty to study whether it could be used on ships. I also want to mention one more thing.In June, 1939, Sir Tizard, in accordance with the wishes of the Secretary of the Air Force, invited me to fly in a rather crude aircraft to inspect the various installations being built on the East Coast.We flew all day.I send the impressions of my inspection to the Secretary of the Air Force, which are printed below, as they give a general picture of the radar work we have begun. Mr. Churchill to Sir Kingsley Wood. Under the leadership of Tizard, I visited Materesham and Podsey for an inspection. This inspection was very interesting and encouraging.Maybe it will help if I throw some of my thoughts out there. These important radio direction finding stations need to be covered immediately.We initially thought that we could build two to three times as many camouflage stations for less money; Then I thought about it and it seemed like smoke screens could be used A weakness of this ingenious new device was, of course, that the enemy planes were out of range of the radio direction-finding stations after crossing the coast, and we were then left to the spotters.It's like stepping back into the early Stone Age from the mid-twentieth century. Although I've heard that spotters are also very effective.But we must think that the application of radio direction finders to track enemy aircraft that have invaded inland is urgently needed.It will be some time before radio direction finders can turn around and survey the inland skies, and it will only be possible when the aerial battlefield is crowded and chaotic Advances in radio direction finders, especially in their application to range finding, must have been of great use to the Navy.This would allow the Navy to engage the enemy regardless of visibility.In 1914, when the German battlecruisers bombarded Scarborough and Hartlepool, their fate would have been very different if our eyesight had been able to see through the fog.I don't understand why the Admiralty isn't enthusiastic about this experiment.Tizard also pointed out that the ability to accurately fire torpedoes regardless of visibility, day or night, would be of great value to both destroyers and submarines.I thought it was a long-running event, because it was extremely beneficial to us. The method of distinguishing friend from foe also has a major effect on the navy, and it should be used to completely replace the dangerous method of identifying signals.I think the Admiralty knows this. In conclusion, I congratulate you on the progress that has been made.The first step to the infinite security of our island nation has been taken, but we need more than that, and time is short. In the second volume I shall show how the German attacks on Great Britain in the autumn and winter of 1940 were thwarted by means of facilities of which only a few people knew at the time.There can be no doubt that the Air Ministry and the Air Defense Research Board, under the leadership of Lord Swindon and his successors, have played a decisive role in obtaining this most valuable reinforcement for our fighting aircraft.In 1940, when the main responsibility fell to me, and the survival of our country depended on the success of the Air Force, as I had conducted a four-year Long-term in-depth research and thinking will help me, as a non-soldier, to have a thorough understanding of various issues in air combat.Although I never thought to understand technical problems, this knowledge has been extremely helpful to me.I know every single piece on the board, how they move, and when people talk to me about it, I understand it completely. In the past few years, my contact with the Admiralty has been frequent and very close.In the summer of 1936, Sir Hall became Secretary of the Admiralty, and he allowed his officers to discuss with me freely the affairs of the Admiralty;I had known Admiral Chatfield, now First Sea Lord, since 1914 when I was at Beatty, and my correspondence on naval matters began in 1936.I also had many years of friendship with Admiral Henderson, Third Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Quartermaster, who was in charge of the construction and design of warships.He was the best gunnery specialist in our navy in 1912 when I was Secretary of the Admiralty and used to go to see battleships test their guns before receiving their mounts from contractors and I had a very high opinion of his work .These two officials had great confidence in me when they were in high positions. Although I disagreed with them and I have repeatedly criticized the work they did or did not do, I have never done it because of work. Dissatisfaction or accusations hinder our communication. The question as to whether naval aviation should belong to the Department of the Navy or to the Department of the Air Force was violently contested between the two Departments and the two services.I agree with the Admiralty, and I have brought my views before Parliament, which resulted in an earnest letter of thanks from the First Sea Lord.In it he raised the whole question of naval policy.Sir Thomas Inskeep, when he visited me at Chartwell, asked me what I thought of a question which seemed to be plausible on both sides.I drew up for him a Memorandum which was later adopted by His Majesty's Government almost verbatim. When the government finally decided to start building battleships again, I was very concerned about the design of battleships.Up to this time virtually all capital ships in the Royal Navy had been built or designed during the period from 1911 to 1915 when I was in charge of the Admiralty.Only HMS Nelson and Rodney were built after World War I.In the book "World Crisis", I have detailed the whole process of rebuilding the Navy when I first served as Lord of the Admiralty, and the design process of the Queen Elizabeth class fast battleship.I was then able to make the most of Lord Fisher's talents and ideas.In the construction of warships I have often been able to use my own ideas, which I have acquired from many naval experts, and I still hold firm opinions to this day. As soon as I heard that the cabinet had approved a plan for the construction of battleships, I immediately concluded that our new ships should continue to be armed with sixteen-inch guns, and in three turrets containing three sixteen-inch guns; As long as the displacement is within the limit of 35,000 tons, only we can strictly abide by the limit in this treaty.I have had several conversations and correspondence with Sir Hall.I heard arguments which did not convince me, and I began to ask in the House of Commons the question of a comparison of the recoil of broadside salvos of warships armed with 14-inch and 16-inch guns.They came up with the following figures for my personal reference: The recoil of a broadside salvo of a warship equipped with nine 14-inch guns was 6.38 tons. The recoil of a broadside salvo of a warship equipped with nine 16-inch guns is 9.55 tons. The figure for the sixteen-inch guns was not based on the Nelson's existing sixteen-inch guns, but on a hypothetical sixteen-inch gun that the Americans were planning to mount on their new battleship. I deeply feel that the recoil of broadside salvos of sixteen-inch guns does have its superiority. So I wrote to Sir Hall: Jazz: August 1, 1936 I am honored that you value my opinion.At first glance, there is a reason for this.I cannot answer the debate on the question that has been delayed for so long.This time it was only our country that suffered from the treaty.I have no doubts that we can build a thirty-five-thousand-ton warship with three triple turrets of sixteen-inch guns, which must be much more powerful than the method of using fourteen-inch guns many.Not only is it probably the better ship, but it certainly ranks as one.Everyone, including those who served on the ship, saw it as a sign of greater naval power.Don't forget that the Germans achieved far better results than we did with every inch of caliber in their cannon.The shells they fired were heavier than ours, hit farther and more accurately, and the result was a huge blow, not only the recoil of broadside salvos was greatly increased, but of course the explosive power of sixteen-inch shells was greater than that of fourteen-inch shells. Caliber shells are much larger.If it can penetrate the armor, it is worthwhile to pay more attention to the explosive power of the shell. Another question concerns the number of turrets. If three turrets can achieve greater striking power, what a waste it is to have four turrets (I assume 2,000 tons each)!If three turrets are used, the armor can be thickened to resist artillery fire and torpedoes, and more places can be vacated on the ship deck to install anti-aircraft guns.If you ask your men to give you a diagram of a sixteen-inch gun, I am sure they will explain to you that the sixteen-inch gun must have a better layout than the fourteen-inch gun.Of course, there will be debates about fire control, shell dispersion, etc., and I am a complete amateur in these matters.But I think that using four-round and five-round salvos in turn may be able to receive better shooting results. If I were in your position, I would never accept the Fourteen Inch plan. Our Admiralty would look foolish enough if the Admiralty decided to build two fourteen-inch ships, while Japan and the United States a few months later were bent on building sixteen-inch ships.I figured it would be better to postpone it a few days and save six months of construction time.It is unimaginable to purposely build battleships that are not the strongest in the world at a cost of seven million pounds each!Old Fisher used to say: The British navy is always top-notch at sea. However, these are just predictions!I have thought about all this many times before, or I would not venture to state it to you.I'll definitely talk to Chatfield as you suggested. The Admiralty took no objection to my opinion, and thereafter we had correspondence, and I had several conversations with him and the First Sea Lord.Before Sir Hall left the Admiralty at the end of May 1937, he handed me two memorandums drawn up by the Naval Staff: one on battleships and the other on cruisers.The Admiralty's reasoning for the battleship design was that since the Washington Treaty, Britain had still advocated a reduction in displacement and a smaller gun caliber for economic reasons, so in 1936, when the government finally approved the construction of a new battleship, it was impossible to combine ten Treaty limits on four-inch guns or thirty-five thousand tons of displacement were ignored.The design of the HMS King George V class of battleships had to begin before it was known whether other nations would continue to accept the restrictions of the treaty in the immediate future.In fact, the turrets of the HMS King George V class warships were not ordered until May 1936.Had the Admiralty postponed design decisions until after April 1937, by 1941 there would have been only two ships available instead of five.Should the foreign countries then exceed the limits of the Washington Treaty, larger tonnages and calibers could then be used in the design of warships whose construction was planned to begin in 1938 and be completed in 1942. If at last we had to build symmetrical sixteen-inch gunboats without sacrificing the structural solidity and other characteristics of the King George V class, their displacement would have to be greatly increased.As a result, warships cannot pass through the Panama Canal. In addition to increasing the cost of each warship, we have to expand our docks.The Admiralty agrees with me that a ship with nine sixteen-inch guns in three turrets is superior to a ship with ten fourteen-inch guns in four turrets.The battleships they later designed were all warships with only three multi-barreled turrets. After studying this long and thick document, I realized that we could not delay the installation of larger caliber guns in the first five ships of the line.The decision made cannot be changed.But I still propose that, as a preparatory measure, the larger caliber gun and the turret should be designed as soon as possible, and now the necessary tools and equipment must be built so that the gun factory can modify the larger caliber gun, even if it costs a considerable amount of money I don't hesitate. When I discussed the design of the battleship with the Admiralty, I did not know that they had already made a design and made a pattern of quadruple turrets of fourteen-inch guns, or a total of twelve guns.Had I known this then, I would have reconsidered my opinion.所謂多管炮塔的用語，使我發生誤會。三座四聯裝炮塔，可能避免我在設有四座炮塔的軍艦上所看到的許多缺點。十二門十四吋口徑炮的威力，雖不能同九門十六吋口徑炮相等，但在金屬的重量方面卻有相當大的改進。 然而，海軍部的這種方針卻產生了不幸的後果。設計這種全新的十四吋口徑炮的四聯裝炮塔，拖延了很多時間。工作開始不久，海軍部就決定將重疊於船前的第三座炮塔改為雙聯裝炮塔。於是，二三千件複雜的機械配件都得重新設計。 這次計劃的變更又使英皇喬治五世號和威爾斯親王號的完工延遲了至少一年之久。還有，我們的新艦現在已減為十門炮，於是，我以前認為它的舷炮齊射時後座力不如十六吋口徑炮好的那種看法，又更站得住腳了。在這個時候，美國人解決了把三座有三聯裝十六吋口徑炮的炮塔裝置在三萬五千噸的船身上的問題。法國人和德國人採用了十五吋口徑炮，法國人在兩座四聯裝炮塔上裝八門炮，德國人在四座雙聯裝炮塔上裝炮八門。德國人也像日本人一樣，無意接受條約的限制，俾斯麥號的排水量便超過了四萬五千噸，因而具備了一切有利條件。只有我們，在這許多年之後才決定建造五艘與我們海軍生命和保持我們制海權息息相關的戰列艦，但結果還是從十六吋口徑回到十四吋口徑，而別的國家則加大了口徑。因此，我們建造的幾艘軍艦，每一艘都用了五年的工夫才能完成，而且都沒有達到其應有的更大的火力。 一九三八年六月十五日，第一海務大臣領我到波特蘭，讓我參觀潛艇探測器。這是偵察在水下的潛水艇的儀器，其方法是發射聲波進入水中，當聲波遇到鋼鐵結構時，便反射回聲。 根據這種回聲來測定潛水艇的方位，可以相當準確。我們在第一次大戰結束時，這種新事物剛剛開始。 我們在旗艦上過夜，同海軍總司令福布斯爵士作了一次長談。次日整個上午，我們都在反潛艇學校度過，他們給我講了差不多四個小時，我得到極其詳盡的報告。於是我們乘驅逐艦出海，當天下午和晚上，他們為我舉行了一次極有趣味的演習。幾艘潛艇分佈在附近的海域上。我站在這艘裝有潛艇探測器的驅逐艦的艦橋上，另一艘驅逐艦約在半哩外，二者始終保持聯絡，我看到並聽到了全部過程。這是海軍部的神聖的寶貝，是他們專心致志、埋頭搞了一代的時間所獲得的成績。以前我曾常常批評他們的政策。但在這次，我無疑地同他們一樣，對他們的成就作了過高的評價，我一時忘了海洋是多麼地遼闊廣大。雖然如此，這二十年中，假如每年沒有花大量資金，僱用和訓練數以千計的技術熟練的官兵來進行研究，並且拿不出什麼東西來雖然是微不足道那麼，我們在對付德國潛艇的問題上（後來事實證明是十分嚴重的問題），也許除了吃敗仗之外，就沒有別的辦法了。 我給查特菲爾德的信中寫道： 我常常回想起你讓我參觀的那些情況，我深信國家要感謝海軍部和掌管海軍部的人，我深信，他們多年以來忠心耿耿地努力工作，使我們能夠避免最大的危險之一。 使我驚奇的是，潛艇探測器指示得清晰而有力。在我想像中，原以為它的指示是隱約的、模糊不清的。我絕沒有想到我竟會聽到潛水艇那種東西會自投羅網。這是一種驚人的方法和成就。 潛艇探測器本身沒有征服潛水艇，但是，如果沒有它，則潛水艇就征服不了。