The long technical debate about the configuration of the Norniandie design in 1912-13 and again in 1919-20 showed how far French ambitions outreached their capabilities.The organi­sation had never recovered fully from the depredations of the Minister of Marine Camille f'cllctan in his short reign in the early years of the century. France also faced the more imme­diate threat of a land with Germany, so adequate funding to modernise the Navy was never available. In fact the Entente Cordiale (1904) was a tacit recognition of this dilemma, and sought to remedy deficiencies by relying on the Royal Navy to defend the coast of Northern France from a German attack.

In addition to these strategic problems, France faced the problem of its weak industrial base. Type for type, French ship book books ship book booksping maritime marine engineerings were no longer as good as their equivalents in other major navies, and efforts to catch up were not effective. Like other navies in long-term decline, its designers sought advanced solutions to redress the balance, relying on revolution rather than evolution. The French Navy had never been strongly influenced by foreign designs, secure in the knowledge that French technology was the best in the world.Thc agonised debate over the i\lormandies was evidence of a lack of a clear tactical objective. On the other hand, the adoption of quadruple turrets was nearly 25 years ahead of its time.

The Beam was not the most successful carrier of her day. Speed was too low for efficient operation of aircraft, a weakness that was made worse by improvements in aircraft performance. The only navy to achieve successful conversions was the US Navy, with its large-hulled Lexing­ton and Saratoga; smaller hulls were expensive on internal volume, resulting in a small air group. What is surprising about the Bearn is how long she lasted, although her active career as a carrier lasted only 12 years.The US Navy's first fleet submarine, the USS Sdrfey (SS-52) was authorised in 1914, followed by two unnamed sisters a year later. They entered service as AA-1 (numbered on 24 August 1917), AA-2 and AA-3, with new hull numbers SF-1, SF-2 and SF-3 respectively. The design agency was the Electric Boat Company; AA-1 being built to design 63A, while her sisters were built to the slightly improved 63C design.

The design was unusual, a partial double hull and two single-hull compartments ford and aft, using riveted QSin steel. The two end compartments and the Central Operating Center (COC), forerunner of the control room, were designated 'refuge compartments' and fitted with double watertight doors to withstand pressure from either direction. A small conning tower above the COC was fitted with an escape trunk, and although evidence is sketchy, escape trunks were probably fitted in the other two 'refuge compartments'. Hatch-sizes were not standard; 22in for the conning tower, 36in for the engine room (to permit the installation and removal of machinery components) and 27in elsewhere -

The two pairs of trainable 1Rin torpedoes fitted in AA-1 were aimed through the periscope, trained by large handwheels inside the hull, and fired through doors on either side of the super­structure.They were replaced by 21 in torpedoes, but during trials in 1920 the above-water tubes were found to be inaccurate. One set was immediately removed, followed a short time later by the other pair. The designed gun armament was two 3in 23-cal guns on folding mountings, but soon after completion AA-1 was rearmed with a 4in 50-cal 'wet' mounting, and the change was incorporated in AA-2 and AA-3 during construction.

All five engines were installed in a single compartment, with two in tandem on each propeller shaft, and an electric motor was mounted on each shaft. The electric motors were connected, allowing one to be used as a generator to charge the batteries. There were two banks of 60-ce11 battcrics, which could each be connected to the motors, either in series or in paral­lel. The arrangement was chosen to control shaft-speed by varying the voltage. The tandem arrangement caused severe vibration, and a series of different clutches and dampers could not cure the problem.

The main ballast tanks were flooded by manually-operated Kingston valves, via linkages to the COC.Thc tank structure was in fact very complex and unusual, with some tanks on top of others or inside them.Vent valves at the top of the ballast tanks were operated by hand and the tanks were drained into a`main drain' in the duct keel, which had high-pressure, low-pressureand emergency ballast pumps.The only other auxiliary machinery was a transfer pump for diesel oil, steering and diving-gear motors, and a windlass for the two anchors. One of these anchors was housed topside and the other was below the keel in a recess. The bow diving plans were shaped like round flippers, and folded back against the hull when not in use. Apart from -,Catch­lights and flag-hoists, the only means of communication was a primitive radio transmitter and receiver, and a Fessenden oscillator for short-range signalling under water.

Although the `AA' class had no difficulty in making their designed speed of 2(.lkts (surfaced) and 1Q5kts (submerged) under ideal conditions, seakeeping was not good.The low, narrow bow caused them to trim by the head and `take it green' over the deck; the problem was not made any better by the low reserve of buoyancy. In an effort to cure this weakness the ford main ballast tank was given stronger plating to allow it to be a buoyant space, but it was ineffective.

The three boats were renumbered T-1 to T-3 in September 1920. In an effort to improve performance the T-3 was re-engined with two large German MAN diesels, but this proved inef­fective. In fact there is settle doubt about the origin of these diesels; they were reported to have been taken out of one of the U-boats handed over to the USN as prizes, hut it is equally likely that they were an American adaptation of an MAN design. Other improvements have already been mentioned, but there was little that could be done. They had taken too long to build-being completed in 1922-and the rapid advances in submarine fare during the First World rendered them obsolete. T-3 was the first to be decommissioned, in November 1922, followed by T-1 a month later and T-2 in July 1923, probably the shortest active life of any US Navy submarine, and possibly in the world. They were declared redundant to comply with the London Naval Treaty, and stricken in September 1930.