[5] Taken from actual stations of various troops at various times. The army post system is considered indefensible among military men. [6] Speed of embarkation of a mobilized and prepared army as calculated by European military staff officers. [7] One thousand rifled cannon could be enumerated from the naval lists of less than four Powers. Less than four Powers could match our Navy with battleships. [8] This is exactly what happened during the Spanish-American War. [9] From U. S. War Department Reports for 1915 on Militia Organization. [10] This statement does not betray a military secret. It is well known to all foreign governments that we cannot defend our coast defenses against land attack. [11] Certain naval experts, basing their opinion on study of the recent naval battles, claim that a difference of as little as 10 per cent. in efficiency between fleets otherwise absolutely equal means inevitable destruction for the inferior fleet. [12] A tactical necessity for an outnumbered fleet. [13] This statement is based on official army calculations. [14] From tabulated returns by the militia departments of twelve Eastern States. [15] From annual reports of rifle practice for 1914, militia organizations. [16] See tabulated returns published by War Department, 1915. [17] Under-stated. Annual reports for 1915 show many practically useless batteries. [18] Annual report Militia Organization, 1915. (An Eastern seaboard State.) [19] Tables given in War Department statistics, 1915. [20] Extracted from tabulated returns to War Department. (Report on Militia Organization, 1915.) [21] Official figures: 12 Army aeroplanes, 13 Navy aeroplanes, no dirigibles, two aeroplanes not serviceable, total effective, 23. [22] Block Island men helped in the capture of a troopship during the War of the Revolution. [23] A landing party seizing an outlying island for a base, as Block Island would infallibly be seized, always destroys everything that might enable the inhabitants to communicate with the mainland. [24] A submarine cannot attack until it has risen near enough to the surface to lift its periscope above water. Having thus obtained its aim, it submerges again only deep enough to conceal the periscope. It fires its torpedo blind when submerged. If it dives too deep, it might send the weapon harmlessly under the ship’s keel. Hence, it is possible, often, to “spot” the disturbed, whitened water above a submarine even though it is sunken out of sight. [25] Target practice near the land has been found to so affect all life nearby that it seriously injures the commercial fisheries. The fishermen of Cape Cod have opposed fleet-firing several times. On one occasion it is recorded that the fishing for lobsters (exclusively bottom-haunting crustacean) was quite ruined for months owing to the firing of big guns.