Submarine warfare today and tomorrow.

• Author: Easterbrook, Gregg

Submarine Warfare Today and Tomorrow.

Capt. John E. Moore,Cmdr. Richard Compton-Hall. Adler & Adler, $22.95. A disappointing book on a topic that cries out for a first-rate treatment. Moore, a retired British submarine driver and now editor of Jane's Fighting Ships, and Compton-Hall, director of an English submarine museum, have attempted to spell out what modern submarines can do and whether in a future war they will make the roughly $500 billion U.S. surface fleet the fastest-sinking investment since the 1929 stock market.

Unfortunately Submarines Todayand Tomorrow is poorly written and hopelessly disorganized, a book in search of an editor. Even those familiar with military lingo are likely to find many passages difficult to follow.

Readers who somehow penetratethe book's semantic counter-measures will discover a disjointed but persuasive argument on a proposition rarely seen in these pages: that nuclear submarines are so much better than diesels, the...