Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1911 — MOTOR SHIP FEARED [ARTICLE]

MOTOR SHIP FEARED

Experts Skeptical About 36,000 Horsepower Engines. •I i . ■ Many Difficulties Will Have to Be Overcome Before Warships Can. Be Successfully Propelled by New System. • London. —It is now some tlpie since a statement, appeared in the Journal called Motor Boat to the effect that motor engines of 36,000 aggregate horse power are building in England, and that they are to be installed In a battleship of the Dreadnought type shortly to be laid down. Since this announcement tfas made a good many shrewd observers in the scientific world have been looking about to dis cover where these engines, which are aid to be of the two-stroke Diesel type, are being constructed, but up to tho present no trace of them has been found. Neither is anything definite known about the engines for a French motordrivpn battleship- which, according to the same authority, will be completed aud In commission in advance of the British vessel. In fact, these two ships appear to be in a precisely similar condition to the motor-driven monitor, which the Vorwarts recently asserted was building for Germany. The actual construction of that vessel, like these later ones spoken of in the Motor Boat was, It may be remembered, vouched for at the time. It is not surprising in these circumstances that there is a great deal of skepticism shown In regard to the whole story. But because It has been found impossible to discover the manufacturers of the engines of these alleged motor driven battleships for Great Britain, France and Germany It would be unscientific and illogical tp assume that they do not exist. At the same time it shows the difficulty that there is in obtaining precise particulars about these wonderful assertions of scientific improvements. If there is one thing more than another demanded in mechanical science it is the nlfcessity of exactness, and all this vagueness about place, time and other essential details only carries doubt to the mind of the engineer. In an article recently published was outlined the progress that had been

made In the application of the internal combustion principle to warship requirements and the opinion was expressed that “when the change does come there is every reason to believe that it will first be seen in a British vessel, for, as was the case with the steam turbine, the authorities would not allow themselves to be outdistanced by a foreign naval power. For this reason their plans and intentions are kept as secret as possible.” Although Messrs. Vickers, Sons & Maxim have denied any knowledge of the motor driven warship being actually In hand, there are other firms on the admiralty list, like Yarrow and Thorny croft, which would no doubt be prepared to build a ship propelled by the new system. It was only last month that Lord Fisher, late First Sea Lord of the admiralty, expressed the opinion in an interview with newspaper representatives in New York that the country that first takes hold of the principle of internal combustion will sweep the world commercially. At present the marine motor is much further advanced in the mercantile marine world than for warship purposes, as is shown by the 9,000-ton 'steamship' which the Hamburg-Amer-lean line Is having built at Hamburg.

Its extension to ships of war presents peculiar difficulties, though there is no doubt that these will be overcome in course of time. It is noteworthy that the writer in the Motor Boat dealt only with the engines of the motor driven Dreadnought and not with the design of the vessel herself. Sir William White, one of the greatest naval constructors of the age, explained some time back that we have to deal with one of the most' perplexing problems that beset a naval designer when we come to the removal of weights which vitally affect a ship’s stability. The writer In the Motor Boat recognizes, it is true, that the saving in weight and space would be hardly sufficient to allow of extra guns to he carried, and he suggests that greater fuel storage accommodation will be provided, but he does not in any way indicate how the loss of the weight of boilers and engines below the water line is to be met. These and other similar questions will continue to agitate and interest the engineering world, but it is more likely that some solid contribution toward this important subject by some well known scientific authority will give us our first real light upon the new motor-driven battleship.