Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1909 — BATTLESHIPS OF TO-MORROW! [ARTICLE]

BATTLESHIPS OF TO-MORROW!

*Two Monster Ships Begun This Year One a .Battleship of >19,200 Tons * with Turbine Englnes-r-Early Con- ; rtruction of the 25,000 Ton Battle- ; ship Probable. The coming of the Dreadnoughts, as all the world knows, has meant a complete revolution, in naval con■tructldfi in the opinion of most naval officers the future is to the SPower which possesses most of these •hips and can use them well writes H. W. Wilson in the London Daily Mail. It will be of interest, then, in view of the pause which has been made during the present year in shipbuilding, to examine how the British navy stands in this latest type of ship and what are the designs likely to be adopted in the near future. The Admiralty is committed to the large battleship and it will scarcely go back. Nor would it be wise to do so in view of the fact that almost all foreign Powers are faithfully copy l ing British designs. For the present year two monster ships—a battleship and a cruiser—have been voted. The battleship, contrary to the reports circulated will be similar in all important respects to the St: Vincents. That is to say she will displace 19,200 tons or thereabouts, will carry ten or twelve 12 inch guns, and will be propelled by turbine engines actuated by steam. Thus she will make up the group of four St. Vincents, and when she is completed for sea the British navy will possess two groups each four strong of all big gun battleships. The other vessel will resemble the Invincibles, with improvements, and will complete the group of four 25 knot cruiser battleships. So much for the present. It will be seen that there is nothing sensational in the design of the ships for this year which are meant to fill gaps in the existing organization. But next year it is possible that there may be new and startling departures. From hints which ministers and others have dropped, the Admiralty will be compelled to ask for not fewer than five monster battleships. More may be needed, but this must necessarily depend on the progress which foreign ships make in the next few months. Germany it must be remembered has today building or sanctioned seven battleships of Dreadnought ,type (against the British eight) and two, or possibly three, cruisers of the Invincible type (against the British tour.) And under her fixed program she will lay down three more monster battleships and one more monster cruiser next year, the battleships, it is believed, displacing 21,000 tons or even more. A British program of five battleships and one monster armored cruiser would bring the British total of Dreadnoughts up to only eighteen, as against the German total of thirteen or fourteen. The British margin c f fotr cr five ships, which it would give, would be far less than what the strict two Power standard demands. The new ship will not improbably carry a new monster gun, the 13.5 Inch, eight or ten of which may be mounted, and will thus carry out th_e policy of “out-Dreadnoughting the Dreadnought." One or two of these guns, according to report, have been building for some months, and the employment of them in the St. Vincent class is known to have been considered and only reluctantly abandoned. All the details are confidential but the German naval handbooks will supply the public with what is certainly an intelligent guess and possibly accurate information. According to them the new 13.5 Inch gun will weigh 86 tons, or nearly 30 tons more than the existing 12 inch weapon, will be about 52 feet long, and will fire a shell weighing about I, pounds or 1,400 pounds, as against the 12 Inch shell’s 850 pounds. Such huge projectlies would pierce five feet of iron and tear their way through the best modern armor at battle range. To mount guns of the size and length so that they will be able to fire on either broadside is a matter of extreme difficulty so long as funnels remafm But there is some hope of getting rid of them and thus giving a clear field of fire. The Belleville company is said to be designing a boiler which needs no funnel above water to discharge the waste products of combustion and there is the bare possibility that producer gas engines might be adopted. The firm of Vickers-Maxim has prepared designs for battleships driven by producer gas, and It is understood that it is ready to turn out a Dreadnought using gas forthwith if it finds any power adventurous enough to try such an experiment. The Admiralty, however, is not at all likely to install the gas engine in battleships until it has been thoroughly tried in merchantmen and smaller cruisers. But that it will finally came may be taken as certain. The British battleship of 1910 may thus be a vessel of 25,000 tons, mounting eight or ten 86 ton guns, which will be so arranged as to fire on either broadside. She will resemble the new Brazilian ships in carrying twenty 4.7 inch or 6 Inch guns for defence against torpedo attack, and will thus be exempt from the most serious falling of the original Dreadnought—the entire absence of a medium battery.