WONDERFUL WARSHIPS
Dimensions, Displacements, Cost and Description of Battleships--
Capacity and Speed--Preparing for the Future.
All modern battleships are of steel construction. The basis of all
protection on these vessels is the protective deck, which is also
common to the armored cruiser and many varieties of gunboats. This
deck is of heavy steel covering the whole of the vessel a little above
the water-line in the centre; it slopes down from the centre until it
meets the sides of the vessel about three feet below the water; it
extends the entire length of the ship and is firmly secured at the
ends to the heavy stem and stern posts. Underneath this deck are the
essentials of the vessel, the boilers and machinery, the magazines and
shell rooms, the ammunition cells and all the explosive paraphernalia
which must be vigilantly safe-guarded against the attacks of the
enemy. Every precaution is taken to insure safety. All openings in the
protective deck above are covered with heavy steel gratings to prevent
fragments of shell or other combustible substances from getting through
to the magazine or powder cells.
The heaviest armor is usually placed at the water line because it is
this part of the ship which is the most vulnerable and open to attack
and where a shell or projectile would do the most harm. If a hole were
torn in the side at this place the vessel would quickly take in water
and sink. On this account the armor is made thick and is known as the
water-line belt. At the point where the protective deck and the ship's
side meet, there is a projection or ledge on which this armor belt
rests. Thus it goes down about three feet below the water and it extends
to the same distance above.
The barbettes, that is, the parapets supporting the gun turrets, are
one forward and one aft. They rest upon the protective deck at the
bottom and extend up about four feet above the upper deck. At the top
of the barbettes, revolving on rollers, are the turrets, sometimes
called the hoods, containing the guns and the leading mechanism and
all of the machinery in connection with the same. The turret ammunition
hoists lead up from the magazine below, delivering the charges and
projectiles for the guns at the very breach so that they can be loaded
immediately.
An athwartship line of armor runs from the water line to the barbettes,
resting upon the protective deck. In fact, the space between the
protective and upper deck is so closed in with armor, with a barbette
at each end, that it is like a citadel or fort or some redoubt
well-guarded from the enemy. Resting upon the water-belt and the
athwartship or diagonal armor, and following the same direction is a
layer of armor usually somewhat thinner which is called the lower
case-mate armor; it extends up to the lower edge of the broadside gun
ports, and resting upon it in turn is the upper case-mate armor,
following the same direction, and forming the protection for the
broadside battery. The explosive effect of the modern shell is so
tremendous that were one to get through the upper case-mate and explode
immediately after entering, it would undoubtedly disable several guns
and kill their entire crews; it is, therefore, usual to isolate each
broadside gun from its neighbors by light nickel steel bulkheads a
couple of inches or so thick, and to prevent the same disastrous result
among the guns on the opposite side, a fore-and-aft bulkhead of about
the same thickness is placed on the centre line of the ship. Each gun
of the broadside battery is thus mounted in a space by itself somewhat
similar to a stall. Abaft the forward turret there is a vertical armored
tube resting on the protective deck and at its upper end is the conning
tower, from which the ship is worked when in action and which is well
safe-guarded.
The tube protects all the mechanical signalling gear running into the
conning tower from which communication can be had instantly with any
part of the vessel.
To build a battleship that will be practically unsinkable by the gun
fire of an enemy it is only necessary to make the water belt armor
thick enough to resist the shells, missiles and projectiles aimed at
it. There is another essential that is equally important, and that is
the protection of the batteries. The experience of modern battles has
made it manifest, that it is impossible for the crew to do their work
when exposed to a hail of shot and shell from a modern battery of rapid
fire and automatic guns. And so in all more recently built battleships
and armored cruisers and gunboats, the protection of broadside batteries
and exposed positions has been increased even at the expense of the
water-line belt.
Armor plate has been much improved in recent years. During the Civil
War the armor on our monitors was only an inch thick. Through such an
armor the projectiles of our time would penetrate as easily as a bullet
through a pine board. It was the development of gun power and
projectiles that called forth the thick armor, but it was soon found
that it was impossible for the armor to keep pace with the deadliness
of the guns as it was utterly impossible to carry the weight necessary
to resist the force of impact. Then came the use of special plates,
the compound armor where a hard face to break up the projectile was
welded to a softer back to give the necessary strength. This was
followed by the steel armor treated by the Harvey process; it was like
the compound armor in having a hard face and a soft back, but the
plates were made from a single ingot without any welding.
The Harvey process enabled an enormously greater resistance to be
obtained with a given weight of armor, but even it has been surpassed
by the Krupp process which enables twelve inches of thickness to give
the same resistance as fifteen of Harveyized plates.
The armament or battery of warships is divided into two classes, viz.,
the main and the second batteries. The main battery comprises the
heaviest guns on the ship, those firing large shell and armor-piercing
projectiles, while the second battery consists of small rapid fire and
machine guns for use against torpedo boats or to attack the unprotected
or lightly protected gun positions of an enemy. The main battery of
our modern battleships consists usually of ten twelve-inch guns, mounted
in pairs on turrets in the centre of the ship. In addition to these
heavy guns it is usual to mount a number of smaller ones of from five
to eight inches diameter of bore on each broadside, although sometimes
they are mounted on turrets like the larger guns.
A twelve-inch breech-loading gun, fifty calibers long and weighing
eighty-three tons, will propel a shell weighing eight hundred and
eighty pounds, by a powder charge of six hundred and twenty-four pounds,
at a velocity of over two thousand six hundred and twenty feet per
second, giving an energy at the muzzle of over forty thousand foot-tons
and is capable of penetrating at the muzzle, forty-five inches of
iron.
During the last few years, very large increases have been made in the
dimensions, displacements and costs of battleships and armored cruisers
as compared with vessels of similar classes previously constructed.
Both England and the United States have constructed enormous war vessels
within the past decade. The British _Dreadnought_ built in nineteen
hundred and five has a draft of thirty-one feet six inches and a
displacement of twenty-two thousand and two hundred tons. Later, vessels
of the _Dreadnought_ type have a normal draft of twenty-seven
feet and a naval displacement of eighteen thousand and six hundred
tons. Armored cruisers of the British _Invincible_ class have a
draft of twenty-six feet and a displacement of seventeen thousand two
hundred and fifty tons with a thousand tons of coal on board. These
cruisers have engines developing forty-one thousand horse-power.
Within the past two years the United States has turned out a few
formidable battleships, which it is claimed surpass the best of those
of any other navy in the world. The _Delaware_ and _North Dakota_ each
have a draft of twenty-six feet, eleven inches and a displacement of
twenty thousand tons. Great interest attached to the trials of these
vessels because they were sister ships fitted with different machinery
and it was a matter of much speculation which would develop the greater
speed. In addition to the consideration of the battleship as a fighting
machine at close quarters, Uncle Sam is trying to have her as fleet as
an ocean greyhound should an enemy heave in sight so that the latter
would not have much opportunity to show his heels to a broadside. The
_Delaware_, which has reciprocating engines, exceeded her contract speed
of twenty-one knots on her runs over a measured mile course in Penobscot
Bay on October 22 and 23, 1909. Three runs were made at the rate of
nineteen knots, three at 20.50 knots, and five at 21.98 knots.
The _North Dakota_ is furnished with Curtis turbine engines. Here is a
comparison of the two ships:
North
Delaware Dakota
Fastest run over measured mile......... 21.98 22.25
Average of five high runs.............. 21.44 21.83
Full power trial speed................. 21.56 21.64
Full power trial horsepower............ 28,600. 31,400.
Full power trial, coal
consumption, tons per day............ 578. 583.
Nineteen-knot trial
coal consumption, tons per day....... 315. 295.
Twelve-knot trial coal
consumption, tons per day.............111. 105.
The _Florida_, a 21,825 ton boat, was launched from the Brooklyn Navy
Yard last May 12. Her sister ship, the _Utah_, took water the previous
December at Camden.
Here is a comparison of the _North Dakota_ of 1908 and the _Florida_ of
1910:
N. Dakota Florida
Length 518 ft. 9 in. 521 ft. 6 in.
Beam 85 ft. 2-1/2 in. 88 ft. 2-1/2 in.
Draft, Mean 26 ft. 11 in. 28 ft. 6 in.
Displacement 20,000 tons 21,825 tons
Coal Supply 2,500 tons 2,500 tons
Oil 400 tons 400 tons
Belt Armor 12 in. to 8 in. 12 in. to 8 in.
Turret Armor 12 inches 12 inches
Battery armor 6 in. 6-1/2 in.
Smoke stack protection 6 inches 9-1/2 inches
l2-inch guns Ten Ten
5-inch guns Fourteen Sixteen
Speed 21 knots 20.75 knots
The _Florida_ has Parsons turbines working on four shafts and generates
28,000 horse-power.
The United States Navy has planned to lay down next year (1911) two
ships of 32,000 tons armed with l4-inch guns, each to cost eighteen
million dollars as compared with the $11,000,000 ships of 1910.
The following are to be some of the features of the projected ships,
which are to be named the _Arkansas_ and _Wyoming_.
554 ft. long, 93 ft. 3 in. beam, 28 ft. 6 in. draft, 26,000 tons
displacement, 28,000 horse-power, 30 1/2 knots speed, 1,650 to 2,500
tons coal supply, armament of twelve l2-inch guns, twenty-one 5-inch,
four 3-pounders and two torpedo tubes.
Fittings in recent United States battleships are for 21-inch torpedoes.
The armor is to be 11 inch on belt and barbettes and on sides 8 inches,
and each ship is to carry a complement of 1,115 officers and men. Two
of the turrets will be set forward on the forecastle deck, which will
have 28 feet, freeboard, the guns in the first turret being 34 feet
above the water and those of the second about 40 feet. Aft of the
second turret will be the conning tower, and then will come the fore
fire-control tower or lattice mast, with searchlight towers carried
on it. Next will come the forward funnel, on each side of which will
be two small open rod towers with strong searchlights. Then will come
the main fire-control tower and the after funnel and another open
tower with searchlight. The two lattice steel towers are to be 120
feet high and 40 feet apart. The four remaining turrets will be abaft
the main funnel, the third turret having its guns 32 feet above water;
those in the other turrets about 25 feet above the water. The guns
will be the new 50-calibre type. All twelve will have broadside fire
over a wide arc and four can be fired right ahead and four right astern.