FIVE NEW DREADNOUGHTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 287, 2 December 1911, Page 5

FIVE NEW DREADNOUGHTS.

i « BATTLE OF THE GUNS. BRITAIN'S LATEST WEAPON. AN EIGHT-TON BROADSIDE. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 8 a.m.) LONDON, December 1. The "Daily Telegraph" says that five battleships will be included in the present year's programme, with broadsides totalling 14,0001b, compared with the 12,5001b broadside of the Centurion class. The additional size of the new guns would seem to indicate that the Admiralty has decided upon the 14in gun instead of the 13.5, keeping the number of guns the same as in the past— What has led to the abandonment of the 12in guns, and now the 13.5, is that if the smaller calibre had been rttained) the international struggle for the best individual ship would have led ultimately to the construction of ships of an ever-in-creasing displacement in order to accommodate an increasing number of guns. To avoid this policy, with its concurrent costly requirements in the shape of new docks and channels, the Powers are, instead, branching off into another line of competition, and it looks as though, for a few years to come, international rivalry will take the form of endeavouring to mount the most powerful guns—their number not being of vital importance—in ships of a standard displacement—somewhere about 25,000 tons. Germany, the United 'States, and Japan are all building ships with 13.5 in or l4in guns, andl France, Italy. Russia, Turkey, and Chili are all about to build such vessels. A statement was recently made in an American service paper that the United States Bureau of Construction will shortly be called upon to consider a design for a ship armed with 16in guns. The British 13.Sin gun proved an unqualified success when tried aboi.rd the Orion. The crew , were protected from the nerve-racking ' concussion caused by the discharge of • the guns by wool-lined leather ear-pads, I but even the shock from the bhist as I the 12501b missiles left the muzzle is j said to have been terrific. The roar of the guns was distinctly beard at Portsmouth, 14 miles away. Although the ten I guns comprising the broadside were fired | during tho trials, discharging a total of j live and a-half tons of steel, there was always an interval, almost imoereentihle. between the discharges. Incalculable i dnmntro would be caused to the hull of a hattlesriip if a complete broadside were | fired simultaneously, and such a Rtep ! would never be contemplated. The enercrv of each of the 13.."Sin _mn= is about "O.Orto I foot-tons, a total broadside being capable j of liviTie a weight equivalent to 30 Dreadmouebts a foot into the air. A man who was inside one of the barbettes when the guns were fired said that the sir-foot recoil of the gun was the only indication that the weapon bad been discharged. On deck' the. concussion produced a sensation of numbness.