A NEW BATTLESHIP.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1547, 17 September 1912, Page 5

A NEW BATTLESHIP.

H.M.S. AUDACIOUS LAUNCHED.

By Teiecraph-Press Aesoclation-Copyrfeht

London, September 15. Tho Countess of Lytlon launched the battleship Audacious at Birkenhead.

Mr. Hughes, Canadian Minister for Defence, speaking at the luncheon, said Great Britain had been left to foot the defence bill. lie regretted that Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada Had not shared the British taxpayers' burden/

The Audacious is one of the five capital ships of' the 1910-11 programme,' and is being constructed at the yards of Messrs. Camniell, Laird and Co. The ships will have-a displacement of 23,000 tons; length, 555 feet; beam, 89 feet; draught, 27;J feet. They will thus be about 500 tons larger than tho battleships of the Orion class laid down in the previous year. It is stated that, their armament'will be the same, namely, ten 13.5 in. 45-cal„ and twenty-four -t-in. 50-cal. guns, and thrtv 21-in. torpedo tubes. There have only been two ships known as the Audacious in tho Navy in the past, the first being a 74-gun- ship, which, between her launch in'l7Bs and her breaking up 30 years later, was in 11 actions, including the Nile. It was only owing to damage sustained in a very gallant action with the Eevolutionnairc on May 28, 179f, that she was prevented from taking part in the Glorious First of June. She played a gallant part in Hotham's at '.ion off Hyeres in 1795, and later on she served under Nelson at Naples. While in tho Mediterranean also she for some time carried the flag of Lord Keith. She was taken to pieces in 1815. ■ The second Audacious was a twin-screw central battery ironclad, built at Glasgow in 1869. She is still in existence as a depot for the training of boy artificers at Portsmouth.