AMERICA'S NAVAL MONSTERS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1974, 29 June 1900, Page 6

AMERICA'S NAVAL MONSTERS.

The United States Naval Board of Construction have practically completed the general plans for three of the largest and most powerful battleships yet designed for the American Navy, and when Secretary Long returns from Colorado the final details of the circular to contractors calling for estimates will be placed before him for approval and issue. The new ships, which are to be called the Georgia and the New Jersey, will displace 15,000 tons eacji, which is 4,000 tons greater than the Oregon ; will be over 100 ft longer than that famous lighter; and have at least three knots greater speed. They -will be as muich more formidable than the "earlier steel ships of the new Navy as they in turn compared with the wooden sailing lighters of forty years ago. Every feature of their design "shows that naval progress in the last decade, even to those who have watched it, has been incredibly marked and rapid. When at the eve of the war with Spain the new Maine was designed with the avowed purpose of making her a well-matched opponent for any possible enemy, a displacement barely more than 12,000 tons was given to her, with a length of 388 ft and 72ft beam. The new Pennsylvania class of vessels on trial displacement, with 1,000 tons of coal left ashore, carrying only two-thirds of her ammunition and other heavy stores, will weigh nearly 14,000 tons each; the length will be 460 ft", which is 60ft longer than the Brooklyn ; and the beam will be 75ft, against the Brooklyn's 65ft. TO HAVE CRUISER SPEED. In battleship speed the development is as marked. That of the Oregon was sixteen knots, of the Maine eighteen knots, and that of the Pennsylvania will be twenty knots, a sustained rate which will enable her to overhaul most of the world's best cruisers and give her superior tactical power to any opponent approximating her offensive and defensive strength. The armor protection of the new vessels also represents distinctly advanced practice, such as would have been utterly impossible with the ordinary steel when dependence had to be placed on face hardening, and excessive weights prevented the application of an armor belt beyond the most sensitive vitals of the ship, and left the smaller guns of the main battery wholly exposed. The Pennsylvania's main water-line belt of Kruppized plates will extend Bft wide from stem to stern, 9in thick along the machinery spaces, tapering to sin thickness at each extremity, and averaging 7in thick over its entire length. Above this the entire gun deck, with its broadside of ten rapid-fire sixes, becomes practically a redoubt 160 ft long from turret to turret, covered all over with 6in Kruppized plates, which continue higher up on the superstructure at various points to protect the uppermost guns of j large calibre. Here abaft the midship battery covering the after-quarter are to be mounted two sixes in sponsons of 6in protection. At the sa"me level on the starboard and port forward casemate, or redoubt, will fee placed two electrically-controlled baloneed turrets, each containing a pair of Bin breechloading rifles, having "an are of fire from right ahead to 55deg abaft the beam. Below, on the main gun deck, are the ten sixes, five in each broadside,. sweeping an arc of llOdeg. the forward two being sponsoned to shoot dead ahead. The great guns are the four* twelves, mounted in pail's in turrets fore and aft on the keel-line. These turrets are elliptical, balanced, with inclined port plates, and having 270deg arc of tire.