HARDER ARMOUR PLATE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 8, 10 January 1912, Page 3

HARDER ARMOUR PLATE.

— 4-b Many minds are at work on tho problem of making- armour even harder than it is. A German engineer is said to hove scored a 6uccess with, some special aluminium alloy used with a steel surface. Should this prove correct, there might be important developments for light armour on battleships j would mean nioro weight for guns, while it would also be possible, to armour. destrpyors. .The Germans tried armour on torpedo craft somo four years ago, -but the experiment was ti failure. _ The French have also flirted with the idea, and in our own navy, in 1906, there were some experiments with H.M.S. Skate, which proved inconclusive. The&q attempts, however, were not with aluminium • armour, which may make all the . difference. On. the > other hand, a remarkable new invention is being tested by tho United States Nnyj, which may necessitate all vessels being armoured\ under water as well ua above. This is a torpedo, which carries in its nose a gun. When tho torpedo strikes its mark, instead of tho nose exploding, as in ordinary kind, the gun goes off, and {.ends a shell weighing 2931b through the opposing plating, to explode its 401b of guv-cotton inside _ the ship. This is a tall, order, but it is declared' that at one recent te6t the shell penetrated (from 100 yards range) five-eighths of au inch of carbon 6teel, a quarter-inch of ordinary steel, and seven-eighths of an inch of' 'vanadium, 6toel. These formed the side of", a caisson, representing the hull of a 6hip. • /