IRON DUKE'S EQUIPMENT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 138, 7 December 1912, Page 14

IRON DUKE'S EQUIPMENT

ANTI-TORPEDO ARMAMENT. Unofficial information concerning the Iron Duke (28th British Dreadnought, launched at Portsmouth on 12th October) and her sister ships states that they will displace 26,000 tons and will carry an armament, of ten improved 13.6ih guns (firing 14001b shells), and 16 6in weapons , for defence against torpedo attack. They will be the first British battleships since the King Edward class (begun in 1902) to carry 6in guns, which have been restored to British battleship designs owing to the increase in the size of torpedo craft, rendering 12-pounde«S and 4in weapons too small for their destruction. The effective range of the torpedo has increased from 1000 to 10,000 yards in the last 12 years, and a battleship is not able to ' defend itself against torpedo craft unless it^'s able to attack them at that range, and this cannot be done effectively with any gun smaller than the 6in 100-pounder. , It is believed that some of the 6in guns will be placed on special mountings, to be used against air enemies. Anti-rolling tanks are to be fitted to give the vessel greater stability heavy seas, and the Iron Duke will also have submarine telephones. She will cost £2,000,000. The previous and only other Irori Duke built for the Navy ia now serving at Portsmouth 'as a training hulk for boy artificers. She was launched in 1870, and five yars later earned an unenviable reputation oy ramming and sinking her sister ship, the Vanguard, in a fog in the Irish Sea.