FIVE NEW SHIPS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1940, Page 3

FIVE NEW SHIPS

BRITAIN’S BATTLESHIPS’ TRIALS LONDON, April 23. It was .not expected before the war began that the last of Britain’s five new 35,000-ton battleships would be completed before 1941. it is now revealed that all the ships are undergoing their trials. They are King George V., Prince of Wales, Duke of York,. Jellicoe, and Beatty. The King George V. was launched on February 22, 1939, the Prince of Wales bn May 3, the Duke of York on September 16, and the Jellicoe and Beatty both on November 11. Italy’s 35,000-ton battleship Littorio, which is similar to the King George V!, took nearly six years to complete, compared with-the Jellicoe’s two years and nine months.

The new ships are not the world’s largest. H.M.S. Hood (41,200 tons) is larger, and the new French and Italian battleships are the same tonnage. The new Lion class battleships, of which four are being built, will be 42,000 tons.

The total weight of the new battleships’ defensive elements, including belt and deck armour, comprises 40 per cent, of the ships’ displacement, which is: considered unprecedented. The failure of air attack against the Rpdney (33,900 tons), when a big bomb failed to penetrate, showed the efficiency of the existing deck armour.

Naval experts all over the world consider that the war has proved that battleships are the basis of sea power. Even the Italians, 'previously the loudest contenders that submarines and aircraft could dominate the seas,: are hurriedly completing battleships. Britain’s capital ship strength will' now be 19, with five b.eing built. Combined with France’s 11’ built or being built, the Allies will eventually: muster 35 battleships, which will probably exceed "the combined strength of the two next largest navies—the United States an(l Japan. OTHER BUILDING . '

Deliveries have begun of light cruisers and destroyers from the pre-war programme, .also 20 high-speed '9OO-ton escort .vessels. > 'ln addition, at least 1,000.000 tons of warships are at present being built .in Britain, apart from many older ships which are being modernised.

The output of guns, torpedoes, mines and so on has increased tremendously. Gun production in 1940 has increased 60.0 per .cent., compared with 193.6. The present .figures .are naturally not available, but since the out-

break of war this percentage has increased enormously. The reserve of naval munitions [ which, at the outbreak of war, -was (sufficient to maintain a year’s fullscale operations, has been at least j quadrupled. The personnel of training (depots has been expanded correspondingly. i The naval correspondent of * the I “News-Chronicle,” Mr. Hector Bywater ! discussing the offensive power of aircraft against battleships, says: “Consider the area of the House of Commons debating chamber: imagine a space 200 times as great—that would be the volume of fire from a modern battleship in which an attacking aeroplane would be likely to be destroyed.” , (The House of Commons Chamber measures 75 feet by 45 feet, so that 200 times its area would be 675,000 square feet.) Mr. Bywater reveals that the five new battleships are the most powerful and most strongly protected in the world.