PACIFIC ARMAMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15704, 25 August 1911, Page 6

PACIFIC ARMAMENTS.

The two Dreadnought battleships which wo arc told the United States Navy Department will place in commission next month are the Florida and the Utah, two huge vessels that have been under construction at New York for a period of nearly thirty months. The design of these ships has been criticised freely during the last year, but the type is very formidable and is outclassed only by some of the British battleships. The republic will have six Dreadnoughts ready for service at the end of this year, and four, or perhaps six, others on the stocks. The Florida and the Utah, like the next two American ships to be. completed, are armed with 12-inch guns, and in this respect Britain, by adopting the 13.5-incli gun, has secured a lead m offensive strength as well as in numbers, but the Washington authorities have ordered 14-inch guns for the vessels laid down this year, and it is hinted that a 16-inch gun will be found in the ships of the 1911-12 programme. In the meantime Japan has. sprung a surprise upon the republic. ! The general belief among the Powers J has been that the 27,000-ton battle- i ship cruiser ordered from Messrs j Vickers, Son and Maxim represented! tho lull measure of Japan’s financial resources, but it has been announced j officially in Tokio that three ships of! tho same design have been laid down i in Japanese yards. Probably the j astute yellow men gave an order to I the famous British firm for tho pur- j pose of securing detailed plans of the most modern type of fighting ship and : then proceeded to reproduce tho pat- ! tern for themselves. Japan may bo j expected now to have at least nine Dreadnoughts in commission in 1914, when the United States is likely to possess twelve ships of the same type, j It would seem that the battle of ar- j

inaments in the Pacific is beginning in real earnest.