SURPRISE WARSHIPS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1929, 21 January 1919, Page 3

SURPRISE WARSHIPS.

Elill’S OF GREAT SIZE AND SPEED. Loudon, Jan. 17. Sonic detail- are disclosed ot. one of the Admiralty'.- surprises, the “Glass Three’ super-dreadnoughts. Une of them, the Hood, ha.- already been launched, and is nearing complelion, while the Rodney and Howe are well advanced. These will lie the world's largest fiat ( le.-hips. They are only seven feel shorter limn I lie Aqnitanin, and they well curry eight fifteen-inch guns. They are practically torpedo-proof, being titled with a “blister cushion,” awhich torpedoes or mine.- will expmde harmlessly. Their speed is iilioiil thirty knots, and they cost nearly three and a-ha!f millions. Battlc-crai-crs of a smaller type, arc being built, and two arc on the slips. [Tlie liner Aquilaiiia, a vessel ol over 45,000 tons, is 8(ii) feet long, so that the new “Class Three’ ships are 802 feet over-all. No ship projected before the war approached this great length. Britain’s longest ship was the battle-cruiser Tiger (flfiO feet); the Queen Elizabeth measured 000 feet. Japan's big battle-cruiser Kongo is 704 feet long, and the German battle-cruiser Dcrfflinger 700 feet. The longest warships hitherto officially described are the latest Russian battlecruisers, of 750 feet.]