WHAT A BATTLESHIP COSTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10079, 14 March 1896, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHAT A BATTLESHIP COSTS.

Jk tho Westminster Bridge Road is the unpretentious entrance to Maudslay's, the famous battleship engineers, who employ from 1200 to '2000 hands, and pay in wages weekly nearly £3000. This firm turns out yearly an average oi 250,000 horse-povyer of heavy steam machinery.

Let us suppose that our war-vessel is required to steam at a speed of 174 knots, and to be capable of carrying coal enough to enable her to steam 10 knots for 6000 miles. Her qrmament would consist of four 67-ton breech-loading guns, ten 6-inch quicktiters, and a small armament of twenty-five quick-firing guns, besides Maxima. She would carry a belt of compound armour, lttin thick.

It is the designer's province to cramp as many thousand horse-power into a certain space as he conveniently can, without addi:>g to the weight ot the machinery that has been allowed when the first project of the battleship was decided upon. Hi« specification will, perhaps, consist of a book of 100 foolscap pages. In these days of rapid building, it will take about a year from laying the keel to launching; and from laying the keel to commissioning, from two to three yeurf. If the boilers are to be of the famous Belleville type, about 10,000 steel tubes, each about 6ft long, will have been ordered from the makers. These tubes, on being delivered, are screwed at both ends and connected with the castings so as to

resemble a !|ot-water-pipe apparatus. There are eight tubes in each set, and each set is called an "element." In the case of the Powerful and Terrible, there are 480 of these elements. After the trial trip, the ship receives her guns, ammunition, torpedoes, electric light, and other fittings. She is then described as being ready for the pennant, and is commissioned by a captain of the Royal Navy, with a complement of about 700 men. A few figures as to the cost of some of the vessels of the Royal Navy may be interesting, more especially as they have been provided specially for us by Lieutenant W. Bassett, the managing director of Maudslay's. Such a vessel as the Bamilies, a first-class battleship, would cost about £870,000, excluding stores and guns. Of this amount the propelling and other machinery would cost £103, hull and fittings, etc., £667,400 ; gun mountings, torpedo carriages, gear, etc., £76,500; and armament, £75,000. Now let us take one of those extraordinary vessels known as torpedo boat destroyers. The hull, etc., of the Hornet or Havock would cost about £10,0Q0, while the engines would cost £25,000. The disproportion between the post of the hull and that of the engines is due to the enormous speed required of this type of vessel, and to the fact that they incur no expense for armour, as in th« case of battleships. Tt> give some further particulars of one of our magnificent warships, let us take Her Majesty's ship Renown, one of the latest additions to the Royal Navy. Tl)is vessel Iras, besides her fivo main engines, other engines for condensing, pumping, reversing, turning, evaporating, distilling, ventilating and compressing, hoisting ashes, hoisting boats, steering, driving dynamos, and driving fans for forced draught. Altogether there_ are no fewer than sixty Separate engines. The tubes of various pipes for steam, water, oil, waste, etc., including those in the boilers, would, if placed end to end, stretch over a distance of twenty-two miles'; and to this total would have to be added the further length of about fan miles if the ship were fitted with Belleville water-tube boilers. To build the engines of a battleship there will be employed something like ten or twelve differqnfc trades or professions, notify draughtsmen, pattern-makers, moulders, turner?, blacksmiths, coppersmiths, erecters, and machine hands. ! Aluminium, we (earn, |)as hardly yet ° e ?fil ,emp!pye4 oil' large scale for shipbuilding, though recently one or two torpedo boats Tiaye been constructed of this material, with wonderful results in the Rwftw of spaed, VVe must consider that Wfiilp steel can |>e purchased for £60 a ton, aluminium coats a(?pu|) 3$ pep lb. Thus, if a vessel of the Hornet or ijavocjt class were built of aluminiqpn, its cost would be just about double, but an additional speed of Si tyfit# W9HW hi obUiuQij,