STARTLING NAVAL NEWS

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4295, 2 March 1901, Page 7 (Supplement)

STARTLING NAVAL NEWS

The Russians have evolved what miiy bo regarded as a monster destroyer of destroyers. She is being built by Schichau at Eibiiig, and,. unlike, her prey, will have good sea-keeping qualities, ho- i sides guns and protection (says a. correspondent. of tho “London Telegraph”). The Novik, for this is the name of this latest disturber of the existing order of things naval, will have a displacement® of about 3000 tons, and a speed of 25 , knots. In a. seaway she will bo able to travel oven, bettor than a flotilla of destroyers, each a tenth of her size, and more than proportionately fragile and; liable to overstrain or worse. She will also have a turtle-back . dock cf two inches of Krupp armour rising from lielow her wliter-lino, and completely pro-, lectiug her vitals from injury by any light gun fire. While a destroyer carries only a few twelve and three-pounders, this Russian ship lias six 4.7 weapons or fame, besides eight three-pounders and a couple of Maxims, and she is fitted with no less than six torpedo tubes, ail of them above water, for no foreigner has under water fittings of a. really satisfactory typo. She will be able tq discharge ahead or astern, and on her broadsides from four tubes, thus rendering her the most powerful offensive ves- j sel with this weapon aflcatA Even the Elswick constructors have never .given! a man-of-war, twice or three times the j size, more than five tubes. From these ! details cf the Novik’s construction, which have been set forth in the “Engineer,” it is evident that if this newest product of the naval constructor is not intended as a destroy or of the torpedo-boat do.stroyer and ad her clas-s she might puss ; under this designation. There is no rea-! sou to think that she will not achieve ; all anticipations. Bho will bo a most formidable warship, an inflated sea-keeping destroyer cf anything of less power and slighter defence that may have the mis- : fortune to fall in with her or appear hull down on tho horizon while she is prowling around. In any future war she will net ho the only tlup of her class, for sisters, are . bring constructed at St. Petersburg. America. according to telegrams from New York, would'appear to he Milteri ngj somewhat more severely tins winter than' usual from influenza. It is estimated that some 200,000 people in New York and Chicago have been seized with the disease, and abort sixty fatal eases have been reported since the beginning" of tin?..month.. The weather is soft and .unsrasoimblc and this is regarded ns the ecii-.r. Tho t.'.-os generally have been of a mild tree. President McKinley and otber weT-known people have been attacked.