MAKING WAY FOR DREADNOUGHTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10773, 23 May 1911, Page 1

MAKING WAY FOR DREADNOUGHTS.

[l'.r Ki.KCTitic Tklkciiaiti —CoPYiironx.] (Per Press Association.) London, .May 22. The Times,, examining the officii returns as to the comparative strength of the navies, concludes that ojic .preDreadnought vessels arc becoming obsolete .. in ,of foreign navies, ami the balance is not being redressed hy new construction. Thus in ]f)l().- we were 'lVnildiiijjr- nine against twelve .'representing the German and United States figures, and in. 1011 10 to -.'■ 15. AVheh; however, armored cruisers are added to the battleships the figures will'make a better showing.: Nevertheless we, .are relatively two ships fewer than .a year ago, and should : be four fewer if-the colonial armored cruisers are excluded. Hence, it is somewhat optimistic for Mr Lloyd-George to assume climax of expenditure: has been jeaehooSv. GONE TO THE SCRAP.. HEAP.

(By Percival Ai JTislnln.) Seven battles-hips,' Mr M'J^ p ii| lil declared recently ;in .the 'House of Commons, are to be removed from the ef-fective-list of the fleet]this year. Five of these belong to the Royal., Sovereign class, ships which ten years ago wore the first line., of the navy, aiid in which such officers as Sir Arthur Wilson, Lord Charles Beresford, and Sir Edmund Poe (the present Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean) were proud to fly their flags in the days before Dreadnoughts were dreamed of. Eight ships of the class were built under the Naval Defence, Act,:.of 1889—and their design aroused-a furious controversy between .Sir NVilliam',theh Mr) White, the architect responsible; ami the late Sir Edward lleed. ' •:

The gist of the complaints levelled by the last-named, famous designer was that the ships were neither-fast enough nVrV'sufficiently protected, considering itheir size—14,150 tons; but Mr White ! had the full weight of naval opinion on -his side,' aird in one orStlie. many o])en discussions on. the subject Lord Charles Beresford,"in a typical speech, declared :•■ "Naval officers want, above all, offensive qualities in a ship. They want the defensive part as' much as possible,, biit-'th'ey -do not want, for the sake of that, to do away with that offensive power by which they could knock the enemy into a rocked hat. Naval officers don't want to say to the enemy. "You can't hurt us'; tmt they want to say 'We can hurt you'; and that, gentlemen, is the point." The Royal Sovereigns are what are known as "soft-ended" ships: that is to say, out of a total length of 380 feet .only 250 feet are protected by armor (IS inches being the maximum thickness), and the ends are left unarmored. A point of interest about them is that they yfere the last vessels to carrv the old 13.5 in. guns. Later battleships built between 1893 and 190S all have 12in. guns, but the 13.5 has now been revived in a vastly improved

form for our super-Dreadnoughts. The two other' ships which are to go this year are the Nile and Trafalgar. They are generally regarded as the most solidly-built ironclads ever constructed, stv-that the ship-breakers into whose hands they fall must prepare themselves for a stiff task. They were launched in 18S7-8. four years before the Royal Sovereign, compared with, .which class they are. considerably smaller, displacing .-•iir.'.y 1.1.940 tons. Super-Dreadnoughts of to-day are more

thiin twice; this-size, and- cost within an ace of two millions apiece; yet at the time of their building the Xile and Trafalgar were such remarkable ships that many naval, o.fij"eers of high standing declared wo should never again build such size and power. The Trafalgar cost £555.718, representing the cost of twelve first-rate line-oi'-battlo-ships of Nelson's day. With the passing of■ these seven ships the number of armored vessels removed from the list of the fleet in the last ten years since 1901 —will be raised to 53; and in the same period 4S new vessels have been provided for. much superior in size and cost, and. of course, of incalculably greater power. So rapidly does the science of naval war advance that only ten years ago there still figured in' the .effective list of the British fleet ten battleships that were furnished with a full equipment of masts and sails and seventeen armored ships of various classes, including ten battleships armed with muzzleloading guns. The battleships which haver gone in' the last decade include many famous units. There/ is the- Inflexible, which Captain J. A. Fisher commanded at the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, and the Renown, in which the same officer flew his admiral's flag as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean in 1900. There were the Benbow and the Sans Pareil (the latter a sister ship to the ill-fated Victoria), which carried a pair "of the largest guns ever mounted in British ships—llo-ton guns, with a calibre of 16,25 inches, firing a shell of 18001bs, beside which (if the comparison be not pressed too closely) the new 13.5 inch weapon, weighing 86 tons and firing a shell of 12501b5, still look?; punyPerhaps the most noteworthy of Hie ships which have been lost to the navy ■tluring the last ton years, however is the Devastation. • .Laid down at Ports-, mouth in 1569, she was the first armored seagoing ship built for the (Lvt' which did not have a spread of can-. van to assist or replace the engines as' circumstances might require. Funnel - ,' she was an "all-big-gun" ship ' in the strictest" sense of the term, for when she was completed in 1873 she \v >;-t to sea with four 12-inch 35-ton muzzle-' lotders —the heaviest guns up li; that time mounted in a British ship—arid with no other weapons whatever. The to:pcdoboat had not reached the stags' then which to-day requires that on:. Dreadnoughts shall carry small quick-: firing guns for defence against their attack. The Hercules, built only a

yeai or two before the Devastation, carried in 1901 the decidedly mixed armament of eight 10-inch, two 9-inch, and two '7-inch muzzle-loaders, and' two C-incli anc] six 4.7-incli breachloading quick-firers, so that the step from this ship to the Devastation was far more remarkable than that from the Lord Nelson, with two- calibres- of battle guns,' to the single-calibre Dreadnought. A class of ship which has disappeared entirely in the last ten years is that known as "armored coast-de-

fence ships." There were 10 of these in the Navy List of-1901, having been, built mostly'in 1870-2 as part of the result of that extraordinary Commission on National Defence which, in 1859, reported that nearly £12.000,000; should be spent in the building of shore fortifications and practically immobile coast-dofence ships. Nine armored cruisers have gone during the last decade. Nine armored cruisers have gone during the last decade. Seven of them wore of the. Undaunted class, and a hrief comparison between them' and' the Lion, will be of some interest■: — -;■

Undaunted—Length. 300 feet; tonnage. •: 5600;" horse-power. 8500; speed. 18 knots; guns; two 9;2in, ten 6m.': broadside' fire. 12001bs.

Lion—Length. 700 ft.. tonnage, 26,360:| horse-power, . 70,000: speed, 28M knots: guns, eight 13.5 in.. twenty- ! four, 4in.; .broadside fire, 10,4961b5.- : A-host of .small cruisers have been. scrapped in the period difalt with, as" well 'as largo numbers- of sloops, de- • spatch vessels, and gunboats.