NEW £7,000,000 BATTLESHIP

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16371, 20 June 1927, Page 7

NEW £7,000,000 BATTLESHIP

WONDER'S OF H.M.S. NELSON.

NINE 16IN. GUNS AND BOMB

PROOF DECK

LONDON, May 5.

The completion of the 35,(XX)-L>ii battleship Nelson foe the British N<i\j is an event of great importance. She arrives at Portsmouth from the Tyne to clay anti will go info the dockyard to-morrow morning. With her sister ship, the Rodney, now nearly ready for sea, the kelson is the last battleship that this country can lay down, under the conditions fixed by Uie Treaty of Washington, until 1931. She and the Rodney are the only post-. Jutland capital ships in the Navy, as the Hood was designed before Jutland, though the plans were modified considerably after that battle. The Nelson cannot be described as a‘ graceful-looking ship as were the ships of the Queen Elizabeth class before their funnels were altered. The heavy battery of the new ship is huddled forward on the enormously long forecastle in three turrets, each of which contains three lbin. guns. TRIPLE GUN TURRETS.

These new battleships are the first vessels in the Navy to cany triple gun turrets, which were some time ago introduced in Italian, American, and Russian battleships. They have never been popular with gunnery officers, because the presence of three guns in a single turret means great complication. The ship has no stern lire from heavy guns, and the heavy-gun turrets are so arranged that only two turrets, and not all three, lire ahead. Astern six pairs of 6in. guns are carried in six closed turrets, three pairs tiring on either broadside. There is only one funnel. This is placed astern of a huge armoured tower, containing the fire-control appliances and the stations for navigating and controlling the ship. There is a low tripodmast astern. She is 702 ft. long and 106 ft, broad, and will carry a crew of 13C0 officers and men.

ONE-TON SHELLS

Details of the ship have not been published and are still official secrets, so that it is, as yet, impossible to say what her lighting, qualities are. Her nine big guns arc of a new size in our modern Navy. They lire a 23401 b. shell (or rather more than a ton weight) and they themselves weigh a little over 110 tons apiece. They are protected by extremely thick armour. Against attack by aircraft the ship is defended by strong bomb-proof decks of hardened steel. Under water she is so designed that she could resist the explosion of four torpedoes, or even more. She has a very elaborate system of subdivision, though she is not fitted with the “bulge" which has been installed in all the battleships of the Royal Sovereign class. Her cost will be about £7,000,000 (as compared with £5,843,(XX) for the much larger Hood);'the cost of annual upkeep will be £432,000.

How many aeroplanes and catapults for discharging them at sea she will carry has not yet been disclosed. American battleships eacli carry one scouting and two lighting aeroplanes, with usually two catapults.