NEW DESTROYERS.

Southland Times, Issue 14634, 26 January 1911, Page 2

NEW DESTROYERS.

Tiie twenty new destroyers of Uie Acorn class included in Uie naval estimates for 1909-10 are now completed, and will go into commission this month. Tiie boats are tiie first British destroyers to he built to standard Admiralty designs. Tiie custom in the past has been to furnish builders with details of the speed, armament and fuel supply required, and leave them to prepare their own plans. This arrangement has been found to possess certain disadvantages, and the ‘‘Acorns” have been designed by Sir Phillip AVatts, Director of Naval Construction, so that on comple- j tion they will form a homogeneous group, with all parts of their equipment interchangeable. The new destroyers are the smallest laid down since PJOS and they are Uie most powerful ever buiit for British Navy. Their dts- | placement is 7SO tons, and in addition j to torpedo tubes they carry each two of i tiie new 3.9-inch 31-pounder guns and : two 13-pourtders. Tiie Swift, which displaces 2170 tons, is more heavily armed, but that boat, launched in 1907, is a I cruiser In many of Us features, though nominally it is a destroyer. Tho “Acorns” are till lilted with turbine engines, designed to give a speed of 27 knots, and each vessel has a capacity i of ISO tons of oil fuel, which is carried to tho exclusion of coal. They havebeen built in record time, several of them occupying less than eleven months in construction. Tiie old destroyers of tiie River class, still very formidable boats, will now join the reserve, and the new vessels will he drafted into tho | second destroyer flotilla. with headquarters at Portland. Twenty additional destroyers are at present under construction in accordance with tiie estimates for 1910-11, and some of them will be remly for service before tiie en 1 i of tlx* year. Great Britain is already i overwhelmingly, strong in torpedo craft, ; and its lead is' being increased both in numbers and in fighting efficiency.