OBSOLETE BATTLESHIPS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14726, 3 August 1921, Page 6

OBSOLETE BATTLESHIPS.

THE NEW ZEALAND RELIEVES .ONEThe anouncement is made (says the “Army and Navy Gazette’’) that at Home the Colossus and Hercules are to be relieved as flagships of the Reserve at Devonport and Rosyth respectively by the Glorious and New Zealand. They are two of the eight 12in gun battleships which the First Lord announced in March were to be scrapped. It is interesting to note that with the passing of these vessels the British battlefleet will contain no ships over twelve years old from date of completion. Judged by pre-war standards, when twenty years was reckoned as thd effective “lifo” of a capital ships—instead of twenty-five as at one time—this would seem very satisfactory. Closer examination, however, shows that of the 30 capital ships on the effective list all but two were completed during the first half of the ten-year period, that is, in or before 1916, and only two, the Ramillies and the Hood, have been completed since. In other words, 93 per cent of our fleet is semi-obsolete. It is in circumstances such as these that the Admiralty have been obliged to decide to resume the building of capital ships, Amery said in reply to a question in the House, the construction of the new ships will take approximately three years from the date of the contract being signed. If a ten-year age limit were to bo fixed then, it would be found that of our existing 30 capital ships only 13 would would be under age and the other 17 obsolete.