OUT-DREADNOUGHT THE DREADNOUGHT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13434, 22 July 1911, Page 2

OUT-DREADNOUGHT THE DREADNOUGHT.

NEW TYPE XIF WARSHIP PROPOSED. To Mount 15in. Guns. A cable message was received last week intimating that Sir Phillip Watt, the British naval constructor, contemplated abandoning the Dreadnought type of warship in favour of a smaller but more heavily-armed vessel. These vessels, it is thought, will be of about 17,000 tons displacement, and will carry at least six loin guns. The move is one that can readily bo understood, because, although very formidable, many naval experts were opposed to the Dreadnought type, on the ground that too much power was represented m one unit. If a squadron of four Dreadnoughts were operating and one was disabled, the strength of the fleet would be reduced by 25 per cent., and out of a total of 40 guns the fire of ten would be lost. The argument was that between a Dreadnought and two ships, each carrying a smaller number of guns, but of equal striking power combined, the advantage was with the smaller vessels, speed and powers of resistance being equal. Apart altogether from the type of vessel proposed, the guns suggested as their primary armament would put everything else iu the shade; but such vessels as Sir Phillip Watts contemplates could, if they had sea room and speed, stand off and blow the whole of the British and German Dreadnoughts to pieces at their leisure. The appearance of these vessels on the seas will, in point of gun power alone, render the battleship of to-day obsolete'. The revolution will 'be jjreater than that brought about by the appearance of tli Dreadnought, for her primary armament consisted of 10 12in guns, while the British King Edwards and many other classes, and the German and American battleships carried four I2in guns, and any two, or, at the most, three of them would have given the Dreadnought a rough handling. Hero, however, ue have a proposal to go one better than anything afloat in the wav of gun power. The British 13.5 in and 14in guns and the German 14in, w,..- which it is intended to arm the Dreadnoughts now building, WILL BE USELESS i'.i the face of the heavier smashing and penetrating power of the new weapon, and probably there will be a feverish international race in Europe and America to produce something that will talk back at the new British weapon. It is not quite, clear why the Lord Nelson is referred to in the mattter, beyond the fact that she and her sister ship arc betweeen 1(5,000 and 17,000 tons, and carry a very heavy secondary armament of 10 9.2 in guns, in addition to their four 12iu. The Lord Nelson and Agamemnon immediately preceded the Dreadnought class, and, with the exception of these ships, are by far the most powerful vessels afloat. It may be that the new vessels will carry a heavy secondary armament of 9.5 in sjuns, on the same lines. This is a strong feature of the. Japanese vessels, built since the war, and perhaps the.British authorities are not altogether ready to rely upon (lie all Dig gun principle alone. ' HOW THE NEW GUNS WILL BE MOUNTED it is difficult to say. They may be placed iu pairs along the centre line, in two three- gun turrets, or in pairs fore and ■ It, with a. single gun on cither side, so i-.rrangcd that the whole six can be tired on the broadside, except in a certain arc. It is not probable that the triple-gun turret, an Italian idea, will be followed by the British authorities, for several reasons. The most likely is the centre line system, (lie only disadvantage being a. poor direct ahead or astern fire when compared with the. two foro and aft and one on either broadside system, which gives the full broadside and four ahead or astern.