The New British Monitors

Progress, Volume XI, Issue 7, 1 March 1916, Page 577

The New British Monitors

The British have been so well pleased with the work of the small monitors, that they have launched out into the construction of a larger class carrying guns of 14-ineh calibre. The following description by Ellis A. Bartlett of some of these monitors at the Dardanelles is illuminating: “It was impossible to tell at a distance whether the craft was broadside on, stem on, or stern on, for she seemed to be quite round. On the top deck, nothing showed except an enormous turret from which projected two 14-inch guns.” They set off in boats to investigate, and found that just below the surface the sides “bulged out some 10 feet and then turned under, affording a platform just washed by the waves. If a torpedo strikes the side of the vessel it will explode in a variety of substances which I must not mention and the hull of the vessel will escape injury.” It is more than likely that instead of the “variety of substances” the space between the vertical Avail of the outside shell and the hull proper of the ship is filled with water and that this space is open to the sea. This Avould have the advantage that the bloAving in of the outer shell by torpedoes would not increase the displacement of the vessel or produce any list.