BOOKS • FIGHTING SHIPS.* EACH year's experience enables Mr. Jane
to improve the arrangement of his well-known annual, and if the • Fighting Slips, 1814. Edited by Fred T. Jane. London: Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. [21s. net.] improvements at the end of sixteen years are necessarily not drastic, they are at least appreciable. The principal improve- ment this year is in the drawing of the silhouettes by which ships may be readily recognized from their shapes. In the past Mr. Jane has given different silhouettes even for ships of the same class when they varied slightly in detail. Such conscientious treatment has at last become impossible owing to the increase of slight differences in the same classes. Certainly this is a case whore excess of care defeats the whole object—which is quick recognition. If the silhouettes are not both simple and as few as possible they cannot be cf great use. Another change in the new edition is that not all the silhouettes of Dreadnoughts are broadside drawings. The idea underlying this change is that a ship is rarely seen exactly broadside. Even though she may appear to be pre- senting her whole length to the spectator, she is generally, as a matter of fact, at an angle, and even a slight angle causes distinct features to merge into one another. The faithful artist who draws a silhouette figure of a ship broadside with all her guns showing draws what is seldom seen ; the guns recede into the mass when the ship is at an angle, and we think the new silhouettes may have great practical value. At the same time, it is an open question whether a drawing for purposes of identification should be what may be called an artist's impression of the object as he sees it—a representation optically correct—or whether it should represent the ship as she actually is. Mr. Jane invites opinions on this subject. Meanwhile he is surely right in eliminating from his silhouettes every superfluous detail.
The vicissitudes in the designing of ships and guns are extraordinarily interesting. The " hundred and eleven ton" guns which we were familiar with nearly thirty years ago gave place to smaller but really more useful guns, and then it seemed that the size of guns was not likely to be again increased. But we know better now. The resisting power of continually improving armour again forced up the calibre of guns. The largest possible gun again fills the picture, and owing to the increase of the tonnage of ships it is comfort- ably carried. The Benbow ' in 1887 carried two " hundred and eleven ton" guns, that is to say, two 16.5-inch guns. The latest Dreadnoughts, which are not yet completed, will carry at least eight 15-inch guns. At the moment a contrary movement is going on, however, between the sizes of ships and of guns. The latest British Dread- noughts which have been laid down are a little smaller than their immediate predecessors, while the intention is that if possible they shall carry two more (ten instead of eight) 15-inch guns. How the problem of the limit of size in ships will be settled it is too soon yet to say. The naval lighting in the present war will no doubt determine the future course of all the navies of the world. The very
large ship has the advantage, apart from gun-power, of habitability," habitability," which means ability to keep the seas for long
periods without loss of moral among the men through sheer discomfort. On the other hand, to tie up so much capital value in a single vessel is perhaps to put too many eggs in one basket. And there are many experts who believe that the lesson of the victory of the small British ships over the larger vessels of the Spanish Armada is a lesson that may by no means have ceased to be true even for the navies of to-day. Perhaps it would not be unfair to say that Britain, having once set the example to the world of building Dreadnoughts, could not have afforded to change her policy, even if she had desired to do so—we do not say or suppose that the Admiralty did desire to do so—lest, after all, when she had abandoned her own policy it might turn out to be the right one. At all events, the latest tendency of the Admiralty is to build ships no larger than is necessary for carrying the required number of heavy guns. Thus the dis- placement of the last Dreadnoughts to be laid down is about 25,750 tons, whereas the Dreadnoughts of the preceding year have a displacement of about 27,500 tons. The 1914 Estimates provided for three Royal Sovereigns' (i.e., the 25,750-ton class) and only one ' Queen Elizabeth' (i.e., the 27,500-ton class).
The ships of the 1911-12 Estimates were the first to be heavily armoured against aerial attack, the magazines, among other particularly vulnerable places, having special crowns. The Dreadnoughts of the next year's Estimates are being provided with a special protection for the funnels. The ships of the 1913-14 Estimates will burn both coal and oil, but the ships of the 1912-13 Estimates ('Queen Eliza- beth' class) will burn only oil. This may seem to be a hesitation in the policy of using oil, but, as a matter of fact, oil is steadily displacing coal. It is interesting to look back to the measurements of the Dreadnought' (launched February, 1906), which gave her name to the whole class of modern battleships. Her displacement is 17,900 tons, and she carries ten 12-inch guns. She was the first battleship in which the officers were placed forward and the crew aft. The largest battleships of the pre-Dreadnought period were the Lord Nelson' and Agamemnon,' with a dis- placement of 16,500 tons. Although they were designed before the 'Dreadnought,' they were actually launched after her. Their chief weapons are four 12-inch and ten 9.2-inch guns. The latest designed German battleships, which are to carry eight 15-inch guns, are, like our own ships that will carry similar guns, not yet completed. Their displacement will be about 28,000 tons Germany has not yet adopted the back- ward tendency in size. No German Dreadnoughts in commis- sion have guns larger than 12-inch. Our 13-inda guns in the ships in commission give us a distinct superiority in gun-power.
A glance at the photographs of the British destroyers shows how this class of vessel rather suddenly took leave of the old days when a destroyer was regarded as a sort of swift war canoe that darted out on the enemy from home waters but did not go far away. The enterprise of the young officers who commanded these vessels caused them—to the eternal credit of the Navy—to be used for more arduous duties than their designers had ever had in mind. Destroyers began to keep the sea in all weather. Many of us will remember the shock with which we heard of the loss of the Cobra' in the North Sea. She simply broke her back, we believe, owing to some hogging or sagging strain. Why, it was asked, should our sailors be sent to sea in vessels quite unequal to the stresses put upon them F The answer was that the daring of the Navy had outrun the original conception of the proper functions of a destroyer. Naval architecture overtook per- sonal enterprise by building what was known as the River class of 1903-5 (now known as the E class), vessels with the bows built up very high, and capable of plunging into any sort of sea. The theory of fast scouts may, as is generally believed, have been a mistake, for destroyers are capable of performing all the duties assigned to a scout ; and yet the newly designed " flotilla leaders " will be scarcely distinguishable, so far as we can see, from the discredited scouts. The modern destroyer does all the work of the old torpedo-boat. Since 1908 no torpedo-boats have been built. Now that the destroyer is in every sense a sea-keeping vessel, one of the most important problems is how to provide her with machinery that will give her a cruising speed so that she may have a great radius of action with economy in fuel. Some of the destroyers have oil engines for cruising at less than their full speed, but this plan is not likely to be followed further, as even when a destroyer is cruising she may have to develop her full speed at very short notice, and this necessitates the keeping up of steam at the same time that the oil engines are being used. In the latest destroyers of the United States Navy—and this example may be imitated by the world—reciprocating engines have been fitted for use at cruising speeds. The main turbines give a speed of 29i knots. The cruising engines are placed at the forward end of the turbine engines, and are connected with and disconnected from the shaft by a clutch.
We have already said that the use of oil fuel in the British Navy is steadily increasing. The Commission on oil fuel has recently issued a statement that the advantages of oil are conclusively established, and that it must be used if the Fleet is to be maintained in the highest state of efficiency. The only other Navy besides the British which is largely employ- ing oil is that of the United States. So far as one can foresee, the ships of the future will burn only oil. While the British Admiralty has secured control of a Persian oilfield, the United States Navy has an oilfield in California.
The development of the destroyer is being paralleled by the submarine. The submarine is already a cruiser capable of keeping the sea for considerable periods. In her latest form she is able to fire torpedoes from broadside tubes instead of only from the bows, as in the earlier types. But it must be admitted that the lack of beam in submarines makes the handling of torpedoes at right angles to the length of the vessel very
difficult. It is a curious fact that while one school of thought —a small one, no doubt—tells us that the submarine has already rendered battleships obsolete, the latest tendency is to deprive battleships of one of their protections against torpedoes—their torpedo nets. The problem of endowing a battleship with her own power of resistance against
torpedo attack from submarines is not yet solved. Extra thick armour is of little use. Mr. Charles De Grave Sells, in an article on "The Progress of Warship Engineering" in Mr. Jane's book, says on this subject :— "The plan which seems to have given the best results so far, is to place the armour as near as possible to the skin of the vessel but largely independent of it, and its component parts are also comparatively independent in a fore and aft direction; its attach- ments also are so arranged that although it may give its full protective power in arresting the rush of the torpedo, their destruction may not destroy the watertight jointing of the com- partment, and finally particular attention is given to the arrange- ment of the jointing of the inner protective bulkhead and to its design so that its strength and attachments may be as uniform as possible. This last defence is of course placed as far as possible from the outer skin and is continuous longitudinally, the cross bulkheads terminating on one side and continuing on the other, instead of the usual plan of the cross bulkheads being continuous and the longitudinal ones meeting at them."
After all, whatever relative values we may place upon armour and speed in problems of defence and offence, we are all agreed that both offence and defence require the highest possible gun-power. That is the thing of paramount importance. In addition to the cruising submarine, we must
mention the new idea of a smaller submarine which may be carried on board a large vessel, and can be placed in the sea when the scene of operations has been reached. It is worth while noticing, in conclusion, that in the only encounter yet
recorded in the present war between large vessels and sub- marines the victory lay with the large vessels and not with submarines.
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