The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-02-27
BIG GUNS APL0AT.


Since tho great naval powers Of the world
went into the competition 10 see which should
build tho biggest most powerful and most
heavily plated ironeladf, and arm them with
tho most tremendous guns, tho cost Of
nAyis, sluAys enormous, has rapidly In
creased, The limit Of thickness of armor q
vessel cas- carry, and tho slao Of tho rlHei
which may DO forged, not yet having been
reached, tho longer the contest lasts tho
greater will DO tho expense Of each successive
ronelad,
When England essAyed 10 beat the world
with tho lnneSlble-A name 10 strike terror
Italy accepted tho challenge and laid down
tho Duilio and tho Dandolo which left her
behind both rs respects armor mud Arma-
ment, The lnileIibls's two turreh have Nv
each two sl.ton rAes. In those Of the ltal-
ian vessels Aro rifles Of 100 tons, throwing
Hhota weighing ton aud u quarter But
even with those huge floating batteries, vi
which English journals lsok In alarm, The
Italians Rre moi satisfied, They have gono 10
work 10 build two others which will far out
strip them,
The Dullo and the DAndolo aro each $3.50
foot long and IA feet broad. They draw 20
foot, hayO n displacement of 1860 tons, and
hre driven by engines Of 1900 indicated
horsepower vi speed Of IA knots. But the
Italia, now building nj CAstellAmnrc, and the
Lepanto nj Leghorn, ARE 400 feet long, u
broad, and Of u draught Of so feet, willis
their displacement Is 1880 tons and their
engines Of $4,000 horse power are 10 drive
them ut n speed of 10 knots II they takO
M many years TO complete M the Duillo took
somewhere about 1880 wO shall reNd of their
trial trips, and be told that guns Of 200 tons
or thereabout, which may DO reNdy by that
time, hro mounted In their turrets and ready
to throw tons Of iron fur beyond the nine
miles which are the range Of tho present 100
ton guns,
We Soc therefore, that tho English lnlIi-
bic, which Is just completing, is only puny
thing IN comparison with tho ships Italy now
has and Is constructing, and that IL England
wishes TO keep up in the ironclad race IL
must not only bent tho lnleNlbe M she beats
tho Warrior, but also outstrip tho Italia and
Lcpanto In armor, armament, engine power
AMI speed Even the Duilio has cost Si,-
100000, md every time ono of her guns d
fired 5000 worth Of powder and iron Is shot
away. Her coal bunkors carry $50 tons Of
coNl, and TO keep her nj sea n princes rev.
onuc would be required. When it comes TO
the new Italian ships we must greatly swell
these enormous figures.
An idea of what il costs to build and
maintain in repair u modern navy which
tries Mt nll TO keep up with the times, is fur
nished in the report Of the Accommodation
eral of the British navy for 1873. In 1873
compa atvcly good sense reigned in the
British admiralty, and only 100000 was
spent in the construction of ironclads and
unarmored vessels. But such nm cutlery
was raised over the decline Of the navy that
in 1874 this expenditure WAS increased by
so per cent, and in 1873 it had risen to over
Sl4,500000 On ronclads alone over $780,
600 was spent in 1873. And yet to-day there
is not in the British navy an armored
ship which the new Italian constructions do
not put in an inferior place, and if the Italia
and Lepanto may be accepted as the latest
necessities and highest types of ironclad, the
English navy is even no" more or less anti
quated
What II has cost to build the huge ron
clads, which are still scarcely available for
use, and which would hesitate about keeping
very near tho Duiio in naval contest is
shown by a few figures. The Dreamnaught
and the Inllexible, which at the close of 1878
were completed for sea, had already cost re-
spectively $2875, 900 and 2,S25,000, and tho
Temeraire, still incomplete, had eaten up
about S2,500,000. In 1873, also, the item of
repairs alone Of ships armored and unar-
mored amounted to over S5,50O,000, Secor
Robson might not have thought much of
getting away with all that money on the pre-
text of tlnkering up his rattletraps, but it is a
startling sum TO spend in a single year for
repairs Of ships.
The figures show us how enormously cost
ly amodern navy Is even when it is honestly
managed, as tits in England. And the eX-
pense as we have shown, is steadily incroas-
ing as the preposterous contest between
guns and armor, and armor and armor, goes
on. Not only is the cost of the materials
used in ship building much larger than it
was formerly, but all the requirements of
modern naval warfare are of the most eX-
pensive character. A whole fleet might once
have been put to sea for what it now costs to
build and equip a single Italia or a Lepanto.
And yet what have the nations which are
pouring out all this money to show for it
in the way of actual results accomplished
in war, and when and where in the Gil
gantic wars of the last fifteen years have
great ironcads contributed in any import
ant degree to the issue of the contest
asasssss