The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-05-07

fatal that hit must be made in vital spot
representing an area much more confined
even than that represented by the deck
Of the vessel. As the cruiser would stand
and fight with armored head on, the chance
of hit being fatal would be very small;
While every torpedo carrying from half a
ton to ton of gun cotton thrown from the
cruiser, and striking the area represented
by the deck of the battleship, would at
least throw the ship out of action, even if
it did not sink her. But, In addition to this
we have the tremendous areas within
which such quantities of high explosive
striking in the water would be certainly
fatal
THE cruiser would have a speed of
from 20 to "a knots and could therefore
choose her own position with respect to
the battle ship. Her tactics would not be
like the ordinary torpedo boat, to dash
into and run Il gantlet of destructive fire
from the battle ship, to drop a torpedo
and away again out of range; but she
would stand her ground and fight. all
ways at a distance and in a position of
her own choice, with armored head to-
ward the battle ship. In such position
the target presented by the cruiser would
be very small indeed to say nothing of
the difficulty of inflicting a fatal injury
upon such target with ordinary shot and
she'll
1.-THE fatal area presented by the battle
ship AZ target to half a ton of gun cot
ton thrown from the cruiser is AZ 143
square feet. and the fatal area presented
to ton of gun cotton is 1872 OPS square
feet, and it is a very safe estimate that
the area exposed by the cruiser fighting
head on would not be more than 1-20Oth as
great as the fatal area exposed by the bat
tleship. Now as every shot from the cruiser
striking within the fatal area exposed by
the battleship would destroy her, and as it
would take a considerable number of hts
from the battleship to sink the cruiser. il
Is very safe to offset the greater number
of shots which the battle ship could fire
within given time and the horizontal po-
sition of the target presented by her by
the superior fatality of the shots from the
cruiser. This enables us to very easily
approximate the comparative efficiency cf
the two systems by simply dividing the
average fatal area exposed by the battle
ship by the area of the target presented by
the cruiser. Now, as this area. is contain
ed in the area exposed by the battle shin
at least 100 times one cruiser would be
capable of destroying, on an average. 100
battle ships. But we can build ten such
cruisers for what it would cost to build
one battle ship, and we must therefore
multiply this efficiency by 10. This means
that we could, for the cost of one battle
ship, produce a fleet of torpedo cruisers
which would be capable Of destroying l.
COO first-class battle ships.
These are, indeed, astounding figures.
They are, nevertheless, based on sucn
foundation in facts as to at least warrant
our placing them in a category of practi-
cal probabilities. Let US divide these fig
ures by 10, if you like. We can stiI for the
cost of one battle ship build a feet of
torpedo cruisers capable of destroying 100
such monsters. Let us go still further.
and divide by 100, and we can still DESTROY
ten battle ships, for the cost of one"
Mr.. Maxim proceeded to discuss the rel
alive merits of various forms of low ard
high explosives, showing the perfection Of
the processes of manufacture and the abiI-
ity to procure a reliable agent capa ole of
producing the effects required by his ays-
tenn.