Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1898-04-08
THE NEW WARSHTP.
SHALL IT BE IRON.CLAD OR TOR
PEDO BOAT7
The Utility Of the Former Involved
in Serious Doubt-Thc Efficiency
of the Latter has Been at Least
Partially Demonstrated.


and the seaboard. How can we deal
the greatest destruction to an enemy
upon the sea? We have afloat four
battleships Of the first-class and one
Of the second-class. There are none
TO be purchased abroad, go far as
known. Such vessels can not he built
in less than two years ut the shortest.
II is as yet question what the bat
tle-ship is worth. The battleship is
wholly an experiment. 1t has grown
up out Of the types developed in our
civil war.
The battle-ship has had greater
tests in its ability 10 meet the attack
OF torpedoes than in contests with
other battle-ships or monitors. In
cur civil war there were at least
eight iron clads destroyed by torpedoes.
IL may be said they were not battle
ships as we regard them now. That
is true. but it is equally true that the
torpedo of 1865, with its sixty pounds
of explosive, is not to be compared
with the torpedo of to-day, carrying
two hundred and fifty pounds and
improved in speed and dirigibility by
later inventions. In the Paraguayan
war, Brazil lost its finest iron-clad by
a torpedo explosion. Russia held the
armored Turkish feet in check on the
Danube, in 1878, wholly by the use
of torpedoes, and with them destroyed
at least two fine vessels. In the
French operations against China, in
1884, hostilities were practically con-
fined to the sinking of two Chinese
naval vessels by French spar-torpedoes.
The most notable action in the Chill
can civil war of 1891 was the sinking
of the battle-ship Blanco Encalada,
with all her crew, by torpedoes. The
decisive naval movement of Japan in
the war against China, in 1894, was
the attack upon the fleet defending
Wei-Hai-Wai with her torpedo fotilla
There were but two attacks made, re-
sulting in the destruction Of four
Chinese vessels, two of which were her
best armored battle-ships. That is
the record of the torpedo and the bat
tle-ship.
The nearest approach to a fight be-
tween battle-ships occurred in the war
between Chill and Peru in 1879. On
one side was the Peruvian Huascar,
an old type OF the English-turreted
man-of-war. Opposed were the two
Chilean iron-clads, Cochrane and
Encalada, battle.ships of a much
newer type. If decided nothing ex-
cept the fearful havoc of modern
high-pOwer guns. 1t was too one
sided. The Huascar did no execution
whatever. Her upper-works were
simply riddled by exploding shells.
The first-shot, exploding in tho con-
ning-tower, killed her commander and
his aid. Another penetrated turret,
wrecking it and killing every man in
it. Eighty officers and men out of
two hundred were killed or wounded
The fight lasted an hour and a half.
The internal dangers of the modern
battle-ship figure largely in the con-
sideration of its effectiveness. Some
Of these are known already without
the experiences of war. Great guns
get loose and threaten to swamp the
unwieldy fabric in a sea-way. The
magazines are apt to explode in con-
sequence of the slightest carelessness.
The delicate electric connections,
which are the nerves of the ship, can
easily be disarranged by the first
shock in battle, cutting off the conf
mander from the men or leaving the
ship in darkness, or both. The ten
derness of q battle ship was a surprise
to the world when the British ship
Victoria sunk in few minutes from
the glancing blow of the Camperdown
in collision. The Spanish Reina
Regente was lost in gale. Some of
our own battle.ships, notably the
Texas and Indiana, have found
trouble in heavy seas. All these facts
seem significant.
We can build a hundred torpedo.
boats for the price of the battle-ships
now on the stocks. We can doubtless
have the whole hundred building at
one time, and it is claimed that a tor
pedo-boat can be built in one month.
More battle-ships for immediate use
are out OF the question. Those we
have are supplemented by six power
full monitors, and these will have to
do. There are those who insist that
it is a safer sea-boat and better gun.
platform, and that it need not be con.
fined to the coast. The old double.
turreted monitor Miantonomoh made
a European cruise in 1867, and be-
haved with the greatest credit in al
sorts of weather. The Monadnock