The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-12-17

A444 convert II JUST d. EdFltll1
into steam at a dangerous pressure of
$50 pounds to every square inch Of
surface The bursting of such a steam
ing cauidron would be far more dis
as1Fous IN the same space than the ez-
POISON of a big shell. TO feed the
greed of these thirty boilers. each ship
VIII carry 1000 tons of coal the load
OF. three good. sized freight trains: and
a q speed OF ten or twelve knots an
nouf the ships viii be able to go quite
tsUoo Knots without recoaling.
Belng fighting ship. unlike a mer-
chantman all the engines and boilers
must be below the water line for the
sake % protection: and TIE task set
ne naval designer is ali the harder for
mat reason: but Engineer-i n-Chief
MelEiile has looked TO his end of the
work with th5t care that has borne so
mueh good fruit in all Of our other
ships.
The Fighting Force.
re fighting phases of the ship have
beeh as cunningIy worked out by Ad-
inlIa al y Neil, the chief of the bureau of
ofdance. and the story the batteries of
these ships will tell if they ever go
INTO action is something far more com
Iortlng 10 a friend than to foe
me guns now building for our new
Shlps are very different pieces Of ord
nance 10 those placed upon the latest
OF our commissioned battle5hips, and,
piece iOF piece, are from 60 to 40 per
cene more powerful. Each of the arm
0Ied cruisers will carry a main battery
or tour long S-inch and fourteen long
6-'nch rifles the latter being of what
IS termed the rapid-fre type; a sec
oaGary battery of eighteen 14-pounders
ana twelve 3-pounders, and q supple
mental force Of eight 1-pounders, two
Feld pieces, two machine guns and six
small 9TlfnTD = q for. dirty IL, he
Tops, about the bridges and in such of
the boats and cutters as are armed.
ne S-Ineh guns are mounted in pairs
IN TWO tCTrets, one forward and one aft
on the Il diT-deck. where they command
wide areas Of fire. Four of the 6-inch
suns are mounted at the four principal
corners OF The superStruCtuTe on the
same deck, where they. too. have wide
helds OF action. The ten remaining G.
lnch guns, five on each side, are mount
co on the gun deck. and so arranged
thaS the forward and the after gun on
each side may fire directly ahead and
directly -aSteTn- respectively, in addition
to ranging we'll aft and well forward
as the case may be. The three guns
IN between have also wide sweeps Of
ire. The S-inch guns are to be able
to ire every fifty seconds and the G.
men guns each are to fire three times
minute. The S-inch guns discharge a
lGO-pOund one. BY the latest ord
nance data the S-inCh guns. with IN
capped shell, are TO be able to pierce
nearly Il inches of KrUppized steel at
the muzzle and a 3,GG0 yards are to
get through S14 inches of the same
face hardened material. With prOjec-
tiles capped with that wicked soft
nose OF bronze or mild steel the per-
Torrance should be anywhere from 10
to 20 per cent better, the shell getting
through UndefOTmed. The 6-inch gun,
at 5000 yards. with uncapped prOjec-
tile, can work Its way through 5.3
inches of hardened steel. In minute 5
fire. in broadside, an enemy would have
10 face a total discharge Of 4.100 pounds
of armOr-pierCing DrOjeCtiieS, hurled at
the astounding velocity of quite $500
feet a second. nearly three times the
speed with which sound travels.
The 1A-pOundeTS are mounted on the
gun deck forward and aft of the big
6-inch guns, and up in the superstruc-
ture between the two corner 6-incn
guns. They will fire six times minute,
and can send their shell ripping
through fully two inches of hardened
steel a mile distant. The S-DOunders
and the 1-pOunders are 20 fire ten times
a minute and woe 70 the VentuEeSOme
torpedo craft that comes within reach
of the wicked search Of. those explosive
she'll and woe. too, 10 the men on the
open decks or about the unguarded gun
ports of the heaviest of fighting ships,
for these small prOjectiies have a way
of getting in and around and then eX-
ploding with dire results.
Supplemental TO the gun force of each
armOred cruiser will be two under
water torpedo. tubes. so placed that
they will command q pretty wide range
Of fire while being, themselves, safe
from the reach Of an enemy's gun fire.
ri CHI rrf11 Frea an
orally treated by the Krupp process,
and its distribution will be wider and
of a thicker nature than heretofore
with our armOred cruisers.
The Water-line region will be guard
ed by a broad seven and a half-foot
belt, reaching from bow to stern. Amid
ships for a distance of pa feet-abreast
the engine. boiler and magazine space
lit viii have a maximum thickness
of six inches and a minimum at the
lower edge of five inches. The belt
forward and aft to the bow and to the
stern viii have a uniform thickness of
three and a half inches. The sides
above the armor belt for a distance of
232 feet, the space occupied by the five
six-inch guns on the gun deck, will be
five inches thick, and the same prOtec-
ton will be afforded the four six-inch
guns at the corners of the superstruc-
ture. At 5000 yards only siX-inch guns
y
pected to batter away the sheltering
walls about these six-inch guns. Each
of the siX-inch guns on the gun deck
is separated from it's neighbor or
neighbOrs by steel partitions of two
and a half inches in thickness. The
eight inch guns are sheltered by curry
ing walls of siX-inch hardened steel,
and the slanting faces Of their turrets
viii be a half-inch thicker, with the
added protection of the greater depth
Of the armOT so inclined. There is an
armored deck reaching from one end of
the ship to the other On the fiat pOr-
tions it will be one and a, half inches
thick. and on the slanting portions at
the sides four inches thick, supplement-
ing by just so much the defense Of the
water-lipe belt A broad band of cellu-
lose, above the protective deck, reach =
ing from bow to stern, viii guard
against shot admitting water and au-
tomatiCally plug all such holes.
Electricity is to be very widely used,
and the vessel viii carry power plants
of sufficient capacity to run a. good
size electric car line; in their case,
however. the energy will be used to
hoist ammunition, to control the tuv-
rets, work the big guns, light the ships
inside and out, and to do a fair share
Of the ventilating. Each ship will also
| have its own steam laundry, with q
possible daily capacity for the clothes
of seventy-five persons. There is the
same restriction of woodwork common
to all our later ships and all wood
work not exposed to the weather viii
be carefully treated by a fire-prCofinS
process.
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