Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-05-23

belt armor will guard against the rakinE
fire. fore or aft. from an enemy fleeing or
chasing. continuous belt of cellulose sup
PIGMENTS the ordinary skin plating and the
6-inch armor just above the water-iine r.
NOR. and the two thousand tons of coal is
so disposed that it shall add just much
protection to the neighboring engines and
boilers
Comforts and Conveniences.
AS can be seen from the illustration, the
main deck, which is twenty feet above the
water line, runs unbrokenly at that height
all the way to the stern. The result is
greatly increased accommodate ion-not to
mention added healthfulness for the Off
GERS Will now be able to have sunlight and
natural ventilation in their quarters-things
not possible when housed below the water
line or behind the stold walls of protect
ing armor.
The central superstructure. too. will also
afford accommodations. and. in points of
convenience. comfort and attendant san-
tation. these three battle ships will be nat
urally better than any of their prototypes.
There will be the usual wide application
of electricity. The turrets will be con-
trolled electrically, all ammunition will be
brought from the magazines to the guns
by electric lifts. many of the ventilating
fans will be run by the same power and
all Of the lighting, inside and out will be
by electricity. The ships will carry over a
hundred auxiliary engines. and more than
ever Will mecnan1cal power Supplant the
muscular energies of the crew.
Engines and Boilers.
The motive power Of these great craft
will consist each of two very powerful
four-cylinder. triple-expanson engines, ca
pable of developing thousand horse power
for every knot of maximum speed To sup
ply the steam needful to turn the two big
screws quite a hundred and twenty-five
times minute there will be no fewer than
thirty high-powered boilers of the modern
water-tube type. To keep them up to a
working pressure of go pounds TO the
square inch will mean the daily consump-
ton at full speed of quite three hundred
tons of COAL while at modest ten-knot
jog it will take at least seventy-tive tons a
day to crafty the greed of those great en-
gines and the hundred of auxiliary suck
lings.
Speed and Weight.
Nineteen knots may not seem to the lay
mind a great speed after reading of the
thirty-odd knots now done by the typical
torpedo boat destroyer of today; but 1t
must be borne in mind that in case it is
question of driving a mere shell and four
hundred tons, perhaps-everything rracti-
cally being given over TO engines and boil
ers-whi!e in the other case it is a matter Of
1i.JO0 tons divided among many tons of
heavy armor-so much dead weight hun
dreds of tons of guns and ammunition and
the thousands of tons given over to the
structural material which goes to make
such craft strong enough to bear its bur
den. After all that, then the engines and
their boilers come in for their share-n1any
times more modest than that of the de
stroyer," relatively - and the work they
have to do is the pushing of the whole dc ad
weight of 145o0 tons through the water at
the rate of nineteen knots an hour. in the
face of wind and storm. and possibly for
days at time. Imagine what il might
mean to shove all the houses of couple of
city blocks along a track-not to mention
through obstructing water-at such .'ate,
and you begin to see part of the work set
these throbbing engines, which, by force of
circumstances, are limited in space and re-
stricted with no generous margin to Just SO
much material or its equivalent, weight.
Interesting Comparisons.
What the bureau of steam engineering
has accomplished in the last decade in the
way of saving weight and developing power
upon given limitations would be to tell
again the story of advancement in marine
engineering, something too long for the
present purpose; but what the bureau of
ordnance has attained in the same time
may be briefly shown by the element alone
of the Pinch guns of the Iowa and Geor-
gta- In each case, the shot is an S5o-pound
affair, the powder charge half the weigh of
the projectile, but the muZZIe energy of the
Iowa's gun is 1855 foot IONS, with the
power of penetrating 20.94 inches Of plain
steel at 1,500 yards while the Georgias -
inch gun has a muZzle energy of IS 221
foot tons, its shot has an initial velocity go
feet greater than that of the older gum
while it is able to pierce, at two thousand
yards, nearly twenty inches of face hard
ened armor. The comparison tells its own
tale.