The Washington times., 1901-10-20
THE ELASTIC BATILBSHIP.
Always Room for Something More
When Loading for Sea.
No Matter How Crowded the Decks
and Hold. Space Is Found for Tons.
Miscellaneous Cargo Carried by
the Big Fighting Machines.

When battleship receives orders to
prepare for sea a good many interest
ing things happen.
A battleship is a complete town with
in itself; almost every form Of human
industry and endeavor is represented
and in order that this floating town
may have its affairs conducted in an
orderly, not TO say ship-shape manner,
it becomes necessary to an icipate all
probable wants and as many possible
ones as experienced foresight can look
ahead 10.
The battleship Indiana is now pre-
pairing for a lengthy cruise at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard. She is scheduled
to sail on October Is for cruise of sew
eral months, with couple Of hundred
landsmen, recently enlisted, who are TO
be trained into ordinary seamen and
seamen. with an opportunity to after
ward advance to such petty officers
billets as they may prove themselves
capable of filling.
This will be the first time a modern
steel ship of this type has been used
for training purposes, and the expert
ment will be watched with much inter
est by the navy officials and others. 1t
will be a test of the idea that young
men for our modern navy should be
trained under the most modern condi-
tions, and not in wooden sailing ships or
in converted merchant ships. as has
been the case heretofore, both under the
4ro infn md
landsmen now in use in the service.
This practical demonstration may be
valuable as a help to decide the matter
in the minds of those who now hold
opinions on one side or the other.
AS soon as preparatory orders come
for a ship to prepare for sea, if she be
at navy yard, she is placed in dry
dock as soon as possible. Her bottom
is scraped carefully and then painted
with care with two or three coats Of
special paint. This done, she leaves the
dry dock and is tied up at a dock or
wharf. while navy yard workmen COM
plete such repairs as may be necessary
or desirable, and while stores are being
taken on board.
Included among the stores are several
hundred tons of coal. Coaling ship is
one of the bits of work that a navy
man does, because he has to, not from
choice, and the sooner it is over the
better everyone likes it, for it cannot
be confined entirely to one part of the
ship; every officer and man must take
a share of the penetrating dust and the
general dirtiness that is always asso-
ciated with coaling operations in navy
ships. Because of its dirt, coaling is
the first thing done. Then, as soon as
the ship is cleaned up again, the other
stores come aboard.
Next TO coal comes ammunition,
many tons of it, of all the calibres and
sorts required for the guns of a modern
ship of war, even when engaged in the
peaceful work of preparing for war.
Target practice viii use up a good deal
OF it during the next few months, for
the navy believes more than ever IN
target practice, and plenty of it. This
Is especially so now that foreign navies
have accepted the lesson well taught
them by the United States Navy, that
naval gunnery efficiency can only be
obtained by much regular practice and
the expenditure of all the money the
ammunition may cost.
1t will take two or three days to stow
all the ammunition needed for a battle
ship of the Indiana class. It is care
fully slowed in the shell rooms and
magazines below decks, under the
armored plating, ready to be sent up to
the guns in the turrets and on deck,
when needed. Smokeless powder has
come to be the common article now,
and it is taken in in liberal quantities.
Having received coal for the boilers
that furnish steam for the great en-
gines that run the ship, and for the
eighty odd auxiliary engines that find
room in the ship for various purposes.
and the projectiles and powder for the
13-inch. S-inch, 6-inch, the 6-pounders,
and the 1-pounder rifles, and automatic
guns, and for the rifles and revolvers
used by the individual officers and men,
the ship takes in a formidable list of
provisions.
To feed 500 men for six months the
stock Of good-sized grocery store and
steel sides of the ship. For instance,
there are 5000 pounds of ham, 5000
pounds of beef, the same of corned beef,
the same of navy salt beef (the latter
familiarly known in the service as salt
horse), and as much fresh meat, usual
ly beef, as the cold storage facilities of
the ship will permit. The fresh beef is
received, of course, as short a time as
possible before the ship actually sails;
The other meats mentioned are canned
and will keep a long time.
Then there are thousands OF pounds
Of granulated sugar in small barrels,
hundreds of barrels of flour, beans TO
be baked, coffee, tea, potatoes, small
mountain of them, In sacks; onions,
rice, butter. and the many small guam
titles of less important staples of food
All these things go with the regular
Government ration allowance but as
no ships crew lives on Government ra-
tions alone, except when stern neces-
sity compels them to, there must be a
liberal addition Of private mess stores
for the men and more for the officers
messes.
Besides the food stores there are
others, such as soap, 5000 pounds; to-
bacco. 1000 pounds; cotton waste and
oil by the dozen bales and barrels for
the use Of the engineer department and
the electrical room, medicines and sur
gical articles for the medical depart
ment, clothing and small stores for the
paymaster, various stores for the con-
struction. equipment. navigating, and
ordnance departments of the ship, and
the small parcels of personal necessi-