Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1901-03-14
SHIPS FIGHTING VALUE
German Naval Anthority's New
Way of Estimating It.
LIKELYTO INVALUABLE FOR NAVY

The Result as They AfYect American
Naval Vessels shown by the Method
Proposed by Otto Kretschmer-Ja-
pan, 1t Appears, Leads the World
In BattIeships.
The German chief naval constructor,
Otto Kretschmer, has proposed a new
method of estimating the fighting value
of ships which promises to be of use to
the navy, to the coast artillery and to
ishipbuilders, says the New York Sun.
The idea is to generalize and combine
the various qualities of a ship and eX-
jpress their total value numerically in
such a way as to enable us to compare
all Warships directly for their all
around fighting worth. All essential
qualities are taken into consideration,
las will be seen, and although in all it's
"details the method appears complicated
lit is in reality very simple.
The general proposition is that for a
given displacement the best ship has
the highest fighting value, consequent
ily the figure of merit Of a ship may be
taken as the quotient of it's fighting
value divided by its displacement; in
lother words, it is it's fighting value per
ton Of displacement
It's fighting value is really the sum Of
1.-TWO values, one passive Ghe armor
lprotection) n the other active Ghe
lgun power, the speed, the coal supply,
ietc.). The passive value is composed
of three PARASITIC broadside, the bow
and the stern protection respectively,
Tho dock nT~ntQOtinn hnjnU inPl16p6 in
the broadside protection.
The active value is composed of four
PARASITIC heavy gun power per sec
iOnd, the power per second Of the guns
Eof medium caliber, the speed Of the
ship and it's coal power and capacity.
EThe gun power is determined from the
number Of guns, their caliber, b en-
ergy Of the ~projectiles, the angle Of fire
which the gun carriages or mounts per-
init n the rate of fire.
The effect of the ships speed is such
THAT it enters in the third power, espe-
cially relative displacements are about
in the ratio of the third power Of the
lspeeds. The coa power, or vital fight
ing value, is the quotient OF the total
local capacity by the sum Of the indicat-
ed horsepower and the coal used per
hour and per indicated horsepower. It
will thus be seen that all the essential
elements of a ships construction, ar
mament and machinery enter into the
problem.
In order to compare the relative eff
ciencies of the various kinds Of guns
used by the worlds navies a type gun
lis selected to which all other guns are
preferred by a properly determined fac
tor. The British Il nch guns on the
Duncan are selected by the constructor
las the unit Of reference. In the calcu-
i~lations all the data are taken in the
metric system, and it is assumed that
lO.S kilogram of coal per hour and indl
Gated horsepower is consumed by every
ship at the fighting speeds.
Finally, to AVE some ideal ship with
(which to compare all others, one is Sc
Ilected with d figure Of merit of 1000,
consequently the figure Of merit of any
ship becomes the thousandth part OF
the calculated total fighting value. not
considering the displacement. In this
way the following relative fighting val
iues Figures of merit have been deter
mined: