Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-27
THE NEW LOUISIANA
Will Be the Mightiest of
Modern Battle Ships.
AN l8,0OO-T0N TITAN
NEW IDEAS IN CONSTRUCTION
AND MOSTLY AMERICAN.
-rer Armament and Krupp Armor Belt
to Protect the Big
Guns.
AN l8,OOO-TON TITAN


Written Tor The Evening Star.
Next Wednesday, at noon biGs VIII be
opened in the Navy Department for the
construction of the migEtiest battle ship
yet designed for any service, This story of
increasing size and added powef has been
the story ever since our first battle ships Of
the new navy planned, and it has
been a steady growth in magnitude from
a mass of 10, coo tons t. the present Titans of
1900 tons-pretty nearly double in diz-
placement the famous Oregon, that did so
handsomely at Santiago.
The last session of Congress authorized,
among others, the building of two battle
ships which are now known as the Con-
necticut and the Louisiana The C0rnec j.
cut is already in course of laying-d9wn at
the Brooklyn navy yard, while bids for the
Louisiana will be a source of some pretty
keen competition to judge by the numb r
of firms that have asked for plans.
The Connecticut and the Louisiana are
essentially wide departures from anything
Yet designed for our service, and they
promise to stand as type-ships fer some
years to come, and as such will b. the
nucleus Of a homogeneous fighting 70 ce-
some thing that means so much for unity of
action in the hour of battle and so much
toward reasonableness of upl:eep in times
of peace.
So far as figures will tell the sto.y the
principal dimensions and the general fea-
lures are:
Length lead water line ..............lTO it,
Extreme beam at LOAD wate, line 7G it 10 in in:
Mean draft at that dsra@emcnt 2o #, S' in
ETi lead 5t ,aii 6s Is $50 tons
Maximum indirated horse power. I ~ 5G6
Maximum coal bunker capacity. . 200 toms
Complement officers scarncn and marines sol
To make the ships weatherly under all
reasonable conditions and to enable them to
fight their guns when it is at all possible
to do 50 they have a uniform freeboard of
eighteen feet above the water line at the
main deck from bow to stern. Incidentally
but no less important than the other CON
sderatiOns. this freebOard will result in
amply light and airy accommodations for
the whole ships complement, while bounti-
full space will be afforded for the stova ICE
of the crews hammocks where they NAV be
sun bathed. This is one of the prime fac
tors in maintaining the health of a BODY
of men so closely housed, and it has been
carefully studied.
To guard the ships against the attack of
an enemys piercing projectiles there
will be a complete water-line belt of Krupp
armor feet inches wide. For distance
of 200 feet amidships behind and below
which Will be housed the engines and boil
ers, this belt will have maximum thick
ness of eleven inches. and thence to the
bow nd to the stern will gradually taper to
inches. Above the thick amidship armor
fore and aft for a distance of 2S4 feet the
sides will be coateI with 6-inch armor and
again. above this, throughout the space oc-
cupied by the 7-inch guns the sides will
be covered with finch armor. A protective
deck 11a inches thick on the fiat portion and
> inches thick on the slopes will reach from
bow to stern generally on level with the
top of the heavy water-line belt while
stout athwartship bulkheads 6 and inches
thick will oppose an enemy's raking fire.
All of this armor is Krupp armor and the
very best Of that.
The Coming Tower.
The ship will be fought from a coming
tower lying just beneath the upper forward
bridge. 1t is deck higher than heretofore
placed in our ships, and commands a CORE
spondingly increased field of observation
1t will be o inches thick, with an armored
communicating tube inches thick, reach
ing down to the protective deck. Aft on
the superstructure deck, just abaft the
mainmast, there will be an armored signal
tower inches thick, from which the ad-
miral will make his signals in action. Here
will be located the instruments for work
ing the wireless telegraphy outfit with
which these vessels will be supplied.
The batteries of these ships will be eXcep-
tionally powerful. The main battery will
twelve Inch rfatS. fhee secondary battery
will be COMPOSED Of twenty 14-pounders,
twelve 3-pounderS six automatic 1-pound-
ers, two semi-automatic 1-pounders, a cou-
pie Of 3-iEch field pieces and eight smaller
machine guns The 12-nch guns can be
swept through arcs Of 27Q degrees, The
S-inch guns VIII be fh6Unted in pairs In four
smaller tutrets of the same general type
but having an armor thickness of six and
SIX and half inches, with barbettes also
reaching down to the prote ctive deck These
guns train through ares of 135 degrees and
are also under electrical control The
finch guns, six or which are mounted on
each broadside amidships on the gun deck
are sheltered behind the finch casemate
armor and further shielded one from the
other by stout bulkheads of nickel steel.
The foremost and the aftermost gun on
each side is so sponsored that it may train
respectively. dead ahead and dead astern
in addition to its broadside sweep The re-
naming guns are placed in re-entering
ports so cut that the guns can housed
within the sfde-line of the armor belt
thus keeping them out of the way in a
crowded waterway or sheltering them from
the rough blows of a heavy sea. They train
through arcs of 100 degrees. The~sinde-
pendent mounting of these finch guns Is
the ideal arrangement for safety and eff
weighing 1865 pounds. with a velocity of
1900 feet second, with a charge of only
Seventy -four pounds of smokeless powder.
At a range of 2 900 yards-which some ex-
perts believe to be a fair range fof eofa-
ing battles-this piece cap send its shell,
armor. Compared with the biggest Of
Great Britain's building battle ships, the
Commonwealth" and class having four
12s, four 9.2s and ten 6s. the Louisiana
and her sister ship could each of them hre,
in a minutes time-starting from loaded
condition. broadside of eight Finch,
eight S-inch and quite eighteen finch
shots-a total of IL TO pounds of metal. as