The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1903-06-20

Two first.class battleships for the
United States navy, the New Jcreey
and the Rhode Island. are being built
side by side from the same designs
and at the same time at the new Fore
River ship yard, down in the south
eastern corner of Boston Harbor. The
like is not being done in any other
American ship yard, so that the Wis
itor who takes pleasure in watching
his white navy in actual process of
construction may find here sugges-
ton of the formidable power Of this
new class of fighting ships that he can
hardly look for elsewh ere.
The battleship is built to take many
hard blows. as well as to give them
though knowing all the time that
these hard blows. coming from mod
ern, twelve-inch rifles, will probably
shatter the heaviest armor she can
float under. For there are certain
vital organs within her-above all,
her engines and boilers-that must
be made absolutely safe against
shots, and the only way to make them
so, since impenetrabe armor has not
yet been invented is to add one safe
guard to another until chance of injury
in practically eliminated. So If you
will Chamber down the slope of the
protective deck" and look over the
side you will see below you q jog or
shelf running along the vessels side,
above which she is narrower than she
is below. Upon this is to 30 the
eleven-inch nickel steel armor plating,
extending a few feet above and below
the water line. and going nearly all
around the vessel from end 40 end,
like a stout belt around a man S body.
This Is to take care of all small shots
from the enemy's guns. For the larS-
cr more penetrating shots, the V-shap-
ed space between the upright side of
the vessel and the slant of the protec-
tive deck, will be filed solid with coal
as a part of the ships bunker capacity,
to horizontal thickness of nearly ten
feet. This is a much more efficient
shield than the steel armor itself, on
the same principle that rifle bullet
can be shot through chilled steel
plowshare but not through feather
pillow
As for any destruction which may
take place above the armor belt and
the protective deck, there are here but
two points which at the last resort
are really indispensable-the two tur-
rets that is, which carry the twelve
inch rifles. And these, from their
combination of rounded shape and
extra heavy armor, are supposed to
be invulnerable. After all, then, we
have in the modern battleship little
more, as far as principle goes, than an
old.fashioned montor-for impene-
trable "whaleback," If you like-with
a few stories of superstructure added
above il, and If our vessel really lived
mp to the naval constructors ideal we
mig find her at the end of hard
engagement totally dismantled above
the protectivedeck, with all her small
er guns disabled and her gallant crews
killed, with her deckhouse knocked
into junk, and her funnel, masts, boat
derriCks and all the rest of 1t over
board, but with four twelve-inch rifles
still swinging toward the enemy and
below decks a perfect set of boilers
and engines and still workable
emergency steering gear.
In order to appreciate the reasons
for the tremendous strengthening in
special plates one has TO think of the
battleship not as on the stocks but
In action In the first place the hull
of such a craft, according to the recent
calculations OF a Japanese naval Off
Ger, comprise only about So per cent
of her total weight. The remaining 81
per cent is simply loaded on In the
shape of guns, armor machinery and
general outfit Yet this weight is not
like the cargo in a frcightor, evenly
distributed nor can it be got rid OF
while the vessel Is in dry dock. Their
again as soon as the officer in com
mand orders her full speed ahead
the engines in the narrow space al
lowed them, must begin to put fortl
the energy Of about 10000 horses OF
the run, pounding on the shaft bear
ings, and from them on to the velT
keel itself, with a pressure or aDou
sixty tons-or say six times tn
weight of an ordinary trolley car Tn
pressure al the thrust bearings, .
well as on the foundations, whic
receive the push Of the propellers /
their struggle to drive the ship aheal
is collectively over 100 tons. SIEVE
heavyweight freight engines couple
one ahead of the other could hardl
exert the same force, Sc, too, whel
ever the commander wants the hell
put hard over the stern post and adj
cent Trainings must stand the strain
pulling 270 square of rudder su
faco-much moro than the area of
big barn door-eldeways through Il
water at the rate of twenty miles G
hour. Every time one of the twelY
inch rihes is fired the result is mu'