The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1903-11-12
NAVAL FORCES N
He ARTAER EAST
Estinaseof the onnage ano
Strength st RUSSIA and
Japan
VERY CLOSELY MATCHED
JaRanis strcnasrin Gsess5attieskias
but Russia Leads Tonnaae
and Power Of HersArmored
Cruisers.

Hampers Weekly: T~heEnayies of Rus
STA and Japan should first be ccIlsid-
cred. Japan can land troops only IN
Korea, to make an attack on Russia,s
position in Manchu.ia, IL her trans
ports are covered and guarded$Sy pow
serful battleships and@cruisers. AT h
same@time she must guard her home
ports against possible and eYen%prob-S
able Russian invasion. Therefore ia
pan, whensshe determined ON her great
silnlnediatetys
after hergWar with China saw that9shes
absolutely needed, first of all, q Dow
e~rful@naYy, and@to gain a s~trongNEaayy
she set herself vigorously to Work. In
1896 sheslaunched two powerful battle
ships, t~he4Yashima and Fuji.$of over
1880 tons displacement, with arnlor
belts3of enormous thickness, not less
than IS inches. like almost all battle
ships, except those ofsRussiass Black
sea fleet, they haVe Observation-Disclosures
LOT four 12-inch gun each, with second
AIRY batteries of ten 6-fnch quick-fringf
guns, sixteen 12-pounders andgfYe tor
|pedo tubes. They can steam about
Ieighteen knots an hour, the average
speed of Japan's first fighting line. IN
f1S9S Japan followed these two battle
ships With n considerably larger the
ShikishiIna, which,Sduring. the nextatwo
years, was followed by three more very
similar vessels, the Asahi, the Mikasa
and the Hats,,se These four new bat
itleships have a displacement of over,
$4,000 tons each, and Were when.
launched and are Still, the four heav-8
lest fighting ships in the world. They
have Tour 12-inch guns as their pri-
mary batteries, and these ans are
spoken ofsin certain statistics as quick
firing; if this be SO, they are unique OF
their class. The secondary batteries
of fIaSa& fo11rS f~rafoan1o1Ic1U hppvvG 1Snf.1
tleships consist of fourteen 6-inch
quick-irers and twenty -12-poundees;
each has four torpedo tubes. These six
Japanese battleships, therefore, repre-
sent over $4,000 tons displacennelats
they can fire t~wenty-four 12-inch shells
at once; they can Steamsabont eighteen
knots. Add to these six armored cruis-
ers the. TokiWa, Asarna, 1dzumo, Iwate,i
Yakumo n Azu1aa, launched during
the same years, Of just under 10000
tons displacement each, and carrying
primary batteries of four 8-inch quick.
firing guns, with secondary batteries of
twelve to fourteen 5-inch quick-firers,
with smaller guns torpedo tubes.
HTWo of these cruisers can do twenty
two knots; two are rated at twenty:
one, and the remaining two at twenty
knots. These twelve ships are the
backbone of the Japanese ayy Let
us see what Russia has to set againt.
them.
To meet Japan's six battleships Rus
STA has, first, the PetropavlovslS,
Launched. nine years ago, and with
eleven thousand tons displacement; She
has the usual -four 12-inch guns, and a
dozen 6-inch quick firing guns, with
thirty-four smaller uns and six tor
pedo tubes. She can. do from seven
teen to eighteen knots and has sixteen.
inches OF armor. Then comes three,
battleships, the Peresyet, Osliabya, and
Pobieda, launched four or five years
ago, and dispiacing 1900 tons. They
have four 10-inch guns, eleven 6-inch
quick firing guns twenty 3-inch quick
firing guns and thirty quick firing guns
of smaller caliber. Here. as in the
Black Sea fleet, we find the Russian
ships the most heavily armed in the
world. In the far east they enormously
p~reponderate in smaller quick firing
guns; just as, in the Black Sea they
have abnormally large batteries of l2-s
inch guns, namely, six to each battle
ship. At this moment, therefore, Rus
STA has has only a battleship tonnage
of about 10000, az against SO, COO for
Japan. But within a few days Russia
Will have tWo more powerful battle
ships IN the eastern storm zone: the
Alexander 1T. and the T~sarevitch, each
displacing over Is, 1000 tons In armored
cruisers the Rurils, PaIniat Azova, Ad-
miral Nahimoff, Dnitri Donskoi, Diana
and Pallas in far eastern waters, with
two more, the Aurora and Bayan, on
the way. This will give Russia a ton
mage of $4,000 for armored cruisers, as
against $4,000 for Japan; Russia has
this distributed over eight vessels, as
i against Japan's six. A s%criptural CEN
u only counted the men, adding the
saving clause, besides women and
children" We must content ourselves
with counting battleships and armored
cruisers, adding besides protected
cruisers, gunboats. d~estroyers, torpedo
boats, and Transports the secondary
oersonages in naval war.