The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-11
OUR WARsHiPS TODAY.
To Shoot and Penetrate Armor at Six
 Miles s Nothing Nowadays.

Franke F.. Channon in St. Nicholas. The warships of today are, as most 1 people know, armored; but, contrary to the popular idea, they are not pro- tected all over
 A recent authority has said that the | improvement in rapid firing guns in 1 late years has resulted in armor pro- tecting more of the side of the ship and in increasing the number of guns | protected by the armor. The armor is not so thick as formerly, but this is made up for by an improved kind of material whose resisting power is greater. The modern battleship is in- | tended to combine in one vessel the
 most powerful offensive and defensive
 weapons of floating warfare These battleships may be divided into three portlons-namely the part under the water, the part near the water line and the upper works. In the the first
 named parts are carried the machinery
 and boilers, coal, the steering gear, the submerged torpedo tubes, the ammu- hilton and the greater part of the stores These parts are the most vul. nerable parts of the ship. Attempts
 have been made to armor the bottom | of battleships against explosions of
 torpedoes, but they have not been suc- | cessful owing to the fact that to have the armor effective it would have to be
 very thick and therefore very heavy.
 an objection that engineers have not
 successfully overcome.
 To prevent the penetration of pro- Jectlles from above there is a protect i've armor deck, usually from two to four inches thick, the middle part of which is little above the water line.
 This deck slopes down at the sides to
 the bottom edge of the armor belt. rom four to six feet under water. Ihere Is sometimes second protective
 deck below the first one to catch frag-
 ments which might pass through the first, and this is sometimes called the
 splinter deck" The part of the shin immediately above the protective deck In the vicinity of the water line is sometimes called the raft body" It ia
 protected from the enemys projectiles
 by heavy armor belt. In modern bat
 tieshlps this armor belt extends over
 the whole or over the greater part of
 the length. The gun positions are all well armored. So is the coming tower | which is the place from which the can.
 tam directs the fighting. This tower | ID couhecteu Dy telephones and speak
 Ing tubes with all the important parts
 of the craft.
 lne guns mounted by modern bat
 tieshlp are generally two big twelve
 inch ones at each end, protected by | armored turrets, and large number
 or eight and six-inch ones, in case
 ments, also armored. Just now there
 IS constant battle between guns and
 armor. As the penetrating power of ! the guns is increased so is the resist ing power of the armor increased. In the new British ship Dreadnought the | smaller six-inch guns have disappeared and instead we see a battery of ten twelve-inch guns. This vessel is sup. posed to have been constructed in con sequence of the lessons learned during the late war between Russia and Japan.
 Our own ships now generally seem
 to have a displacement of about 16.OO0
 tons, but the rate is constantly in- creasing. It is biggger, bigger, bigger all the time, and each new design shows greater displacement. To shoot and penetrate the armor at six
 miles is nothing nowadays.