Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-24
FOR BIGGER WARsH|PS
Present Tendency in Naval
Construction.
FOLLOWING DREADNAUGHT
Germany to Have Eighteen of That
Type by 1910.
COMMANDER SIMS ESTIMATES
Progress Of the Construction Of the
Railway From Damascus to Mecca
Panama Canal in Relief.
BY WILLIAM e. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM e. CURTIS.
Written for The Star and the Chicago Record
Herald.
The lessons of the war between Russia
and Japan have Influenced naval construc-
ton all over the world. The tendency is
toward bigger battleships, and the great
nations are beginning to build them. Eng
land set the pace with the Dreadnaught,
which at present Is the most talked-about
ship in the world. No European power
laid the keel Of battleship for a year.
waiting to see how the Dreadnaught turned
out. She is the first battleship to be built
with turbine engines. as well as the most
powerful ever constructed, and has been
great success. We have hesitated about
adopting turbines until Japan had
got ahead of US. She is having two turbine
engines built for a battleship and cruiser
at the Fore River Shipbuilding Company's
yard at Quincy, Mass, and they promise
to be very successful.
In the naval appropriation last year Con-
gress provided for 20,O0O-ton battleship,
but did not appropriate the money to pay for
it. The Navy Department was directed to
submit plans for the approval of Congress.
Those plans have been submitted, for a
2O,O0O-ton ship with $4,000 horse-po en-
ten Pinch guns. 1t will cost about S1O,-
900. Our most expensive battleship
up to date has cost about 100000 The
proposed ship will require thirty officers
and $50 men.
The Dreadnaught Is little smaller, hav-
ing displacement of $4,000 tons, and lit
tie faster. having speed Of twenty-one and
half knots. and has the same armament
as the Leviathan proposed for our navy.
Three duplicates of the Dreadnaught are
now approaching completion in the English
shipyards, and the admiralty has decided
to ask parliament for the money to build
three more.
England also has under construction three
new vessels of an entirely new type. They
may be called light-armored battleships
or swift battleship-cruisers. They have
the tonnage and armament of a battleship,
with the speed and the armor of cruiser.
Their displacement Is 1890 tons, their en-
gines will carry them at the rate of twenty
five knots an hour, and their turrets will
be armed with eight Pinch guns. Their
armor is considerably lighter than that
of the Dreadnaught.
Germany will have eighteen battleships
Of the new Dreadnaught type Of $4,000 tons.
twenty-one-knot speed, and ten 12tinch
guns by 1910.
France is building six battleships Of a
similar type. to be called the Danton.
Mirabeau, Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and
Vergnaud, each with a displacement of
1880 tons, q, 50O-horse-power turbine en-
gines, four propellers, nineteen-knot speed,
with a coal capacity Of 1000 tons, capable
of steaming $3.50 miles. and requiring a
crew of thirty-one officers and $50 men,
Japan is building seven battleships and
cruisers, and has provided for several more.
She has two twenty-one-knot battleships
of 1900 tons under construction, for which
the turbine engines are being built in the
United States. One of them is the Satsuma,
which has length of 49, feet and beam
of S71s feet. Her draught is 21k feet and
her tonnage is $780, or 2,100 more than the
Dreadnaught. Her horsepower is to be
armament will consist of
four Pinch, ten 10-inch and twelve 120
NM. guns.
Lieut. Commander William S. Sims has
prepared memorandum showing the supe-
rior individual tactical and economical adj
vantages of large vessels, and his conclu-
sions are as follows:
Economy Of Big Ships.
81. A feet of ten 2O,O00-ton ships, each
having a broadside fire of eight Pinch
guns Tor eighty in alb would cost about
one hundred millions.
So A feet of twenty smaller vessels.
each having broadside fire Of four Pinch
guns Tor eighty in alb and the usual inter-
mediate guns, would cost about one hum
dred and twenty or one hundred and thirty
millions, though I assume the cost of these
fleets to be equal in order to accentuate
the tactical value of large ships.
So It requires less men to man the main
battery guns on all big-gun ships than on
a mfxed-battery ship. For example, 1t re-
quires less men to serve the ten Pinch
guns of the Dreadnaught than the four 12-
inch and sixteen 6-inch guns of the Mis-
souri,.
~. 1t would require no more men for the
Dreadnaughts crew than 1t would for the
Missouri's. If she had full complement of
men Gas measured by European standards),
which neither she nor any of our battle
ships have.
30 The complement of officers of the
Dreadnaught is not SO great as should be
that of the Missouri the Louisiana, be-
cause the former requires but one fire.
control party, while the latter ships re-
quire. respectively, two and three parties,
as well as more officers to command the
guns.
SO Therefore, assuming 800 men and
twenty combatant officers in each ship, it
will require 5000 men and 200 officers for
ten all gun ships, and about 16, 900 men
and 400 officers for the fleet of small YES
sells having the same broadside fire. Qnci-
dentaIly 1t may be remarked that IL the
money we have expended for the ships re-
Gently commissioned and now being COM
pfeted had been put into 20.000-ton all-big-
gun ships, we-Would not now be en-
barrassed for either men or officers to man
them, and would have a stronger heeto
~. 1t will cost nearly twice as much to
dock the twenty small vessels as the ten
large ones, and the latter feet can be
locked in one-half the time, which Is q
great advantage In time of war.
"S. From the above it Is clear that the
cost of maintaining a feet Of small ves-
sells having the same broadside fire as
feet of large vessels (of double the indi-
vidual broadside fire., will be nearly twice
as much as that Of a fleet OF large vessels
of about the same total gun power.
80. I understand that the cost of MAIN
tanning battleship is over 100000
year. Therefore the yearly maintenance Of
the feet Of ten large vessels would cost
about $10,0O0.OO0 less than that Of the
twenty smaller ones.
10 The conclusion final Is that for the
sum that it would cost to maintain twenty
small battleships we could maintain q fleet
Of ten large ones that would be greatly SUI
perior in tactical qualities, effective hitting
capacity, speed, protection and inherent
ability to concentrate its gun fire, ana have
sufacient sum left over to build 10000
ton battleship each year, not to mention
needing fewer officers and men to handle
the more efficient feet"
~,.a - n.- 49,,