The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-15
TIE DREADNOUGHT
 TRIALS HURTFUL The ConcusSion of Great Guns Work Great Havoc NERVES OF MEN AFFECTED A Large Majority of the British Off, cers Are Against the Plan of
 Building More Big
 Warships.
BY ROBERT cRozIER LONG.

London, March 14.-As has been already cabled to The American, a certain section of British naval experts is strongly op- posing the further building of Dread noughts, and even goes so far as to con- demn the type as a ponderous and pre- tentious sham.
 So far as open comment goes, the type is still unanimously accepted and &C., claimed as "the battleship of the future" That is the official view. But minority of officers, whom discipline keeps from speaking out" condemn the type, and predict that it will prove absolutely worthless in real naval engagement
 The craze for Dreadnoughts is strong est among their designers The feeling against them is confined to officers who have gone to sea in them. These officers prophecy that it will be absolutely 1n- possible to work 10 or 12 12-inch guns sl- simultaneously in battle. In accuracy and weight of metal discharged. the recent Dreadnought trials were triumph The result looked well on paper. But no pub lie report has been issued concerning the price paid for the triumph
 It is a fact that during the firing trials men were carried below utterly incapaei- tated through vertigo-stunned, and even insensib1e. As long as few big guns were fired the effects were not felt. But the first attempt to keep up rapid fusi- Jade from all F guns produced what was described to me as storm which played worse havoc among the crew than a possible enemy's shells.
 Even men Nvho were not incapacitated complained that their nerves and vision were so badly affected that it was useless to continue firing
 If this experience is repeated with other ships of the Dreadnought type, they will be able to use only part of their primary batteries, and as they have no secondary batteries they will be in the same posi- tion as the battleships of the old type, which were armed with only four 12-ineh guns.
 The Russo-Japanese war showed that secondary batteries play a tremendous role The only damage that Rojestvensky inflicted Togo at the battle of Tsus- hma came from the Russian eight-1ncn and six-inch guns. The Japanese d1o havoc with their secondary batteries. It was shells from their smaller guns which set the Russian ships on fire. The Rus sian Captain Semenoff, who was on the flagship declared that it was ''the unin- terrupted thick rain of six and eight-inch shells which effected our ruin,' and ne adds that the occasional shots from the big Japanese guns were comparatively harmless.
 As no Dreadnought is armed with sec- ondary battery, it is plain that if she is compelled to use only few of her big guns she will be unable to stand up against a ship of the older type.
 This reasoning has evidently been adopt ed by Japan. Her two new supposed Dreadnoughts. the Alxi and Satsuna, are in reality the antithesis of the Englsh Dreadnought type They carry four F. inch guns mounted in pairs in bow ana stern barbettes and F 10-inch guns mounted in pairs in broadside barbettes.
 The broadside barbetes constitute the secondary battery. These guns weigh 8 tons, as opposed to the 90 tons Of the r. inch guns, and their shells weigh only 450 pounds. as opposed to $50. The weight of their powder charge and their muzzie velocity are only half of those of the guns in the 12-inch barbettes. The real Dreadnoughts have big guns all of the same calibre which could be brought into action at the same moment, whereas the Japanese secondary battery could be used only al a much closer range than the four big guns.
 The two 22000-ton battleships which Japan is building at home, and the thlrd which is under construction on the Clyde. are also not DreaunOuBultS. I1dSh "HA have secondary battery of 10 eight-lncn guns mounted in pairs. It IS declareh. however. that the main armament will consist of no less than F 12-inch guns. If that is so, they would suffer rom ..storms'' as badly as the British DTeau- noughts. but they would have se'ond- ary battery to fall back upon
 It is a curious fact that the Drean- nought's gunners never suffered from the discharge of the guns in their own bar bettes. The shock from which they sut- fered was caused by heavy simultaneous firing of guns in other positions.
 Apart from the shock problem, Japahs s insistence on secondary battery IS caus- inc much comment. But taken together with the stories of the effect Of firing on the Dreadnought's crew, it has the erect of raising the very momento.s auestion' Is the Dreadnought the irresistbie 1noh- ster she is boasted to be, or is she an oyer-armed, unavoidable type, which VIII be rejected by the navies of the future!