Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-05-09
Launching of Our Most Formi-
dabIe BattIeship Thursday.
AT NEW YORK NAVY YARD
Cows. Hughes and Gilchrist to At.
tend Ceremonies.
CARRIES TEN TEN-INCH GUNS
Will Cost 100000 Completed.
Fine Balanced Turrets, Two For
ward and Three Aft.

The battIeship Florida. the most
powerful vessel in the United States
navy, will take her first plunge into the
water at the navy yard, New York,
Thursday. Secretary Meyer. Gov.
Hughes. Albert W. Gilchrist. Governor
of Florida, and many other officials will
attend the launching.
The Florida will be the heaviest war;
ship that has ever been launched in
this country. She will weigh 5000
tons more than the Utah weighed when
she was launched at Camden last De-
cember. One reason for this increased
weight is that before the launching in
stead Of afterward the Florida will have
installed four propellers with shaftinS
and twelve water tube boilers.
This new warship was authorized by
Congress in 1907. The keel was laid on
March 9, 1909. When she takes the water
she will be 6S per cent completed. She is
to be completed and ready for sea before
the summer of 1911.
Fourth of This Type.
Four vessels have been built Of this
type, the Delaware at Newport News, the
North Dakota at Quincy. Mass, the
Utah at Camden, and the Florida at New
York.
The Florida, the last to be launched. is
the most powerful of the quartet. The
cost of the hull and the machinery of
this vessel will be $6O0O,OOO.
Her length is 500 feet, beam 81 feet 2
Inches and mean draught q feet 3 inches.
The armor consists OF a belt eleven inch
es thick amidships, which is more than
eight feet wide. Above this is a second
belt eight feet wide of an average thick
ness of nine inches. The lower water
1oe1 G CT IN cfo
the upper belt reaches from the forward
to the after turret.
The turrets in which the big guns are
carried have steel armor from eight to
twelve inches thick. The arnor to pro-
tect the secondary battery is six and one
half inches in thickness, and walls OF
armor are placed around all vulnerable
parts of the vessel. This armor is thicker
than that used on the most modern OF
the British battleships.
Ten Ten-Inch Guns.
This huge fighting machine has ten
ten-inch guns. mounted in pairs in bal
a line on the center longitudinal line of
the vessel. two being forward and three
being aft. They can all be trained on
broadSide.
AS each shot weighs $50 pounds, if all
guns were fired at once they would dis
charge $500 pounds of steel. Each of
these big guns weigh fifty tons.
In addition to these the Florida is to
have fourteen five-inch rapid-f1re guns,
two of them mounted in the bow, two in
the stern and ten on the gun deck, with a
central battery. five on each side OF the
vessel. The vessel will also have four
three-pounders, four one-pounders, two
machine guns, two field guns and two
submerged torpedo tubes.
The Florida is to be driven by four
screw Parsons turbines, which Will
give a speed of nearly twenty -one
nautical miles an hour. She is to have
two of the new latticework fire con-
troll masts and there will be two tall
smokestacks. When in commission she
will have sixty officers and about $50
men.