Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1916-10-25
LAY KEEL TODAY
FIRST ELECTRIC
DREADNAUGH1
U. S. s. California Will Be
the Greatest Battleship
in the World.

San Francisco. al, Oct 24-The
keel plate of the new battleship Cali
fornia, which is to be the worlds
first electric dreadnought, will be laid
at he Mare Island navy yard tomos-
row. The California will be a ship of
innovations. There is to be little
ceremony when her keel plate is laid,
but the group of naval constructors
and shipbuilders who will stand with
barred heads as the faultlessly welde.
!, sltel plate is adjusted doubtless will
feel that they are Witnessing no ordi-
nary keel-laying.
In point of size the California will
be greater than any foreign battleship
built or building. She and her two
sister ships, the Idaho and the Mis-
sissippi, will each displace $4,000 tons,
almost 1000 tons more than the new
dreadnought Pennsylvania.
The California will cost $7.S00,09O
without her armor or armament.
which is expected TO cost as much
more. She will have speed of
twenty-one knots an hour, will be GA
feet long, ninety-seven feet across h,r
beams and will draw thirty feet of
water. She will carry twelve 14-inch
guns, mounted there abreast in a
turret, twenty-five 5-inch rapid fire
guns and will have four submerged
torpedo tubes.
The principal feature of the new
dreadnought, however, is the machinl
cry for propelling her by electricity.
/ She will be driven by motors which
Jnli a1o ri init 40 Inv TOO
/ The equipment will consist of two 49,
| GG0-kilowatt, or 10000 horsepower
| alternating current generators, each
| placed on the same shaft and driv, 4
by a steam turbine operating at 1900
revolutions per minute. For operat
ing at high speeds, as when pursu-
{ ing the enemy, each turbine generator
will drive two propeller motors, and
all the machinery will be working nj
full power When cruising at mod
crate speed only one turbine will be
, required to drive all four .noto's. the
other turbine being shut down, there
by economiZing steam, coal and at
| tendance. On this basis the navy er-
rerts figure that the electric install
| laion is cheaper than steam propul-
sion and reduces the weight of ma
chinery.
The saving in space and weight
will enable the vessel to carry more
coal and thus have greater opera+-
| ing radius, or to carry heavier
armament and become more powerful,
or to have more powerful machinery
and capable of higher speed. The
better economy reduces the coal re-
| quired, and this again effects a still
| greater economy of space. The con-
venience of operation is due to the
fact that electrical machinery IS
adapted to give two economical
speeds and also to the ease and quick
ness with which the propellers may
! be stopped or reversed.
Outwardly the California will bring
drastic change of line and appear
ance to the battlefield. Instead of The
blunt gray nose of the present day
big fighter her bows will be tape-ed
| into a graceful yacht-like stem much
like those of the famous clipper sail
| ing ships that carried the American
flag at the head of the worlds swift
est craft in the '40s and SOS.
1t will be the first time since the
steel ships replaced the old friSates
and ships of the line that clipper
stems have been seen in the fleet.
Her overhanging bow will project
more than twenty feet beyond her cut
water and will give place for three
anchors instead of two as on the
present ships. The third will hang
plumb over the stem. The new DOW
will make her foredeck free Of water
IN all but the heaviest weather The
fine underwater lines of tic cher
ships, which make for sDeal, have
been carried above the water line On
the California. and her bows will he
flared near the deck line, so when
she does not cut through wave she
| will lift her head over i:
Some idea of the great size of the
California may be hal from the state
ment that if the battlesliD could be
transported OF a city strea.. it would
cover more than three blocks, ell
ing the thoroughfare completely from
side to side, to the roofs of five-story
buildings, with the military masts
towering 100 feet still further in the
air: or, if stood on end alongside The
Washington Monument in the nation
al capital, with stern on the ground,
the bow would tower So fee, above the
tor of that monument.
When the new dreadnought is ready
for her first trial trip. late next year
or early in 1918, she promises a most
interesting study for the naval ex-
perts of the world.