The sun., 1919-06-15
Interesting Bits of History Cling to
Oregon and Others of Twelve OBJ !,
solete Battleships Slated for Retire
ment-Useful Purposes Which
They Still May Serve
By ROBERT C. sKERRErT.

GRAPHING twelve OF our early
~ battleships. is evidence Of the,
~ way in which our fighting feet
has developed in the course of twenty
nine years. The elimination Of these
erstwhile giants Of the first line of our
seagoing defence revives interesting
bits of the inner history OF the up
building Of our modern armada.
When we tackled the problem Of
planning the so called coastline battle
ships Indiana, Massachusetts and Ore
gon in 1890, we undertook to call into
being craft peculiarly fitted to meet
the physical conditions imposed by the
shallow entrances to many OF our har-
boris and the long stretches of the At
lantic and Pacific littorals which would
have to be guarded. At that time We
were building the original Maine and
the first Texas. the designs for which
we purchased in England. Therefore.
the Navy Department had to blaze its
own way in THIS particular division Of
naval architecture. True, our experts
had turned out gunboats, cruisers, &C,
but the problems they presented were
trifiing by comparison.
New Pace I'm Broadsides.
When the Bureau Of Construction
and Repair revealed to the world the
plans for those three battleships' the
!, authorities on the other side of the
Atlantic sat up and took a good deal
. OF notice, for the vessels bristled with
batteries that far outweighed in their
potential broadsides the concentrated
fire that could be developed by any
naval unit then built or building
abroad. Some day the modest salaried
draughtsman who bore the brunt OF
designing those ships win get his just
recognition, and the public will honor
him for his indirect part in the de-
struction Of Cervera's fleet at Santiago
on that fateful Sd OF July. 1898. The
Indiana, Massachusetts, and Oregon
set a fresh pace in battleship arma-
ments and revived the practice OF
crowding our ships with a superior
array OF guns, such as had character
lied our memorable frigates OF. the
War of 1912.
The nine remaining battleships
which the Navy Department intends
to retire are the Iowa, Kearsarge
Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama, wiscon-
sin, Maine, Missouri and Ohio The
low freeboard of the three coast line
battleships had made them only a lit.
tie better than monitors, SO far Al
working their heavy guns In a mod.
erately heavy seaway was concerned
and the question was to provide in the
Iowa, which followed next, a vesse
that would be able to fire a destructive
broadside and yet hold her own ir
rough weather. To this end, 12-inct
guns supplanted the 13-inch rifles OF
her predecessors-the smaller calibrt
promising higher velocity and longer
range without any sacrifice in destruc.
tive might. To save some of the added
weight imposed by higher sides of tn,
ship, the hull was modelled with 6
tumble home" borrowed directly from
the practice among French nava
architects and, singularly. repeating Q
feature OF the old frigate Constitution
A hit OF Inside History.
The Kearsarge and Kentucky, au
thorized In 1S95-three years later
than the Iowa-were designed after
the battle OF the Yalu. where the Jap
anese beat the heavier Chinese fee
mainly by reason Of its superiority II
rapid fire guns. Therefore, the Kear,
sarge and Kentucky were given an
unusual secondary armament Of 5-inci
quick firing rifles. and the main bat
terry brought into prominence ono,
more the 1S-inch gun. Here is wher,
We have a bit of inside history tina
brings to light the fact that these tw,
vessels were made monuments to in
terbureau 1ealousies. They were sad
oied with defensive monstrosities Il
the shape Of double deck turretsr
s-inch guns being mounted upon eac,
ls-irch turret and fixed rigidly SO tina
al four OF the guns had to be swunl
IL, unison
UP to that time the Bureau OF Con
struction and Repair had designed IN
turrets. but the Bureau of Ordnanc
claimed that that was properly n
province As a result It planned IN
nlsn VI