OUR BIGGEST NAVY SHIP.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1934, 17 December 1913, Page 7

OUR BIGGEST NAVY SHIP.

M.S. -M^f%'"COLOSSAL FIGHTING MACHINE, ■ By Tclegmph-Press Association-Copyright ;':'." "'i''' London, December 15. .fv.Groat Britain's largest super-Dread-nought, tho Tiger, lias been launched at Clydebank. ■ ;. ; .. The warship will be of 23,000 " tons, "and will havo a speed of. thirty knots per hour. ; . , "... She 'carries eight 13.5 in,. guns'.and twelves 6in. '.'-.Her cost will bo over £2,000,000 without the cost of guns. ■ .' "The Dreadnought policy" has two aspects—warship design and initial procedure- (commented a correspondent of "Tile Times" recently), The first invoked an immense sudden advance' in tonnage, speed, and cost, a reversion to an all-heavy sun armament which had been tried in the Inflexible of 1573, and abandoned, and a disposition of this armament which had been adopted in tho French Navy and given up as evidently unsuitable. The second was characterised by mystery so strangely tempered by advertisement as to give to other Powers the impression that we had on tho stock monstrum informs iugeus which wmild change the conditions of naval war and make all existing battleships obsolescent. "The Dreadnought policy" has committed its and other Powers to huge dimensions still growing, to monstrosity as the ideal of warship design and of armament, and incidentally to a vast inflation of ■expenditure which has brought no corresponding accession of relative strength to the British Navy, and has even tended in fhn_ opposite direction. Of the original ] design little now remains except the ox- j nggcratjons. The secondary armament; j has already come back, and the disposition of guns has reverted fo the norma! arrangement, as might confidently have been expected. The theory that increased speed would "ensui'o engagement* at, suitably (sic) long r.ing».i" is contradicted by facts, and the implied desire of the British Navy' to fight at the longest ranges, apparently with the hope of sustaining the- least daman?, is not. in con- ■ sonanre with the traditions of the past. or with the tactics by which victories are won. A fleet of which all the, units possess superior speed to tlww. of an enemy can count on being aide to bring on an action if dnyliglit suffice*!, but can only choose and maintain a fixed maximum range bv running away. Atmospheric, conditions mov at any time impose a maximum limit of ranirg far less than that.which be contemplates as advantawms to the British Navy, and that l.hn object must be to establish superior hitting power at all ranges at which actions are likely to be fouglit. He also appears to moasnro tub power by size Mono, end to ignore the immense Importance of frpqr.imey of hittiug which tl>«. kittle of Tsushima placed beyond all doubt. ,