NEW FIGHTING SHIPS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 64, 10 December 1918, Page 5

NEW FIGHTING SHIPS

VEIL LIFTED FROM THE BBITISH FLEET WAR-TIME ADDITIONS London, December 8. The "Times,'' in an article by a naval correspondent on war-time construction in the British Navy, give.? descriptive accounts of the surrender of the German ships, • and names twenty-one additions' to the British battle- ecruadrona. It :s mentioned that these 'vessels all joined ■the Grand Fleet since tho pre-war navy list was published. Two are of the Iron Duke class, the Emperor ot India and the Benbow. Five vessels of the Queen Elizabeth class include the Barham. Valiant, Warspite, and llalny. Fiye others of the same class, but of slightly smaller displacement fire the Eoynl Sovereign, the Eoyal Oak, the Bamilhes, the. Resolution, and the Revenge. Two Turkish battleships have been renamed the Agincourt and the Erin, and too Chilian vessels which were also taken have been renamed the Canada and the Eagle. There are Jive others familiarly known as Hush ships, including the lvepiilse, the Courageous, Ihe Glorious, and the Frivolous. Thev are all eight hundred feet long, of a tonnage of ,30,000, and with a speed of from thirty to thirty-five knots. Although they are so huge they were completed within a year. While these ships have a combination of great speed with heavy armament on couiparativelv light draft, this would allow them to l>e used, in the shallow waters of the North Sea or the Baltic, to catch and smash tho retreating enemy. M Rosseau, naval writer of re "Tomps," states they have lifted devices to neutralise the effect of < xplosions »s far as possible, and afford Hiem considerable immunity from torpedo attacks - neuter.