ARMOORED V. PROTECTIVE DECK CRUISERS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 27 April 1901, Page 4

ARMOORED V. PROTECTIVE DECK CRUISERS.

"Engineering" says the velocity of quick-firing guns has so greatly increased the penetration at long range, and the havoc they may do in the interior of a ship, that dependence could no longer be placed with confidence on the protective deck and minute sub-division of the interior of large cruisers. The metallurgist lias, by the face-hardening of armour, solved the difficulty formerly presented of allowing a sufficiency of weight for effective broadside armour protection without materially impairing'the speed, which latter must always be more or less paramount in cruiser designs. When the steel belt required to be lOin, as in the Australian class, the area had to be minimised because of the weight, and it was felt that a protective deck constituted a better compromise in the conflict between weight of machinery for high speed. But first the Harvey, and next the Krupp, process of armour manufacture so hardened the steel that a 6-in belting sufficed for most purposes in a cruiser, and here it maybe said that experiments, notably those conducted by United States Government, that with thicknesses under Sin the Krupp plate gave a higher resisting power over the Harvey armour, relative to weight, than in the case of greater thicknesses ; ahcl the Admiralty have, therefore, been justified in reducing the thickness of armour in the later ships of the Kent class to 'lin. especially as they get 23 knots on very moderate dimensions. These vessels tire of 0,800 tons displacement, but it is contended by some continental naval authorities that armour must Lie adopted in vessels of much smaller size, even down to 8000 tens displacement, and it remains to be seen whether this characteristic development of the movement will be extended to the vessels of the Challenger class—2l-knot 5800-ton vessels, whose dimensions place them in the category of second-class cruisers. Speed must not be reduced, for there is no use of protection if the cruiser is too slow to overtake an indifferently armoured ship of the favorite commerce-destroying class of two or three years ago where speed was the first quality with gun power a close second. And the ship must not be too slow either to keep out of the reach of the heavilyarmoured cruiser, whose presence she is to watch and report rather than to risk anything by engaging her. And this only brings one to the oft-repeated, but frequently forgotten, conclusion that in all cases the elements of design arc dictated by the spirit of compromise.