SHE COST MORE THAN NELSON'S FLEET.
The first super-Dreadnought battlecruiser has been launched at Barrow-in-Furness, the ceremony of christening the ship being performed by the Princess Royal, after 'whom it is named.
The new cruiser, which is a vessel of 26,360 tons, is expected to steam wclL over 30 knots.
In all / computations of naval strength, the Princess Royal, being officially an armoured cruiser, will be reckoned as a second-rate ship. Yet
there Is not a battleship in commission that can compare with her ic gun-fire, while she is larger by nearly 4,000 tons than any warship previously launched in England, except the Lion, and 50 per cent, faster than any battleship. To obtain this extr a speed, it has been necessary t 0 sacrifice a couple of guns and an inch or two'of side armour. But she will carry the same size guns—eight 13.5 inch.
-' To combine witk this gun-power the speed of an express train, expansion in size has been necessary to make room for more powerful engines.
The Princess Royal is 700 feet long as against the 545 ft. of the Thunderer. Turbines of 70,000 horsepower are required, while the combined horse-power of three Dreadnoughts is only 69,000. The cost of the ship—which will be over £2,000,000, with the gums—is considerably greater than that of the whole of Nelson's fleet at Trafalgar. Yet the Princess Royal is not an expensive ship in proportion to her displacement, being £6.9 per ton chsaper than the Neptune. The Princess Royal is the sixth ot a record number of Dreadnoughts which are to be launched during the year : 11 British, 7 German,, 4 Russian, 2 French, 2 Austrian, 2 Argentinian, 2 Japanese, 1 Italian, 1 Spanish, 1 American, and 1 Brazilian. Of our eleven, The Thunderer, Monarch, Conqueror, and Princess Royal have now been launched ; the Australia and New Zealand will follow in tin early summer, and the King George V. and the Centurion in the autuirn.
Towards the end of the year thi battleships Ajax and Audacious and the cruiser Queen Mary are also expected to take to the water.
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King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 541, 12 February 1913, Page 2
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350SHE COST MORE THAN NELSON'S FLEET. King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 541, 12 February 1913, Page 2
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