NEW FRENCH BATTLESHIPS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1321, 7 November 1914, Page 4

NEW FRENCH BATTLESHIPS

The great French battleship Flandre, which has just been launched at Brest, will, with her three sisters the Eanguedoc, Normandie and Gascogne—-con-stitute a new class differing completely in plan from their predecessors. They will be the heaviest ships in the French Navy, their displacement being 24,800 tons, and they will carry twelve 13,4 m guns in three quadruple turrets on the middle line, 24 5,5)11 guns in redoubts, and four three pounders, while there will be six submerged torpedo tubes. All these ships have longitudinal bulkheads of a new type, being hollow steel walls 6iu thick, the object being protection against damage from mines. The vessels are designed for a speed of 21 knots, and each will carry 1100 men. The placing of the big guns, four in a turret, is a new idea, and it was severely criticised in France, the decision to adopt it being arrived at by the Superior Council of the Navy by only a narrow majority. The possibility of a single shell damaging the whole four guns in a turret, and thus putting out ol action a third of the ship’s armament, weighed heavily with some officers, but the majority thought that the advantages of simplicity ot plan and economy of weight transcended any considerations of risk. There is still some doubt as to the effect upon the ship of firing the full broadside of twelve guns, and the possibility of firing the whole lour guns iu a single turret simultaneously seems to be in question, so that the testing ol the new idea will be looked forward to with some interest. The Flandre and her sisters, all of whom are about to be launched, will not, of course, be commissioned for well over a year yet.