BATTLESHIP COMPARISON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1382, 6 April 1915, Page 4

BATTLESHIP COMPARISON.

There are three or four German battleships under construction. They include the Kronprinz, which is nearing completion at Krupp’s yard at Kiel. She is the fourth of her class being fitted with to tain. 50 calibre guns. The designed speed is 22 knots, and the displacement 26,000 tons. She is to be propelled by three turbines of the Parsons type, each developing about 11,000 horsepower. The other craft are of the 1913 programme, which comprised three 29,000 ton vessels, armed with eight 15m. guns, and designed for a speed of 23 knots. One of these boats may have been modified in design, and none of them can be completed until 1916, or late in 1915 at the very earliest, unless the German shipbuilding has received an impetus on a much larger scale than it was believed possible for it to receive. In the meantime many British battleships and cruisers are fitted with 1 sin. guns, several already being in commission. It is interesting to compare these latest German leviathans with the Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s best to dale. In main armament the two classes are the same, each carrying eight of the rsin. guns. But while the enemy’s ship’s 33,000 horse-power will only propel her at a rate of 23 knots, the British craft can do 25 knots. Her engines are of 58.000 horse-power. And the .Queen Elizabeth is only 1,500 tons less displacement than tbe German ship, and some, even of the Queen Elizabeth class, will probably be 30.000 tenners. It was intimated in a speech by a member of the Whitworth-Armstrong firm that their tonnage would be increased to that extent.