UNSINKABLE SHIPS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2305, 21 July 1921, Page 1

UNSINKABLE SHIPS

REPORTED BRITISH PROJECT

“MA RCONI” PROTECTION

According to a Paris correspondent of the San Francisco Chronicle, Great Britain is about to lay down two battleships, embodying entirely new principles of design and construe) ion.

These ships, which British naval authorities' in discussions at Downing Street last January declared were virtually unsinknble either by submarine attack, mines, or high angle shell tire, obtain their protection from a new form of armour known as Marconi tubing. The between deck armour/ and anti-submarine protection will consist of super-imposed belts of steel tubing of sufficient thickness to break the force of any shell or torpedo. Sir Admiral Percy Scott, in presenting Ihe plans for Ihe new ships during a conference at No. 10 Downing Street, said that if any mnny-o’war could he called invulnerable it would certainly be a ship with this new armour.

It is believed that this principle has been applied to many existing ships, for at the same meeting Admiral Scott said that Great Britain possessed ships that were unshakable by any torpedo.? The first new ship will be laid at once at the Portsmouth yards, and the second at Devonport. Unless the United States, Great Britain, and Japan reach an agreement of disarmament in the near future two more will follow at private shipvards.

The first two ships will follow closely the lines of the Royal Sovereign and the Queen Elizabeth.

They are not as large as the new Ameriean battleships, Iml the'Admiralty is convinced that they are better armoured, and that their 15inch guns Avill hit harder than the American guns, being of longer calibre. Their ten guns will be on the centre line, four forward, four aft, and two amidships. The second two ships will be similar in size, armous, and speed, but will mount a battery of 17-inch guns. It has also been learned that the 15-ineh guns on the late model battle-cruisers will tie replaced at once by new guns of longer calibre, which showed amazing results in recent tc>ts at the naval proving ground.-.

It is said that both the new guns and the armour are the invention of Sir E. H. W. Ten nvs on -D’Ey neourt, England’s greatest naval architect, and chief of naval construction, and his assistants of Whitehall.

The new Dreadnoughts cost £10,000,000 each.