THE NELSON

Shannon News, 9 August 1927, Page 4

THE NELSON

Most Powerful Battleship COST SIX MILLIONS Tho battleship Nelson, which has just been passed into the British Navy, is the most powerful, as 'well as the most costly, man-of-war that has ever been built, writes Archibald Hurd in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” This vessel embodies all the lessons w’hicli were learn during the Great War and is even more of a ‘‘bag of tricks” than vessels designed in the past. This battleship is actually larger than any of the ships of the same class undei the American flag, for she displaceo 35 000 tons of water, apart from the weight of her fuel stores, and am- • -munition, and no battleship in the - United States navy can compare with her as a lighting engine. She has,

moreover, an immense radius of action owing to the provision for 4000 tons of oil fuel.

If anyone had prophesied 50 years ago that a man-of-war would be built cosling £O,OOO 000 lie would have beer, scoffed at. Yet that is the sum

wliieli has been expended in constructed the Nelson, in the shipyard of Armstrong. Whitworth and Co., at N, weustle-on-Tyno, where so many of the finest ships of the pre-war Japanese navy were built. When it was revealed 50 years ago that the old Dreadnought, with a displacement of 10.8&0 tons had cost just over £600,000. it was claimed that that was was the utmost limit of cost which any country could afford to incur in building a single unit of its fleet, and a good many urged that the sum was much too high. It was, they urged, ‘‘putting too many tggs in one basket.” Their warnings were however, unheeded. The scientist continued to speeds.;; The time soon came when has ever been sent afloat. It is they regarded with, contempt the 14 knots of which the old Dreadnought was capable. Under the influence of international rivalry the speed was increased, together with the size of the guns and the deadliness of the torpedoes, as well as the thickness o< the protective armour, with the result that no one navy was any better off in comparison with other navies. That was the inevitable result of unfettered international rivalry in naval armaments. And then the stealthy submarine arrived ,to render it necessary to give the hulls of surface ships more complete protection, and no sooner had this been done than it became essential to strengthen the decks so as to enable them to resist the impact of great bombs dropped from aeroplanes.

Thus it happens that the Nelson has been evolved. She is the most powerful ship in offence and defence which selves to the task of securing li’gheT belief and engineers devoted themelaimed that she marks as great a improve guns and torpedoes beyond

Unrivalled Gun Power.

revolution in design as did the all big-gun ships which were built when Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher went to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord early in the present century, and laid down the series of Dreadnoughts with which his -name will always be associated. They made all older men-of-war obsolete and in no long time every country began the costly task of rebuilding its fleet in accordance with the revolutionary ideas which Lord Fisher had developed. The design of the Nelson represents a further stage in the evolution of the "ship of the line.” One of the nnjsi notable innovations is the three-gun turret. For many years the Admiralty resisted the temptation to mount more than tyvo guns in a single armoured turret though this was done in a good many foreign navies. But circumstances, namely, the Washington Conference, have been too strong for the British naval authorities. Undei the Naval Treaty, it was laid down that the normal draught of a capita! ship must not exceed 35,000 tons. That provision made it essential to

effect every possible economy' in weight and as a three-gun turret is not very much heavier than a two gun turret, the former has b< en adopted. Th e Nelson consequently mounts nine 16-inch guns in three turrets, all of them on the centre line, so that they can fire on either beam When it is added that each gun weighs 110 tons, and fires a projectile of 20001 b with sufficient energy to penetrate 59 inches of wrought iron at the muzzle, and can send six of those shells hurtling through space every five minutes some, conception can be formed of the devastation such a vessel a 3 the Nelson can effect when all nine guns are firing simultaneously as they Avould do in a battle. In addition to these 16-inch guns, the Nelson also mounts twelve 6-inch quick-firing guns, with 1001 b projectiles, and has six 4.7-inoh weapons for repelling attacks by aircraft. She also carries aeroplanes which can v be rapidly mobilised in case of necessity,

and then sent by meams of catapults

into the air in order to drive ofl enemy aircraft. Immune Against Torpedoes.

But even more remarkable tha

this battleship’s offensive powers Is her capacity for taking punishment. She is practically immune from nil dev-water attack, as it is claimed that she would remain afloat if she wi re hit by four torpedoes in quick sue cession, and no bomb dropped from an aeroplane would do her much

harm. One of her sources of strength in evading both gun and torpedo attack is her speed. Though she is noi anything like as fast as the Hood oi the Renown in which the Prince ol Wales has made his Empire tours,

she has sufficient engine power to propel her at a speed of 23 knots, and at that rate of travelling, particularly if she were adopting a zig-zag course, she would be extremely difficult to hit at anything from 15,000 to 20 000 yards which is the modern battle range. The passing of this ship into the British Navy, to be followed shortly by the sister vessel Rodney, is an event in naval hitsory. Though the British battle fleet is nominally ot the same strength as that of the United States it will soon include and will continue to include for fiveor six years to come, two capital ships which are superior in every respect to anything to bi' found under the American or Japanese flags. This development has caused some irritation in America particularly in circles unfamiliar with the terms of the Nava 1 Treaty. But the British Government in building .these tv'o battleships has not infringed either the t spirit or the letter of that instrument. No official complaint has been made either by the Navy' Department at Washington or by the naval authorities at Tokio, for the simple reason that there has been no infraction of the understanding which was reached at Washington. It was then agreed that these two ships should be built, just as the non-fortification clause was framed, so that those tw'o units and other modern units of the first-class might bo docked at Singapore. Owing to their great beam —106 feet —neither the Nelson nor the Rodney can be docked anywhere east of Malta until the base at Singapore has bei n completed. In the present political situation that is a matter of small consequence, for both vessels will for a time serve in the Atlantic Fleet being based on home ports. But as soon as their crews have shaken down, and certain trials have been completed, they will be sent out to Malta to take their, places at the head of the Mediterranean Fleet.