THE SIZE OF GUNS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 96, 6 December 1911, Page 2

THE SIZE OF GUNS.

WHY IT is INCREASED

The additional size of the guns to go in the latest British Dreadnoughts would seem to indicate that the Admiralty had decided upon the 14in. gun instead of the 13.5, keeping the number of guns the same as in the past—ten. What has led to the abandonment of the 12in. guns, and now the 13.5, is that if the smaller calibre had been retained the international struggle for the best individual ship would have led ultimately to the construction of ships of an ever-increasing displacement in order to accommodate an increasing number of guns. To avoid this policy, with its concurrent costly requirements, in the shape of now docks and channels, the Powers are, instead, branching off into another line of competition, and it looks as though, for a. few years to come, international rivalry will take the form of endeavouring to mount the most powerful guns—their number not being of vital importance—in ships of a standard displacement—somewhere about 25,000 tons. Germany, the United States, and Japan are all building ships with 13. Sin. or 14in. guns, and France, Italy, Russia, Turkey and Chili are all about to build such vessels. A statement was recently made in an American service paper that the United States Bureau of Construction will shortly be called upon to consider a design for a ship armed with 16in. guns. The British 13. Sin. gun proved an unqualified success when tried aboard the Orion. The crew were protected from the nerveracking concussion.caused by the discharge. of the guns by wool-lined leather ear-pads, but even the shock from the blast as the 12501 b missiles loft the muzzle is said to have been terrific. The roar of the guns was distinctly heard at Portsmouth, 14 miles away. Although the ten guns comprising the broadside wore fired during the trials, discharging a total of five and a half tons of steel, there was always an interval, almost imperceptible, between the discharges. Incalculable damage would be. caused to the hull of a battleship if a complete broadside were fired simultaneously, and such a step would never be contemplated. The energy of each of the 13. Sin. guns is about 70,000 foot-tons, a total broadside being capable of lifting a weight equivalent to thirty Dreadnoughts a foot into the air. A man who was inside one of the barbettes when the guns were fired said that the six-foot recoil of the gun was the only indication that the weapon had been discharged. On deck the concussion produced a sensation of numbness.