Match for the Hood

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 661, 13 May 1929, Page 10

Match for the Hood

Germany’s Pocket Battleship Details of Motor-Driven Dreadnought

THE ERSATZ PREUSSEN

; the Germans have been engaged on intensive (and most expensive) research with Diesel engines | has been an open secret for nearly | two years past. The end in view—j the application of internal-combustion | engines for the drive of fast, surface ] war vessels —has been openly avowed by the Germans themselves, writes Maurice Prendergast in “The Navy.” Now that the secret is out, and the German Ministry of Defence has disclosed the design of the “Mystery Ship,” we find that the new vessel is not a choice but a combination; she is, at one and the same time, a small motor-driven Dreadnought and a “Treaty-Crujser-Destroyer.” She does, in fact, defy all present methods of ship-rating, being a little faster than the fastest of modern battleships, and a little more weakly armed than any battle-cruiser. Under the Naval Clauses of the Versailles Treaty, Germany was licensed to retain (and maintain) a battleship force of eight old preDreadnoughts, of which six could be kept in full commission and two in reserve. Provision was also made that these ships could be replaced, when twenty years old; but it was stipulated that any new “replacement ship” should not be larger than 10,000 ; tons. As it happens, ail the eight old German battleships have passed the specified age-limit and can now be supplanted by new hulls. In the German Naval Budget of 1925-29, provision was made for the commencement of the first of the “replacement ships.” The vessel so authorised was laid down last September at Kiel, under the designation of “Ersatz Preussen.” This is, of course, only a temporary title, meaning the ship built “to replace the obsolete battleship Preussen.” When the new vessel is put afloat at Kiel, she will then receive her permanent name. She will, perhaps, be called the Admiral von Scheer, or Deutschland. The new German 10,000-t.on “Cruiser Support Ships” must be: (a) Fast enough to avoid action with more powerful foreign capital ships; (b) Strong enough to crush the foreign 10,000-ton “Treaty Cruisers.” They must even be formidable enough to strike a deadly blow at any enemy capital ship; (c) Finally, the new “Cruiser Supports” must possess, to the highest possible degree, security against loss by under-water or aerial attack. The leading particulars of the Ersatz Preussen are; Displacement.—lo,ooo metric tons “Standard,” i.e., without inclusion of any fuel. Hull, etc.—Weight economised by the use of high-grade steels, light castings, and the substitution of electric welding seams, etc., instead of riveting. By these means 550 tons (5.5 per cent, of displacement) has been saved. Dimensions. —None officially declared by the German Ministry of Defence. The dimensions appear to be, very approximately: Length, 004 ft; beam. 66ft; draught described as “shallow”— possibly not more than 16ft. Armament. —Main: Six 11-inch, in two triple turrets. Secondary: Eight 5.9-inch, singly mounted in shields. Anti-aircraft: Four (4.1-inch?), twin mounted. Torpedo tubes: Six (size uncertain), in two triple revolving mounts, above water on quarter-deck. PRACTICALLY UNSINKABLE Protection.—By a new system of armouring and under-water subdivision, invulnerability has been vastly improved. Vertical side protection by complete end-to-end belt of substantial thickness. Turrets heavily defended. Two strong steel decks to give security against aerial attack. Under-water defence said to be the stoutest and most elaborate ever incorporated in any war vessel. Machinery.—Special type of Diesel engines to design by the German Admii'alty, built by the M.A.N. Co. at Nuremberg. Two sets of engines, each 25,000 b.h.p. Total, 50,000 b.h.p. Speed; 26 knots (possibly 27 in light condition). Fuel sufficient to give an endurance of 10,000 miles at 20 knots speed. Cost.—Still undisclosed. It was, however, elicited in the Keichstag debate that, while the Naval Budget only allowed £450,000 for the ship, £4,000,000 worth of materials had already been ordered for her. This sum excludes the enormous amounts expended during the past few years on preliminary research and experiments with guns, machinery, etc. The picture shows that, so far as outward looks ai - e concerned, the Ersatz Preussen is a simple and straight-forward design. The peculiar square gunhouses (enclosing the triple 11-inch guns( apparently have heavy, bomb-deflecting crowns. The magazines for the 5.9-inch guns are near those for the 11-inch, so that the centre of the hull can be kept clear for the machinery. EIGHT TONS OF SHELLS A MINUTE General Greener stated, in the Reichstag that the 11-inch guns for

FOR more than twenty years past, naval architects ami marine engineers have tallied, written and dreamt of the Diesel-engined capital ship. To-day such a vessel is m longer a vision, she is a reality, and is on the stocks in a German shipyard. And she is a warship so wonderful it is not too much to say of her, that she capsizes the whole naval cosmos; that she shatters all the existing standards of ship-values and — like the famous Fisher-Watts “Dreadnought” of 1906 marks the end of an old era in warship design and the beginnino- of a new. Thanks to the most marvellous machinery ever devised for the propulsion of ships, a technical triumph of transcendental importance has been achieved.

the new “Vest-Pocket Battleship I could range 12 kilometres (7i miles i ! further than the guns of the old bat- ! tleships. Moreover, the weight of metal delivered a minute was three times as great. This means that I the new Panzerseliiff can hurl out | eight tons of metal a minute over a ! range of 30,000 yards, or 17 miles, i This is almost equal to the extreme range of the 15-inch guns, mounted ! in the Hood, the world's mightiest | warship. I The Minister of Defence has re- | vealed that the new “Marine-type-i M.A.N.” Diesel motors for the Ersatz j Preussen require only eight kilo- : grammes (17Jlb) per horse-power, j whereas the best Diesel engines of ■ 1918 required 50kg. (110 Jib.) for every b.p. These new Navy-Diesels are not the towering, cumbrous, slow-running j engines such as are now used for the propulsion of mercantile ships. The Diesels for the Ersatz Preussen are of the low-built, compact, fast-running species, such as have been used in the past for the surface drive of submarines. These motors can therefore be stowed under a heavy armoured deck. If H.M.S. Hood could exchange her present steam-drive machinery for the new type German Diesels, her power would be raised from 144,000 to more than half a million h.p. without an ounce being added to her weight! The 144,000 s.h.p. steam-drive machinery of the Hood weighs 5,356 tons, or about S3Jlb. per h.p. The German “Marine-type-M.A.N.” Diesels weigh only (about) 17Jlb. per h.p. The Germans are therefore getting four and three-quarter times more h.p. out of every ton of machinery - weight than we could get for the Hood. If you multiply the Hood’s 144,000 h.p. by 43 the result is 654.000 h.p. There is no type of warship that cannot be touched and transformed by the new engines. So long as Germany holds the secret of the new power-plant, then so long does she retain the means of producing ships that can outstrip all rivals. ENORMOUS RANGE Thanks to the saving of 5.5 per cent, of the displacement in hull weights, and thanks again to an economy of about 10 per cent, in machinery weights, the German designers have at their disposal about 1.550 tons, and this they have probably devoted to improved armour defence and under-water protection. The German “Armoured Vessel” may therefore be the nearest approach ever made to the “unsinkable warship.” The Kiel-built “Vest Pocket Battleship” cau range over 10,000 miles at 20 knots, whereas the average steamdriven battleship can cover no more than 4.500 miles at this speed. The Ersatz Preussen can cruise from Kiel to China on a single load of fuel. “What can the 10,000-ton Treaty Cruisers do against the 10,000-ton German ships?”—Nothing, except keep out of range, or run away! There are only tour armoured warships in the world to-day fast enough to overhaul and fight the Ersatz Preussen type. Those four are the big British battle cruisers Tiger. Repulse, Renown and Hood. And of these four! only the Hood has the barest margins in the superiority of extreme gunrange. Therefore do we find the German pigmy of 10,000 tons to be a fighting match to a vessel almost four times her own size—the Hood, the greatest war vessel in the world. The Ersatz Preussen Is virtually a death-blow to the big battleship. The 05,000-ton post-Jutland capital ship is no longer worth building on the steam-drive basis. Limitation of armaments in the end defeats its own purpose. You may try to restrict the size of warships by repressive legislation and what is the result? The Germans, with 10 000 tons, produce in 1928 a ship more formidable than their 19,100-ton battlecruiser Von der Taun of 1908. Cut down the size of warships by treaties and covenants if you will The inevitable result will be that more hitting, driving and resisting power a toil Will be attained on every reduction of weight. You end by getting mechanised armies” and Dieseldriven fleets, smaller, but more deadly and venomous than the “bloated armaments” you have tried to abolish bv legislation.