MAMMOTH BATTLESHIP

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 91, 26 July 1910, Page 3

MAMMOTH BATTLESHIP

AMERICA'S HID FOP, SEA SI/PI!) MACY.

The sceptre and title of "misire-s of the seas" to pass from Great Britain to the United States, by the construction of a battleship which, by the power of its own guns, will keep all other battleships out of their ordinary range of effectiveness!

Such are the predominating features of the monster American battleship, the first intimation of which wx« aivi'ii by Secretary Meyer of the Navy. _ The salient physical features of the greatest battleship in (lie world will be these: Its displacement will be 34 t 0(!f ton-. It will carry twelve fourceen-inch guns.

It will have six turrets, which will be protected by eleven-inch armor. It will be provided with a new design of torpedo defence battery, the new design being an extremely large number of five-inch guns, the total to be between thirty and thirty-live. It will cost approximately £4,000,000.

Each of the fourteen-inch guns will fire all-armor piercing shells weighing 1400 pounds. It will be possible to lire in broadsides all of the guns. This means that it will be possible to hurl a broadside whose sum total of metal will be 16,800 pounds. It is estimated that the fourteen-inch guns will be effective at six miles and a half. If the ships of a hostile fleet should come within the six miles and a half limit they would be met by a shell that can pierce ten-inch armor, while their own guns would be ineffective at six miles and a-hslf.