A BATTLE CRUISER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 278, 16 April 1913, Page 7

A BATTLE CRUISER.

DREADNOUGHT NEW ZEALAND.

AN INTERESTING DESCRIPTION.

(By Donald Macdonald, in "The Argus.") After admiring the fine spend lines of our cruiser Melbourne, you turn to the New Zealand, the first of the Dreadnought type that has come into Australian waters, and is now lying off the fiellilmvnd Point, Williamstown, to realise power and solidarity. This battle-cruiser, with her battery of eight 12in. guns, and a secondary equipment of sixteen 4in. quick-firers, to deal with destroyers ami desperate craft of that sort, is one of the factors by which the I nations to-day measure their fighting strength at sea—a siiip that can . give and take hard knocks in a duel with one of her own size. To grasp, to appreciate, the solidarity of the New Zealand, you need to stand, first, far away up in her foretop. and take a gull's eve view of the mass of steel below yon. Even then there is suggestion in solidity only in the power to hit; everything that counts for capacity to take punishment is hidden. You must take the designers' and builders' assurance that between her vital parts and the outcrworld lies some 12in. of steel armour. And when you have from this loftv- look-out, grasped her solidity, it pomes as something of a revelation to learn that in an emergency tlr's big ship, which funs to thickness and to depth, rather than length, could outsteam the Melbourne. She steamed 27 knots on her trial without developing her engines to the limit. Tn an emergency, and with justification, she can. it is said, do 2!) knots. It seems incredible when vou look at her bulk, and go down into her engines, with what fine economy of space the turbines are packed away. But coal in sufficiency will do almost anvtliing, and these Dreadnoughts are coal-eaters. At full speed ■lfi tons of coal per hour passes through her furnace!!. On the run across from Durban she * used 8000 tons of coal. When she dropped anchor in Melbourne she had just eight tons of coal left. It seemed to be a nice calculation—a shatter of cutting it dangerously fine — but iter reserve of oil fuel. 050 tons, is yet intact. It will be seen at once that a million and a half of monev' is not the only expediture that a nation puts into its modern battleshin. The real cost begins only when vou them moving, or when they have to shoot, as well as stcar-i.

At present the New Zealand looks a 'fine target. standing high out of the water. ' That is wholly due to the fact that her eoal hunkers are cmptv. Bv the time she leaves Melbourne she will be seen in her natural state Ivinar much lower in the water. Probably on the run across to Wellington she will he. put to her to]) for a twentv-four hours' speed trial. At present they are pourin? Westport eoal into her—the famous Westport coal, which X<>w Zealanders even vet remind you was in the hunkers of the Calliope when she steamed through that Samoan hurricane Ion? 0 20. an event celebrated bv Kipling in the lines—

"First of the scattered galleons Under a shrieking sky, Dinning between the rollers The English flag goes by." The New Zealand, apart altogether from her power,, her significance in the tension of nations, must be interesting to Victorians, because thev see in her a sister-ship to their own Dreadnought. Australia. In build, in armament, in all the things that count for the balance in sea-power, they are identical, so in looking at the New Zealand thev realise the Australia. Just as in mianv minor and modern contrivances the New Zealand is an improvement upon'"the Indefatigable, so in turn, and because of that ceaseless evolution in sea-mechanism which makes naval dominance so costlv, the Australia may. in some respects, be '•"tter than the Xew Zealand. None the less, our visitor is wholly a modern shin. On her bridge 1 notice, among oilier things, the Gvro compass, the m'ost reliable steering guide yet invented. because it has no elements of deviation at all. While she. is founded on the Indomitable and Indefatigables. h"t" bis 1 guns have a much larger arc of fire than those earlier battle cruisers. Hie two nnirs of turret guns amidships • n re practically ;ib!e to box the compass. The whole of her big guns mav be trained for either a port or starboard broadside. In chase she can practically bring six guns to bear ahead—to be explicit. four out of the six can bear on the hunted enemy; the pair of guns in t.ie after-turret may be trained 140 decrees i>"«t th" ordinary broadside division. Tt will be sern that one object mi the Dreadncshts is to have as little 5 ton hamper interfering with the sweep of the guns. A -"ord as to the guns mil their eapacit" may be interesting. ... Thev are disposed in pairs in four turrets.' jind. »s in th" case of the Melbourne, the first impression one has is that th" ioint is altogether too lnrire for tlie dish. We have in the ("'ercbus ? n illustration of the old type of circular turret., in which *'•» conciK;s'oii of a successful shot by the encmv was apt to kill a (run's crew, and in damaging the working the turret, to put. a mm out of action. Captein S""->enolT._ in his account of the bittie of Tsu Sliinin, gives a vivid and impressive description of the Tinssian bat-tle-ship turrets when the Japanese gunners were hitting them. Tn one, men sat daz(>d and incapable through the hoi rid nerve-shattering clamour—later hj" looked into th" turret - again, and thev were dead. These turrets o? yesterday were too big a mark: oven our American visitors of a few years ago were old and obsolete as compared with the X»w Zealand. The turrets, with some Oin. armour-plating for their protection. seem to be onlv enlarged tailpieces for the guns. There are no sideopenings. You enter .through a manhole ■it the ton. climb in through a trap-door ill (he steel fioorwav, and. once inside —with singular!v little room to spare—vou have, excepting for the aneratnre through wh ! ch the 40ft of gun protrudes. a steel wall all about v n „. n>.<> reason why the little room is required nowadniN .. turret is thai meelmiis'it has (mite displaced man handling. Tm'"i- •- thing ih ='t once di'ji'anded ro\v°r is done In- pressure—electrical or hvdmnlic. Tn the after or "A" turret of the New 1 Z->laiid. -on have pair of Armstrong rifles 40ft in longte. ench ye,,,\ n be exact. .",7 tons 13cwt. Thev fi'-e at their best, about five shells w r minute, each weighing SoOlhs. drives bv 31*011) of cordite, and travellip-r when it loaves the muzzle, at .■'bo.it 27.000 ft ner second. el t!ie reco'l of th" sdio'i. a tremendous force, is f ,ii provided for in e space of about .W behind ench gun. There is uh'rlv little man power exercised iithe. turret unless it is tl'.e power of 1 lira in- -presence of mind hi big emergencies. To b"gin with, a lift on die vev V j fioorwav . "f the ship grins (his S.VHb slu'l'. whii-b ma" have cither ,*i special no-- fo'' armour-piercing, or lie filled with a bursting charge of l-d-Ute—n-,e en rt to cvitiorln on comnar'fivelv s!i«!it shock. ano)h«r rnlv ;sf{ er i< ),., s pn<iSo(l through n f-ilr thickness of steel armour. As the hoist rises it catches a second one on the nevt deck, and carries the chaise of cordite un as we]] as the shell. On tlie de v t deck th°v are a v - | i-ing«d and so hoisted to th* brc»«h of the gun. This Ml counts for ouick semcp. ivitli (lie mechanism 1 t I" jr-a can be loaded at an- „f "'"vntion. and it is at its highest for purposes when throwino it, shell over p. distance of eleven miles

when set as in the New Zealand, about \ 40ft above the water-line. The laying of these turret guns really goes on without regard to amniumtiun service, that is almost, if not quite, automatic. The safety contrivances, too, arc interesting. It may be imagined that with this big gun firing l straight into the wind, the rush of air to the vacuum after the shot might easily carry some of the burning debris through the breach as soon as it is opened, and possibly bring it in contact with the next charge of cordite. But the very act .of opening the breach of one of these turret guns opens automatically a valve, through which a fierce blast of compressed air is blown down the tube, carrying all dangerous 1 refuse out at the muzzle. Each of the quick-firers in the second battery of the New Zealand can fire 1.) rounds per minute; their breech-blocks are the acme of ease combined with safety. The New Zealand has been a lucky ship thus far. Fair weather has come with her all the way. She rolls, as most of the Dreadnoughts do, in a beam sea, but is on the whole a satisfactory ship. Her officers and e.ro.w sneak with enthusiasm of their South African reception. Tt was wonderful. Even New Zealand must do something; exceptional to heat it. About 74.000 people visited the battle-cruiser at Capetown, about fiO,0(10 in Durban. Upon o:te (lav over 15.000 people were passed in succession ! through the m-in-holes of th« after- I I'irr»t. leaving Fngland a New Ze.'i- I land resident presented the ship with ti splendid bulldo'/. and . South African i towns presented the doer in turn with j two silver collars. Durban gave them a monkey, which while tliev coaled yes- j terdav. and grit was abundant, had sole j control of the fore-turret. i

The New Zealand gets her pace from four propellovs driven by two sets of t'lrbine engines and the compactness of this powerful instalment is amazing l . On their hottest day in the tropics the t»inperatnve- of the engine-room was about ll'Zilc?. Gangways and ladders are minimised to some extent in the Vn w Z»alaml in her service of electric lifts and like most other thines in the cruiser. tl>r> safety contrivances in connection with it are ingenious and adVnirablfl. The Dreadnought carries a crew of about 700, o proportion of whom and a few of the officers are New Zealandcrs.