THE QUEEN MARY.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 June 1916, Page 6

THE QUEEN MARY.

A GIANT BATTLE CRUISER. WITH THE SPEED OF A LINER. The Queen Mary, sunk in the North Sea, was a remarkable instance of the naval axiom that speed, in association with suitable suns and armor, is power. In the old days sailors urged the Admiralty in give them swifter and more, powerful ships. By gradual progressive steps, the vessels became towering, unmanagable leviathans. The race for power in individual units was abandoned. Wood, by its very defects, placed a limit on the size of men-of-war. With the introduction of steel, the way was opened to ships with no limit as to she—except their cost, and the collateral expenditure on bigger docks. Year by year larger and yet larger ships are being laid down, and though the Queen Mary displaced over 27,000 tons, no ono believes that this is the limit. In its final expression one colossal battleship of high speeu will be equal to a squadron, as it has been known in the past, and this armored monster will be surrounded by its satellites—cruisers to furnish it with intelligence, and large seagoing submarines.

But the Queen Mary marked a stage in the race for concentrated power—the power of tb.e gun, the power of the torpedo, the power of high speed. She is officially described as an "armored cruiser," yet in gun-power she was superior to the vast majority of battle-ships in the world's fleets. She was far more powerful even than the Dreadnoughts; she had not only as many guns on the broadside, but more powerful guns, and she had speed—the weather-gauge of war on the seas. She was Lord Fisher's last word in warship design, as interpreted by probably the world's greatest ship constructor, Sir Phillip Watts. The Queen Mary and her sister ships the Lion and Princess Royal were the first capital ships to mount the 13.5 in guns.

The difference between the original "wonder-cruisers" and the Queen Mary is almost incredible. The mounting of the main armament is entirely novel. Pour guns were, paired on the centre line forward, the second pair firing over the first: then came the only tripod-mast and two funnels. The third turret, also on the centre line, was between the second and third funnels, and the last pair of guns was mounted aft in the usual way. A light pole-mast was placed behind the third funnel for signalling purposes—but for this, the vessel was singlemasted and resembled a huge destroyer in appearance.

The secondary armament was mounted in the super-structure. The echelon principle was <jiven up owing to the difficulty of sufficiently strengthening the side of the ship next the turret and hoist to allow the pair of 13.5 in guns to be fired across the deck.

The Queen Mary was of a terrific power, had a greater speed than the Invincible (over 30 knots), a protection equal to that of the St. Vincent, and a smashing gun-power out of comparison with all previous vessels.