WHAT A DREADNOUGHT IS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9545, 17 July 1909, Page 3

WHAT A DREADNOUGHT IS.

Dreadnought is a battleship of the new type introduced by the British and Japanese Admiralties in 1905. The original Dreadnought is nominally of 17,900 tons displace ment, though with her present load she fomes hearer 20,000 tons. The Lusitania, we ghing 45,000 tons without cargo, is more than twice as large. The peculiarity of the Dreadnought types is the enormously heavy armaments of large guns. The original Dreadnought carries ten 12in*guns, each weighing about 56 tons, and so disposed that eight can fire on either beam. Besides these, she has a number of 12-pounders. The German Dreadnoughts each carry twelve 11 in guns and twelve 6.7 in guns. In clear weather Dreadnoughts could open fire !at 7,oooyds, where small guns are useless, so that older ships would have four 12in guns to oppose the Dreadnoughts' 10. All the British and the latest foreign Dreadnoughts are fitted with turbine engines which give speeds of from 20 to 22 knots. They have under-water protection against mines and torpedoes. The Dreadnought's immediate predecessors in the British navy, the Lord Nelsons, are of 16,500 tons, and carry four 12in and ten 9.2 in guns. They have no turbine engines, and are two knots slower. The cost of a Dreadnought is about £1,800,000 with her guns.