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MARINE REVIEW. [June 20, TYPES OF CRUISERS CONTRASTED. A DISCUSSION REGARDING THE RELATIVE MERITS OF. THE FRENCH GAMBETTA CLASS AND THE BRITISH DRAKE CLA6S--BIG MODERN CRUISERS VERSUS BATTLESHIPS. The Engineer of London has devoted a large part of two issues of re- cent date to a description of the Leon Gambetta class of French armored cruisers in contrast with the Drake class of British armored cruisers. The contrast is of interest because the two classes may be compared with the Maryland type of cruiser now building for the United States navy. It her secondaries sooner than she will lose a couple. This is the elementary deduction. It is colored, however, by various facts, the relative values of which 'are not precisely known. It is not known what risk of being put out of action is run by the offside casemates of the Drake, which have thin backs. It is not known how easy or how difficult it may be to jam with shell fragments the minor turrets on which the French pin such faith. Consequently an absolute comparison is quite impossible, there being too few axioms to allow of a certainty. Granting this, however, and allowing credit to the most generally accepted theories, the two ships are very much alike, with a balance in favor of the Gambetta on account of her double turrets. The guns in these will be on the Canet system of twin mount- ings, which ensures that the shell from one will burst at nearly the same FRENCH ARMORED CRUISER GAMBETTA. will bring the French and British classes clearer to the eye by proceeding at once to give their. principal dimensions and features: . : : fa: Gambetta. Drake. Displacement: tons: jc, 0.2... sees << 12,416 14,100 Length (p.p.), ft. . 5 5t a. 500 MBCA, Tie ee cee ec ccc ccs se pes cece 71 71 Drache (mean); te oc. cc.ss sees «es 2614 : 26 Armament, main Four 7.6 in. Two 9.2 in. Secondary 12 3....5.-.01. aes. Sixteen 6.4 in. Sixteen 6 in. Tertiaryand Small i... is ieee: Twenty-two 3-pdrs: 14 12-pdrs., 3 3-pdrs., Gr a two 1-pdrs. 8 maxims. MOL DOGO HUDOR: cote s a giaie ess scasee's soc Two submerged, Two submerged. three above water Indicated horse-power:............4+ _ 27,000 3 30,000 - Speed (maximum), knots .......... Qed 23 OU Cris ects hee ons ss iaiete once los Normand Belleville DCUOWS soe ceo acu nnc shies Ga dclels oe 6 Three Two Coal (normal), tons..... 1320 1250 Coal (maximum),:tons.... | . 2100. : 2500 Armor, wmiain Delt ona kan tes 6--4 'in. 6--3 in. DPC: DOlte cine coe weiss oaks cece 5--3 in. : 6--3 in. : : Main= turrets: iy casns. se. ee Bint 6 in. Hoists, GtG.. .s<iiess Bap ate ge ce wsidel, DAM. ; 6 in. : POCONGBIV: RUNG Ocak heres so pres 6in. turrets (six) 6in. casemates . : ; 2 and bases, 4 in. i : ; é He casemates 4 DECK. foc eee ote 2% in. : 4in, . Conning.tower .... 8 in. 12 in. ULE DBAGS. 23 oss s eos toe hedacu ss 6 in. 'Sil, Discussing different features of these two cruisers, which compare favorably in a general way, the Engineer says: A ; "For her extra weight the Drake gets a knot more speed and some- what thicker armor, though this has little significance comparatively. A big high explosive shell will smash a 4-in. plate as easily as a 3-in., while so far as the guns carried by thé ships are concerned, 5 in. of armor are just as efficacious as 6 in. In the protection of the water line, lower deck and big guns the two ships are practically identically protected; that is to say, no one can definitely call one better than the other for fighting pur- poses. The radical difference lies in the distribution of the secondary armament. That of the Drake is in four main groups, that of the Gam- betta in six. Each Drake group consists of four guns, while the Gambetta has four groups of three and two of two. A shell from the main guns in either ship if it knocked out one gun of a group would probably knock put all, and against such fire the Gambetta stands first. Against smaller guns the reverse rather obtains, for all the Drake's guns are isolated, while twelve of the Gambetta's pieces are in 'pairs. "In regard to high explosive shell attack 'from secondary guns the Drake may expict to put out a couple of Gambetta secondary guns with spot as the shell: from the other, thus securing some of those advantages peculiar to the old battery,'and distinctly absent in the single casemate system. That the 164 mm.--6.4 in--French guns are more powerful than British 6 in, does not, in our opinion; count for much; cases in which men at the secondary guns are concerned with penetration of armor wili be very few against modern ships. At the main guns men may have to think of it fairly frequently, though even here far less than many people suppose. As things stand today, armor has beaten the gun, not because it is absolutely superior so much as because the gunner is beginning to think . that! penetration is no longer all important. Armor does not protect gun muzzles; indeed, it endangers them by bursting shell near the muzzles. "To resume. The secondary turrets of the Gambetta are mounted on stout armored bases; they are, in fine, towers, with their foundations secure behind an armored wall, and so should stand the crash of heavy shell be- low them very well. As for the big guns, the single 9.2 of the Drake may be put on a par with the two 7.6 pieces of the Gambetta. Its shell is twice the weight of the French shell, and since shell effects do not follow a scale in proportion to weight, probably three times as destructive. Its rate of fire is very good, so that the matter becomes chiefly a question of quantity versus quality. For shell attack only the pair of lighter guns would be preferable; but along that line of argument four 6.4's would b> better than two 7.6's. Circumstances must arise in which the power to deal a heavy armor-piercing blow will be of great value. So the Drake cannot be held inferior to the French 'reply' on this score. Yet, taking things all in all, the Gambetta is probably rather the better ship, and, indeed, having been designed after and against the Drake, she should be. The principal advantage lies, we suspect, in the disposition of the secondary guns, and we are by no means sure that the advantage is not greater than is supposed. The comparison would be incomplete without reference to the tertiary guns. Here it is a case of the Drake first and the other ship nowhere. The 3-pounder is not likely to be much more effective as a destroyer stopper than the service Lee-Metford bullet as a horse stopper; while the 12-pounder should be comparable to the Dum-Dum or some- thing better. Given that each is attacked by a destroyer, the Drake is in- finitely more likely to survive the encounter. To be sure, a destroyer's chances of getting the opportunity are not many; they would, indeed, be mostly chance meetings, and so an anti-destroyer armament is not a prime necessity to a cruiser whose warfare--if she sticks to her metier--will be almost entirely with her own kind. 'Whatever conclusions we may come to as to the relative values of the Drake and the. Gambetta, one fact must stand out prominent, and that is that'she is a very fine example of the armored cruiser. In her, too, French