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28 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. BRITISH NAVAL POLICY. Sir William Laird Clowes is proving an able champion of the war ship construction policy of Mr. Philip Watts, the present chief constructor of the British navy. In a recent article he says: "For nearly twenty years we have followed the ship building policy which I have ventured to associate with the name of Sir W. H. White, and today we have, in consequence, a huge and formidable fleet which, I verily believe, will do very well in future warfare if only our enemies will show themselves as anxious to get at our bluejackets as our bluejackets will be anx- ious to get at them. The existing fleet, too, can, I think, be trusted to take as good as it can give in the matter of hard . knocks. That, however, I venture to assert, is not enough to insure the safety of the empire. We want ships, which as I have said, can catch the foe and then cook him, and which can neutral- ize such defensive shortcomings as must attach to the best com- promise of the naval architect by the overwhelming manner in which they can attack. Mr. Watts, as judged by his performances when at Elswick, is of this opinion. Since he has been in the admiralty he has done nothing to show that he has changed his mind. On the contrary, his designs for the new armored cruis- ers of the Duke of Edinburg class seem to indicate that he is per- sisting sturdily, and it is because I know how strong are the in- fluences and prejudices in the other direction, and because I feel that this question of ship building policy is just now a vital one, that I desire to enlist support for the principles which, rightly or wrongly, I associate with his name. "I believe that Mr. Watts's designs for our next battleships have not yet been made public, and that our battleships now under construction all owe their design to Sir W. H. White. So far as I can ascertain, our only battleships built or building which have a designed speed of upward of 18 knots (and this does not in any case exceed 19 knots) are the vessels of the Canopus, Dun- can, Centurion and King Edward VII. classes, arid we are con- - structing no more 19-knot battleships. The new German battle- ships of the Wittelsbach class have a designed speed of 19 knots; the new American battleships of the New Jersey class also have a designed speed cf 19 knots, and of two types of new Italian battleships, one, the Benedetto Brin, has a désigned speed of twenty, and the other, the Regina Elena, a designed speed of no less than 22 knots. Of course the fighting value of a battleship depends upon other factors as well as upon speed, one of the chief factors being gun power; and it would be manifestly unfair to award unhesitating and wholesale condemnation to the British ships if it could be shown that, though inferior, or, in a few cases, barely equal, in speed to their foreign rivals, they were, weight for weight, largely superior in gun power. I admit this, in spite of my very strong belief that, as a general rule, it is better to have superior speed and slightly inferior gun power than inferior speed and slightly superior gun power. But what is the fact? "Tt is difficult briefly to convey a comprehensive idea of the gun power of a ship; but, perhaps, as good a way as any is to set forth the weight of the projectiles per ton of displacement which can be discharged simultaneously by the guns (small weapons excluded) of the vessel. The following table then, dealing with the various battleships which I have mentioned above, gives, in addition to their displacement in tons and their designed speed in knots, the weight of metal per ton of displace- ment that can be thrown by each of them at a single discharge of all large guns, together with the total weight of metal so thrown: mn 8 BFS pad oa A a mes Ro, op Page ok & Class of battleship. 8 ne SRP ae 8 oe fa a ® an ae ne oO 8 : Geto gS i s : Bee 8 a ue : Sate 3 Oe Canopus, British .. .... 2... .. 12,950 oo: 355°. 4,600 Centurian, Brien. s. -,. 10,500. | 18.5 285 3,000 Duncan, British ..... Wee 6 © 14,000 19.0 328 4,600 King Edward VIL, British .. .. 16,350 18.5 362 5,920 Wittelsbach, German .. .. .. :. 12,000 19.0 .290 3,480 New Jersey, Mamericat. ©. 4). +. 15;000 19.0 .440 6,600 Benedetto Brin, ltalian .. ... .. 13,427 20.0 405 5,440 Regina Ulena, ltalian ...< .: 312,625 22.0 .350 4,420 "T have compared the published specifications and plans of the King Edward VII. with those of the New Jersey, but I fail to dis- cover any particulars, even defensive ones, in which the former are conspicuously superior to the latter, and I take it as certain that if any unprejudiced naval officer were asked whether in war time he would prefer to command one rather than the other he would declare in favor of the American ship. In view uf what is being done abroad, it ought to be accepted as an axiom that every future British battleship of 14,000 tons displacement or upward should be able to throw at least .400 lb. of metal per ton, and at the same time should be at least as fast as any battleship of the same size elsewhere existing. _ "My objections to our newest and most costly battleships arise out of the fact that they are neither fast enough nor suffi- ciently gunned. 'The case of our latest armored cruisers (with the possible exception of Mr. Watts's new vessels) is somewhat [Feb. 12. different. Upon the whole, they are for the present fast enough to compete in the matter of speed with the corresponding vessels of the other powers, but in the matter of gun power they are even more strikingly defective than are the battleships. Their gun weakness, indeed, is so pronounced as to neutralize almost en- tirely the speed superiority which some of them possess. Here is a table, drawn up as before: a $ svg a nos ec +, BecBale fee : op > 100, : ae Class of armored cruiser. oa B oBRE ee 8 Pie ee ou tos g eee Be ae Blox S68 oe sea 7 Se Duke of Edinburg, British... .. 19500 gas © 242. 3.280 sWrake; Bris 4° 3 og ys. dye 23.0 .179 2,528 Ctessy, Brish <. 37 2. 6, . e000 21.0 77 2,128 Devonshire, British... 4... 4 .. 40,500 23.0 .146 1,544 Went. Detilisn 6 ee aca ce cs | G00 23.0 155 1,520 Caltoriia, American. 2... .. 13,400 22.0 284. , 3,816 Msama, Japanese 0.5 oes 22.0 .250 2,544 Oligeins Chile c 1... 2. 2 00 212 251 2,149 "It should be borne in mind that these large armored cruis- ers are designed to fulfill a twofold purpose. While intended to serve as scouts, collectors of intelligence and commerce destroy- ers, they are also planned, so that in case of need, they may 'lie in the line' in company with the regular batleships. If, of course, an armored cruiser be very conspicuously deficient in gun power, she is unfit for even occasional employment in the line of battle, and becomes merely a cruiser burdened with armor. Judged by this test, our Drakes, Cressys, Devonshires and Kents, with their feeble broadside weight of metal, must be regarded as comparative failures. The ships of the Duke of Edinburg class (Mr. Watts's new design') promise to be much more suc- cessful, but I cannot help beliveing that, had the director of naval construction been encouraged to do so, he could have planned an armored cruiser no bigger than the Drake, yet with better speed and gun power than the California, and with as good defensive qualities as the Duke of Edinburg. In view of what is being done abroad, it ought to be accepted that every new British armored cruiser cf 13,000 tons displacement or upward should be able to throw at least .200 Ib. of metal per ton, while the present superiority of speed should not be surrendered. "In the matter of ordinary cruisers--cruisers, that is, without external vertical armor, save in the shape of gun shields--our 'inferiority is much more conspicuous and startling. Once more I give a brief illust:=tive table, premising that the British cruis- ers named in it are the best of that class we possess. Dn 0 i Boe 3 om o 2 Gee | ag : ee we PO -- = : oO as om Class of unarmored cruiser. - oO e o8 Be =6 B in g°o% oe 8 : BE 8 Ae oe £208 > oe Le : a Powetfal, British .. 2c. .suc5t sc aoe 22.0 .179 2,552 Ariadne, British. (5.440). 41600 20.7 160 1,768 Diake British... ee 000 22.0 216 1,952 Encounter, British... 47... 3, 6.000 22.0 213 1,196 Brooklyn, American <2... 2. ..7 0,215 21.0 205 2,720 Esmeralda, Chile. 2. 2. . 3... 9,000" 222 -- 200 = 2.008 Bogityr, Russian... 0, 2. 6 oe 23.0 .206 1,344 Takasawo, Japanese ©... 42 Aa0e 22:5 225 1,014 Buenos Ayres, Atgetitine ... <2 * 4,500 24.0 242 1,090 "These are the vessels which are intended primarily for watching and keeping track of a mobile enemy, for harrassing hostile commerce, for chasing and capturing torpedo boat destroy- ers, hired fast steamers, and other speedy but unarmored and ill- gunned craft, and for executing sudden raids. Yet we do not possess a single unarmored cruiser of any size which, even on paper, is capable of steaming at a speed of 23 knots, while, at the same time, our best unarmored cruisers are more feebly gunned than their faster foreign rivals. I do not here discuss the wisdom or otherwise, of building large unarmored cruisers. I desire merely to point out that if we do build unarmored leviathans - like the Ariadne, we should at least engine them and gun them so as to render them, tonnage for tonnage, a match for com- parativelv small foreign craft like the Takasago and the Buenos Ayres. We can do it; for both the Takasago and the Buenos Ayres were designed by Mr. Watts, and built in England. In- deed, I feel sure that Mr. Watts, with a free hand, can give us 24-knot unarmored cruisers, of 11,000 tons or upward which shall throw .300 Ib. of metal per ton of displacement, and, so long as we build big unarmored cruisers, we ought to be content with nothing inferior. : "Of late we have built much larger ships than the majority of the other naval nations, ut hitherto we seem to have derived no advantage from having done so. Large ships are more costly and easier to hit than smaller ones, and only when they are act- ually faster, and relatively, as well as actually, better gunned than the smaller ones, are they desirable. If speed only be aimed at, a comparatively small craft, say of 3,000 tons, can be en-