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December, 1916 the perfection of a revolving fort or turret of steel, in which was housed a number of guns. This fort he mounted on a raft which was intend- ed for harbor defense. I have talked with Mr. Timby, and have gone over with him the original plans made in the ’50’s, and am glad to bear testi- mony to the originality of his design. It remained, however, for the genius of Mr. Ericsson to combine the ideas of both Timby and Stevens in the epoch-making vessel known as _ the Monitor. I fully believe Mr. Ericsson was working along entirely independ- ent lines from either of these gentle- men, but all three had many ideas in common, and the fact remains that Mr. Timby was so protected by patents of his design that Mr. Ericsson had to pay $5,000 royalty on each of the turrets fitted on the Monitor class. Influence of Stevens Battery Just here we will refer to the Stevens battery, which has a lasting influence upon subsequent warship de- sign. Its building period extended over such a term of years, from 1860 to 1870, that many of its original feat- ures were modified entirely and the experience of the naval combats of the civil war incorporated. However, Mr. Stevens started out to build an armored vessel with guns of one cal- ibre carried in revolving turrets. In this general conception he and Erics- son were on common ground, but Stevens went much further. He intro- duced the armored deck with sloping sides extending down to the lower edge of the armor belt, precisely what was known as the protective deck of later years. His main belt extended from stem to stern. The vessel was fit- ted with twin screws andthe same type of balanced rudder now fitted to near- ly all United States battleships found its prototype in this wonderful vessel. Unfortunately the vessel passed into the ownership of the state of New Jersey and was never fully completed. Attention, however, is called to the features incorporated and_ actually built which afterward became funda- mental in battleship design: 1. Battery of one-calibre mounted in turrets. 2. Twin screws. 3. Protective deck. 4. Balanced rudders fitted in the deadwood or run of the vessel. While these features were being dreamed upon and slowly put into execution, Mr. Ericsson, for the North- ern States, and the designer of the re- constructed MeErrrMAc were pushing ahead and forcing upon their govern- ments types of vessels that were to revolutionize the design of war ves- guns THE MARINE REVIEW sels the world over, and which were known as the Moniror and Merrimac. In the former was the complete water- line belt and armored deck with guns mounted in turrets, while in the Mer- RIMAC was found the armored case- mate with sloping sides and the ram. The combination of these features has been perpetuated in battleship design to the present day. The United States government was so exhausted financially by the long war that it had neither means nor in- clination to carry into effect the many lessons of the war, but England, ever watchful, profited to the utmost by the experience gained in our naval en- gagements and embodied them in the navy of iron vessels she was rapidly building. About this time there arose in Eng- land a group of notable men who by practical and technical training were well able to establish and apply the valuable lessons of the American civil New Battle Cruisers Each of the four battle cruisers for which bids will be opened at the navy department at noon on Wednesday, Dec. 6, will be 850 feet long, or 100 feet longer than the Woolworth building is high. The displacement of the vessels will be about 35,000 tons, their speed will be between 32 and 35 knots, and they are intended to be the most powerful of all armored cruisers. Each vessel will carry ten 14-inch guns. war. These were Scott Russell, Bru- nel, Sir Edwin Reed and Rankine, followed by William John, William White, Nathaniel Barnaby, Francis Elgar and Martel, while in France such men as DeBusy and Bertin were investigating and working along the same line. New Designs Evolved To Russell must be accorded the ~ credit of starting scientific inquiry into the lines of the least resistance, to Brunel the best disposition of ma- terial to meet longitudinal stresses, and to Reed and his young assistants the cellular construction and framing which did so much to obtain the neces- sary strength with less weight. The designs evolved ran the gamut of the armored broadside with mul- tiple guns of the Warrier type to the battery of few guns of larger calibre mounted in turrets, such as the Devas- tation type of high freeboard Mon- itors. These designs finally worked into the mixed gun battery with the large guns mounted in turrets or bar- .mored casemates. 425 bettes and the smaller guns in ar- This type of bat- tery prevailed in one form or the other, up to the time of the Russo- Japanese war. The fight through that long period was between armor and guns, with varying results. At one time the armor would defeat the guns, then the guns would penetrate the best armor made. The same fight is still on, with honors resting with the guns. Then began the long-fought question between speed and _ protec- tion and armament, or the feature of offense and defense. Russo-Japanese War Lessons The lesson hastily drawn from the fight in the Japan sea was the all-gun battery of heavy guns, with a numer- ous secondary battery of very small guns. Calm and cooler consideration, however, has given the larger calibre rapid firing gun its old place as a defense against torpedo craft, with the exception perhaps that protection for this class of gun has been dropped. The cycle has been made and we are again with batteries of mixed calibres just as at the close of the civil war, only with all the tremendous increase in power and. rapidity of fire. At the time of the Spanish-Ameri- can war our battleships had as their primary batteries 13-inch or 12-inch guns, combined with 8-inch, all in turrets, the heavier guns being mount- ed on the centreline forward and aft, and the 8-inch on either beam. The secondary battery ranged from 6-inch down to 3-pounder rapid fire guns. The chief lessons taught by this war, insofar as battleships are concerned, were the value of keeping a navy in the pink of condition, both men and material; the necessity of radical changes in our own target practice; and the necessity of adopting smoke- less powder. The gallant effort of Cervera’s fleet, without proper stores or good ammunition, and its pathetic destruction, as compared with the fa- mous trip of the OREGON, speaks volumes for the necessity of a high standard of naval efficiency and drill. The remarkably low number of hits for the number of shots fired was a surprise to our naval authorities and brought about such a radical reform in target practice, mounting of guns and service of ammunition, that today our vessels are excelled by none in the number of target hits. For the purpose of our discussion, the features of the modern Dread- naught may be considered under two heads: viz., Offense and Defense. There is a certain amount of dis- placement at the disposal of the