Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/684

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��Popular Science MoutJiIi/

���"Is it not fair to assume, nay. is it not certain, that if battlesliip displacement lias increased from ten thousand tons in IS'*6 to thirty-two thousand tons in 1916, that it will continue to do so until the limit has been readied? Why not go the limit at once? By so doing we scrap the battleships of every navy in the world. . . ."

���Moffett's ship, shown behind the Pennsylvania and Oregon, is about as long as both vessels.

The Thousand-Foot Battleship

Commander Moffett's daring plan to beat the world

��HlTTIN'f". a target aflen niilt-.s wiili liltceii-iiicli guns seems so cas\ a task in \icw of the naval battles fonglil olT the Doggc-r Hank and Jutland tliat Admiral Sir C"\i)rian Hridge of the Hritisli Na\'y, maintains tiiat it is in- advisable to build warships bigger than tliosc now in commission. Commaniler William Adger MotTctt of our own Navy, takes direct issue with him, arguing that the whole tendency in warship construc- tion from the days of the sailing frigate to the modern super-dreadnought has been toward the large ship wilii l.irge

��guns, lie boliily advocates a vessel more than twice as large as any battlc- sliip hitherto constructed — a veritable Titan of the seas.

In an article iiublished in "Sea Power," ComnKinder MolTett points out that only the size of the locks of ihe Panama Canal limits the size of battleships. That limit ajiplies to the warships of the entire world as well; for no power would sacrifice the advantage of being able to send its Heel through the Canal. Since the P.m.im.i C.mal locks will receive \essels of one thous.iiul feel length and

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