Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/418

 All Around A Battleship

���A Landlubber's Questions — Answered by- Major Frank E. Evans, U. S. Marine Corps

And so you would like to see a battleship? Let us in- troduce you to Major Frank E. Evans of the U. S. Marine Corps. He will take you all around the ship and, short of actually firing the big guns, will show you everything. Don't be afraid to ask questions. The Major is used to landlubbers

��Major Frank E\ Evans, who takes you around the battleship

��LANDLUB- BER— Is this the largest ship in the Navy?

Major Evans — Yes, the Arizona and her sister ship, the Penn- sylvania, are the largest in commission. She is six hundred feet long, with a ninety- seven-foot beam, draws thirty feet, and displaces thirty-one thousand four hundred tons. Her speed is twenty-one knots, or twenty-four miles an hour, and her final cost thirteen million, six hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars.

Landlubber — And she has the biggest guns?

Major Evans — Yes, each of her twelve fourteen-inch or turret guns weighs sixty- four tons, and is fifty-two feet long. The shell weighs fourteen hundred pounds and the powder charge three hundred and eighty pounds. It costs a little more than five hundred dollars to fire each gun, and to make it possible to fire that gun cost the government eight hundred and fifteen dollars for each pound of her broadside. The turrets are placed on the ship's center- line, with the three guns of each after turret arranged on a line above those of each forward turret. Here we have the heaviest broadside and greatest radius of fire possible. When all three guns in a turret are fired together in a salvo the two outer guns are fired simultaneously and the fraction of a second before the center gun. If all three were fired simultaneously the terrific blast would derange the flight of the shells.

Landlubber — How are the turrets moved ?

Major Evans — Turning engines or mo* tors move them on rollers lying in a circular path. T. R. Timby invented the revolving

��turret in 1841 and Ericsson paid him five thousand dollars royalty on each turret he built.

Landlubber — How thick is the armor on this ship?

Major Evans — It varies from nine to eighteen inches on the triple turrets. The barbette armor is thirteen inches thick. An armor belt protecting the engines and magazines covers nearly three-quarters the length by a belt thirteen and one-half inches thick, seventeen inches from top to bottom and running half below load water line and half above. On the conning tower the sixteen-inch armored sides and the five to eight-inch armor protecting the broadside guns brings the weight of armor up to one- fourth the ship's entire weight.

Landlubber — Why isn't this deck made of steel too ?

Major Evans — It is. There is steel be- neath the teak covering of three and one- half inches on which you are standing. Without the wooden covering a steel deck would be unbearable in the tropics. We use teak now in place of yellow pine. It costs more but does not spread and that does away with constant calking of seams. One deck below is the protective deck of from two to five inches of nickel steel armor.

Landlubber —

And the decks

below? Are they

built in the

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��On Sunday the sailor lad finds time to do his own sewing and mending

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