Steam-ships : $b The story of their development to the present dayFletcher, R. A.
History
Steam-ships : $b The story of their development to the present day
Fletcher, R. A.
Shipbuilding; Steamboats
The destroyer _Mohawk_, built by J. Samuel White at Cowes, is 270
feet in length, 25 feet beam, and 765 tons displacement, and contains
water-tube boilers and turbines of 14,000 horse-power, and attained
a speed of forty miles an hour. She carries no coal, oil fuel being
used, of which her bunkers can take seventy-three tons. The _Tartar’s_
record was broken by the destroyer _Swift_, 345 feet in length with a
displacement of 1800 tons, and having quadruple turbine engines giving
her a speed of 36 knots.
The cruiser _Invincible_, launched by Armstrongs at Elswick in April
1907, is a first-class armoured cruiser 530 feet in length and of
17,250 tons displacement, and has turbine engines of an equivalent
horse-power of 40,000 and a speed of 25 knots.
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “LORD NELSON.”]
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “INVINCIBLE,” ARMOURED CRUISER.]
The construction of warships has resolved itself into a struggle to
attain an ever-increasing speed combined with offensive power and great
range of action, and warships of varying types have been produced
with startling rapidity, so that one powerful vessel after another
has been evolved, each superseding its predecessor in some degree,
until there are “Dreadnoughts” and “Super-Dreadnoughts” carrying guns
and armour and possessing a speed undreamt of a few years ago. Among
smaller vessels, torpedo-boats, destroyers, scouts, cruisers of various
classes, commerce destroyers, cruiser-battleships, and submarines now
take their places in the nation’s fleet. There is no telling in what
direction the next development will be. The battle of the boilers has
played an important part in the development of the warship, and it is
safe to say that had this struggle not taken place to produce a boiler
which should give a great pressure of steam quickly, the speed of the
warship as now known would not have been attainable. Twin screws are
succeeded by triple screws, and these are to be followed by quadruple
screws.
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