Armament--Four 10-inch, 45 cal.; fourteen 7.5-inch, 50 cal.; fourteen 14-pounders, four 6-pounders, four Maxims; two 18-inch submerged tubes. Armour--Practically complete belt 8ft. wide, 7-inch thick amidships, reduced to 3-inch at ends. 10-inch bulkheads at ends of thick portion of belt. Redoubt above (250ft. long), 7-inch on sides 6-inch bulkheads to it. Deck 1½-inch on slopes amidships, 3-inch on slopes at ends. Barbettes 10-inch, with 8 to 6-inch turrets. Battery and upper deck casemates, 7-inch. Horse-power--14,000 = 20 knots. Yarrow boilers. Coal--(normal) 800 tons; (maximum) 2,000 tons. These ships compare interestingly with the _King Edwards_ and _Devonshires_, between which they struck a mean, as follows:-- ===============+=================+===============+=============== | _King Edward._ | _Swiftsure._ | _Devonshire._ ---------------+-----------------+---------------+--------------- Displacement | 16,350 | 11,800 |10,850 Principal Guns | 4--12in. | 4--10in. | 4--7.5. | 4--9.2 | 14--7.5 | 6--6in. | 16--6in. | | | 5--18in. tubes | 2--18in. tubes| 2--18in. tubes ---------------+-----------------+---------------+--------------- Armour belt | 9--2in. | 7--3in. | 6--2in. Speed | 18.9 knots | 20 knots | 22.25 knots Coal (Normal) | 950 | 800 | 800 Coal (Maximum) | 2,150--400 (oil)| 2,000 | 1,800 ===============+=================+===============+=============== Other items of interest are that the armament of the _Swiftsures_ (10-inch and 7.5’s) had somewhere about that time been laid down by Admiral Fisher as the ideal armament of the future, on the principle that the best possible was “the smallest effective big gun, and the largest possible secondary gun.” In service these ships never proved brilliantly successful. They rarely managed to make their speeds successfully, and there was a great deal of vibration with them. They were shored up internally in places with a view to strengthening them. On the other hand, it should be mentioned that some of these alleged defects have been put down to conservatism in nautical ideas, and that the shoring up was not really required. Their great drawback was that so far as the British Navy was concerned they were neither one thing nor the other, being too light in heavy guns to be satisfactory with the battleships, and too slow to act with the cruisers. Had there been six or so of them they would, possibly enough, have formed an ideal squadron. Being two ships only, they of necessity became round pegs in square holes. _NAVAL ESTIMATES IN THE ERA._