ABSTRACT

The great contest of armour plates versus guns has already been alluded to, and to the remarks then made it may be added that, while on the one hand, guns weighing 110 tons are mounted in turrets, ships are already designed with 18 in. In the ships built within the last 15 years, steel has been almost invariably used instead of iron for the armour-plating. The largest British armoured ships yet launched have displacements between 10,000 and 12,000 tons, but another class of first-rate line-of-battle ships of still greater size is in process of construction, and of these it is estimated that four will be completed in 1893. Two recent additions representing new type of ships claim notice before this article is concluded. There are forty-eight boilers and four funnels, the ship being capable of carrying 3,000 tons of coal.