The Swiftest and Biggest 



The power plant which drives New York's 

 subway trains develops 65,000 horsepower 

 — less than 40% of that required to drive our 



Our new battleships are the most daring ever proposed. They will have a length of 850 feet 

 between perpendiculars and an over-all length of 874 feet. What that means is shown by thq 



A FEW months ago the United States 

 Navy Department announced that it 

 would build battle cruisers with a 

 length of 850 feet and a speed of thirty-five 

 knots — forty miles an hour. Only ship- 

 builders and naval officers realized the full 

 meaning of the Department's program. 

 England is said to have completed battle- 

 ships of about the same size but never have 

 we attempted to build a fighting vessel 

 so huge. The battles fought by the British 

 and German fleets in the North Sea were 

 object lessons. They showed that sea 

 fights are won by speed and hitting power. 

 And so the Navy Department determined 

 to build the fastest battle-cruisers and to 

 arm them with the most powerful guns. 



What is a battle cruiser? It is a ship 

 which is faster than a superdread nought, 

 but not so heavily armored. Battle cruisers 

 were lost in the last North Sea battle 

 largely because they had not the protection 

 of a superdreadnought. But although they 

 went down, they saved the day for England. 

 They kept the German fleet in action, until 

 the British Grand Fleet with its super- 

 dreadnoughts could appear on the scene. 

 And so we decide that battle cruisers we 

 must have. 



It is one thing to design a battle cruiser 

 850 feet long with a speed of thirty-five 

 knots; quite another to build it. It would 

 seem simple enough to magnify existing 

 models and to put in bigger engines. That 



Comparison between the proposed cruiser and New York city streets. These cruisers will have ten 

 fourteen-inch, twenty five-inch and four three-inch anti-air-craft guns besides eight torpedo-tubes 



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