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 



wav 



On Sunday the sailor lad finds time 

 to do his own sewing and mending 



402 



