Using Triggers to 

 Uncle Sam's Battle 



How Science Has Made the 



Launching of Dreadnoughts 



Mechanically Perfect 



By Robert Howard Gordon 



Launch 

 ships 



The battleship 

 "Arizona" ready 

 to be "fired" into 

 the sea by her 



THE launching of a great battleship 

 involves the problem of releasing a 

 ship from its ways without straining 

 the shell. In the case of such great super- 

 dreadnoughts as the New York and Ari- 

 zona, the great length and enormous 

 weight(jf steel necessitate unusual care in 

 calculating the points where the strain 

 can be relieved by additional ways. The 

 "ways" are of two kinds, ground ways, 

 which are immovable, and sliding ways, 

 which move with the ship into the water. 

 Ground ways consist of longitudinal 

 timbers on either side of the keel, placed 

 about midway between the keel and the 

 turn of the bilge or under surface of the 

 vessel. The sliding ways are similar and 

 rest upon the grf)und ways, with a tliirk 



coating of stearin or grease between 

 them, to facilitate the sliding motion of 

 the hull, as shown in Figure i. 



It was thought best in launching the 

 Arizona to carry the ways as far forward 

 as possible to gain additional length of 

 sliding ways and conseciuently reduce the 

 unit pressure. The extreme narrowness 

 of the fore part of the shell necessitated 

 the placing of three steel-plate slings 

 under the ship, extending from side to 

 side and lashed to the ship by heavy, 

 wire rope as shown in Figure 2. The 

 sj)ace between the slings and the hull of 

 the boat was then filled with loncrete, 

 which gave the ship a temporarlK in- 

 creased width for\\ar(l. i'lie under por- 

 tion of the shell, in llu' wake of the 



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