OF BATTLESHIP DESIGN. 105 
stated, a very interesting and valuable contribution; it is easy to say that, and it sounds very 
much like a platitude, but at the present time, when big things are happening and the 
people who are in a position to know of them are not in a position to tell of them, that 
which we get from our constructors, who are necessarily guarded in their language, is of 
extreme value in indicating the lines of present-day thought and development. 
Captain Hovgaard mentioned the speed-armament gauge, and he then went on to the 
Queen Elizabeth and some of the later ships; there are distinct signs of battle types other 
than the standard battleship and battle-cruiser. 
What I wish to emphasize is this—we have standard battleships of 21 knots, we have 
fast battleships of the Queen Elizabeth type, and then we have battle-cruisers of higher 
speeds yet. We are very much interested in battle-cruisers today, and what Captain Hov- 
gaard said about the armament of the battle-cruiser being of the heaviest possible caliber is 
of distinct value, and it is a statement which should receive very serious consideration at 
the hands of our naval authorities. The battle-cruiser is of no great value as the fastest 
wing of the fleet unless it can play the game, to a certain extent, with the battleships. The 
object of the battle-cruiser, as I take it, is largely to hold and outmaneuver the enemy’s bat- 
tleships, until our own can engage them to the utmost of their capacity. The battle-cruiser 
should therefore have an armament of the same caliber as contemporary battleships of its own 
fleet. 
Another point Captain Hovgaard reminded me of was in connection with concentra- 
tion of risk. In my own experience, I have had an example of that which illustrates the 
point. There was a battleship to be drydocked, and she was not by any means up to the 
capacity of the dock gate, the clearance being about 4 feet on each bilge. Later there was 
another battleship to dock in the same place, and the clearance was 1 foot; in fact, 10 inches 
was the theoretical figure—I cannot guarantee the last 2 inches, as I did not go down to meas- 
ure it, but it was something less than 1 foot, actual clearance. When we docked the big 
ship we knew we had to be very careful, so that when we pumped the water down, after 
docking, there was not a mark on her; the same was not true when we docked the smaller 
ship. When she was pumped down the bilge keels were considerably damaged on one side. 
The point is, when you have something of a higher order you will be more careful than 
in the case of something of a lesser order; as responsibilities multiply, so, in general, do 
men size up to them. According to mathematical probabilities, we should have damaged 
the bilg> keels in the big ship, but the damage was done on the little ship; that seems to me 
to illustrate Captain Hovgaard’s point well. 
THE PRESIDENT :—Is there any further discussion on this interesting paper? If not, I 
will ask Mr. Gatewood to respond and close the discussion. 
NavaL Constructor GATEwoop:—I want to thank all of the speakers for the nice 
things they have said about the paper. I will try to do that collectively instead of individ- 
ually. ; 
This paper was not written as an argument for or against any one particular type of 
ship, or other types of ship that seemed to be developing. It was written entirely to prove, 
to the writer more than to anybody else, that if you had a given sum of money to expend 
you could best expend it on the larger units. 
It is not for me to say, it is not my “job” to say, whether you would rather have 
twenty Wyomings than eleven Pennsylvanias (and you might be able to get them for the 
