34 NOTES ON THE ARMAMENTS OF BATTLESHIPS. 



Naval Constructor Taylor and Professor Hovgaard appear to be in favor of 

 triple turrets as compared with the usual twin arrangement. My own reasons for 

 preferring the twin arrangement have been stated briefly, and I am inclined to 

 think that most people who are familiar with what goes on inside a twin turret at 

 battle practise will not think it probable that when a third gun has been added 

 to a turret the rate of fire will be the same as with the twin arrangement. Certain 

 additional and serious risks will necessarily be involved when that additional 

 gun is mounted and worked, and these risks will be greater if the internal diameter 

 of the turret is increased little if at all as compared with that of the twin turret. 

 At the same time my respect for the ability as well as the boldness of Italian naval 

 architects, and mylcnowledge of the fact that in working out the design for triple 

 turrets they have been assisted by the unriA^alled experience of the Armstrong firm, 

 made me add that only experience in actual warfare could definitely settle the 

 matter. I did not say, nor do I think, that experience could be derived from a 

 single action. As a matter of fact I agree with the vicAv expressed by Naval 

 Constructor Taylor and recognize the fact that false deductions have been made 

 repeatedly from the results of single actions. No one can have read the many 

 articles and papers in which the events of the battle of Tsushima have been discussed 

 without becoming convinced that all writers on the subject of warship design are 

 disposed to find in the events of that struggle confirmation of their own particular 

 views although many of the views expressed by different writers are diametrically 

 opposed to one another. 



Naval Constructor Taylor in his interesting remarks on the development of 

 secondary armaments in my opinion misses the main point of that history. The 

 introduction of powerful and numerous secondary armaments was made by the 

 French when they began the reconstruction of their na^y after the war with Ger- 

 many and had to face the problem how best to deal with British turret ships of 

 moderate freeboard and with their guns carried at a moderate height abo^^e water. 

 These British ships belonged to what would now be called the " single-cahber big- 

 gun armament type." The French with their usual sagacity decided to construct 

 battleships of high freeboard, carrjdng four heavy guns mounted singly (in the 

 positions described in the paper) and at a great height above water, and to associate 

 with those four heavy guns a battery of guns of moderate caliber carried on the 

 main deck. Experience in heavy Atlantic weather — when the British turret ships 

 were not able to fight their heavy guns and had no other guns to fight with — showed 

 that the high-sided French ships could efficiently use both heav^^ guns and secondary 

 armaments. The British Admiralty recognized this fact and adopted the same 

 principle as the French, but carried it out in a different way. From that time 

 onward to the date of the Dreadnought's construction (1905), powerful secondary 

 armaments formed an important feature in the armaments of all British battleships. 

 I speak of what I know in this matter, having been personally concerned with it 

 throughout the whole period in question. 



Naval Constructor Linnard contributed to the discussion certain important 



