20 
THE WORLD S WAR-SHIPS. 
armour, and she can only steam 1480 knots at 10 knot speed. The 
latter fault could, however, be easily remedied by new engines. Her 
speed at present is 14 knots. 
The foregoing ships of the turret class are all more or less from 
designs of Sir Edward Reed. We now come to those of Mr. Barnaby. 
The first of these is the Inflexible. This ship is far more like the 
Italian Duilio than her predecessor in our service, with whom, however, 
we will compare her. In the first place the turrets are placed out of 
the line of keel, the bow one on the port side, the other on the star¬ 
board. This enables the whole of her four guns to be discharged 
simultaneously right-ahead or astern. In consequence of this it was 
found practicable to place them too much nearer to one another, thereby 
reducing the armoured breastwork to 110 inches in length instead of 
184 inches in the Dreadnought, and 156 inches in the Devastation. 
It extends across the deck as in the former of these vessels. Another 
point gained by the side mounting of the turrets was that it enabled 
masts to be used without interfering with direct fire ahead. Accord¬ 
ingly she was rigged as a brig, a narrow upper deck being erected 
along her length to work her sails; the funnels being placed at each 
end of her citadel. As it was intended to give her armour from 24 
inches to 17 inches it became necessary to confine its use to the centre 
of the ship. The belt on the water-line was given up; this was 
compensated for by a large number of water-tight compartments, a 
belt of cork where the armour would have gone, and a thin shot- 
proof deck. The cork chambers have, since her first commission, been 
increased. In addition to this she has a number of water-tight tanks. 
The idea, of course, is that if a shot hit the unarmoured ends at right 
angles it would travel through four feet of cork, then two feet of 
canvas and oakum, then such coal and stores as were unconsumed, and 
were in the water-tight tanks, and then through cork and oakum again 
to the sea. As regards size, she was the same length as the Dread¬ 
nought, 11 feet more beam, with a tonnage of 11,900 instead of 10,800 
tons displacement. For armament she has four 80-ton guns instead 
of the same number of 38. 
I forgot to mention that the Inflexible is classed as a mastless 
ship, as in time of war it is intended to remove the top-masts and 
topgallant-masts, and use the lower masts simply as military masts or 
signal poles. She is not fitted with bowsprit or head sails. About 
her has raged a furious fight on the question whether the destruction 
of her unarmoured ends would destroy her stability. After much 
discussion, a strong Committee was appointed to consider this point, 
and it decided in the negative. The reason her funnels are placed so 
far apart is that she was the first and, I think, the only armoured ship 
in our service with the stoke-holes placed at both ends of the engine- 
room. 
The conclusion arrived at, by the above-named Committee, carried 
such weight that it was decided to accept the Inflexible as the type of 
the future British line-of-battle ship. Accordingly the Ajax and 
Agamemnon were built, differing from that ship in dimensions, but not 
in type. They have each 40 inches less length and 14 feet less beam. 
