War Preparations

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 29, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 50.

The Latest United States Submarine, "The Narwhal"

United States Battle-ship North Dakota, of the Dreadnought Type

The preparations for war among the nations go on apace. We note for the benefit of our readers some of the items which indicate this.

Battle-ships

First, we note the building of immense and expensive battle-ships, of which the United States battle-ship North Dakota is a type. This is built after the Dreadnought pattern, and has proved herself to be the fastest afloat. Her length is 518 feet, 9 inches; beam, 85 feet, 2½ inches; mean draft, 27 feet; displacement on trial, 20,000 tons; her trial speed, 21.86 knots. She has 33,875 horse-power; is capable of carrying 2,500 tons of coal. Her main armor belt is 10 to 12 inches thick, and 7 feet, 6 inches wide. The upper belt is 10 inches to 8 inches thick, and 8 feet wide; her barbettes and turrets have 11 inches armor. Her armament is 10 12-inch, 45-caliber guns, and 14 5-inch, 50-caliber guns. She could probably meet the whole 16 battle-ships which America sent around the world, and come out victorious. Other nations are striving to excel.

Submarines

The latest and largest of the United States submarines is called the Narwahl. It is a descendant of the original Holland torpedo-boat, but far in advance of it. The hull is cigar-shape, built of the best quality of mild steel, with workmanship of the highest order, every seam and rivet perfectly tight. Required to navigate the depths of the sea as well as its surface, the pressure of the water is tremendous, and the ship must be built sufficiently strong to withstand it. Its surface speed is about 14 knots an hour. For its submerged work, large storage batteries are provided, which furnish energy sufficient to drive the boat from 10 to 11 knots an hour for over an hour. In other words, she is capable of sailing under water from 12 to 15 miles in an hour. The extent of her sailing on the surface is indefinite. She can sail, when completely submerged, at about 5 knots speed for 150 miles, with nothing visible above water. One of the means which the navigators have of seeing things is what is called the periscope. The one in general use is shown in our illustration. One has been devised, however, which is called an all-seeing periscope, in which views may be obtained from every direction by those in the submarine beneath the water. The little tube which projects from the water is scarcely visible. The submarines bid fair to be weapons of great potency.

Bigger Guns

We also give in connection with this article a picture of one of the big naval guns devised and manufactured by this country. The bore of this gun is 14 inches in diameter; the weight, nearly 64 tons, or 10 tons more than the 12-inch rifles of the North Dakota. Its total length is 53½ feet; the capacity of the powder-chamber, 15,848 cubic inches. It requires 365 pounds of smokeless powder for a charge to hurl the enormous projectile, which weighs 1,400 pounds. This huge shell will travel a distance of 542 inches in the bore of the gun, and after leaving the muzzle is good for a 25-mile flight; altho the battle range would be about 9,000 yards, or 5 miles. The muzzle velocity, or the rate at which the shell leaves the gun, is 2,600 feet per second; and its muzzle energy will be 65,600 foot-tons. That is, it would strike with that force, 13,000 foot-tons energy more than the latest 12-inch guns. When fired with a full charge, it will penetrate 22 8-10 inches of the best Krupp steel armor at the muzzle; and at the range of 9,000 yards, or about 5 miles, would pass through a piece of armor 13 inches in thickness.

All these facts we gather from the “Scientific American.” The cuts which we reproduce of the gun are taken from the San Francisco “Examiner.” The figure of a boy six years old stands by the shell, thus showing the length of the projectile. It may be seen that the gun itself would enclose within its barrel 13 such boys lying lengthwise of the gun.

British Battle-ship

The newest British type is the Dreadnought Neptune, the displacement of which is 20,000 tons; the speed, 21 knots. The armament is what increases the power of this ship over the original Dreadnought. In the original Dreadnought the 10 12-inch guns were mounted, 2 on the forecastle deck, a pair on each beam midship on the main deck with a superstructure between them, and 4 in 2 turrets on the main deck astern and on the center line of the ship. The Neptune, however, places the two-wing turrets diagonally, with sufficient distance between them in the fore-and-aft direction to permit the guns of both turrets to fire on the same broadside; so that the Neptune can fire 6 guns ahead, 8 astern, and 10 on each broadside, as against 6 ahead and astern, and 8 on each broadside, in the original Dreadnought.

The Neptune also carries a new 50-caliber wire-wound 12-inch gun; besides this, a battery of 4 7-inch guns mounted in a lofty central armor redoubt which surrounds the smoke-stacks, will protect both the guns and the smoke-stack bases.

Battle-ship Cruisers

The improved Inflexible has also increased size; 25 feet more length and 2 feet more beam, and 2,000 tons more displacement than Admiral Seymour’s flag-ship. The new Inflexible is called the Indefatigable. This also is not a battle-ship, but a cruiser. Really it is a battle-ship cruiser. She is just now laying down on the ways where the Indefatigable was built, another ship of the same type, but far larger. She is to be 600 feet in length, and equipped with turbine machinery of even greater horse-power than that installed in the fast ocean liners Lusitania and Mauretania. These liners exert over 70,000 horse-power when making their maximum speed of 36 knots; but the new battle-ship, to secure 28 knot speed, must run up to 80,000 or more; and it is believed that in her trial she will exceed that by 2 knots or more. She has a battery of 8 12-inch guns; and it is thought she will be able

to carry that battery for a short spurt across the high seas at a speed of 30 knots an hour; higher than the average speed of the torpedo-boat destroyers.

New Zealand has passed her bill in Parliament authorizing the building of the Dreadnought which she promised in the Empire Defense Council in London. Measures to the same end will be carried through in Australasia, and this will probably be true also in Canada.

Vessels of the Air

Among the things that are now troubling the nations is the question of what part the aeroplanes and dirigible balloons will act in the matter of the future battles. When these air-ships were first demonstrating their success, there were no guns manufactured which could successfully cope with them. That is, the gun did not swing high enough. Its angle was too low to war with the people of the air; but that is not the case at the present. Three types of gun are manufactured by the Germans for this purpose. One of these types is for the sea, mounted on a battle-ship; one for a field-gun for air-ship attack; and one mounted on a motor-car of 50-horse-power with an average speed of 30 miles an hour. The weapon can be brought to a maximum elevation of 75 degrees. The projectile emits a train of smoke which marks the path of its flight, so that the gunner can see how close he came to the air-ship. We give a cut of the 3-inch, 12 pounder Krupp field-piece mounted on a motor-car.

Other Nations

Austria has a deficit of $10,000,000; yet she expends the vast sum of $64,000,000 on battle-ships. This is characteristic of the war fever. Not a nation in the world but that is infected by the same disease. Germany and Austria seem to be working together. Russia also is putting forth vast expenditures. The extent to which Japan is building war-ships is probably not known among the other nations. She knows how to keep her war secrets. Eminent critics tell us that in case war should break out to-morrow, for instance, between the United States and Japan, the strong probabilities are that Japan would sweep the entire Pacific.

America has what one eminent critic calls a battle line, and no more. She has no colliers, no transports of account; none of the necessary auxiliaries to make a navy what it ought to be. These things are building, of course, as rapidly as the men of war can secure funds for that purpose.

Think of the millions upon millions that are expended for battle-ships now! Think of the hundreds of millions expended in our own country alone in a time of peace for war! Think of the vast number of cottages that this would build; of the vast number of schools that it would permanently endow; of the great highways from the Atlantic to the Pacific that it would build, and give employment to the men who are tramping the country for labor.

The Instigator

The spirit of war is the spirit of the devil; and the Word tells us the literal truth when it tells us that all this strife, this spirit of unrest, this preparation for war, foretold by the prophet Joel, is aroused and nourished by the spirits of demons working miracles, going forth to the kings of the earth to prepare them for the great war of Armageddon.

America has an influence now as a world power; but her influence for good and for the upbuilding of the nations of the world would have been a thousand times greater had she remained at home and pursued the arts of peace and justice and equity within her own land. All this is in the history of the past; the great future lies before us; and in the prophetic vision as revealed again and again in the Word of God (Jeremiah 25, for instance, Joel 3, Revelation 16, and many other passages), world-wide war and then the coming of the King of Kings. Men will have demonstrated their utter unworth in ruling the world, and He whose right it is shall reign.

In the meantime there goes to the nations of the earth the blessed Gospel of peace; peace built in righteousness, the righteousness of our God in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That peace He gives to us not as the world gives. Blessed is the man that knows His righteousness and its consequent peace.