THE "HUSH SHIPS"
The British Navy had constructed a number of very fast cruisers to deal with any raiders the Germans might send out. These cruisers were light vessels capable of such high speeds that they could even overtake a destroyer. They were 840 feet long and their turbines developed 90,000 horse-power. The construction of these vessels was for a long time kept a profound secret and it was not until the German fleet surrendered that photographs of them were allowed to be published. Because of this secrecy the boats were popularly known as "hush ships." They were not armored; it was not necessary to load them down with armor plate, because their protection lay in speed and they were designed to fight at very long range. In fact, they were to carry guns that would outrange those of the most powerful dreadnoughts. Our largest naval guns are of 16-inch caliber, but the "hush ships" were each to carry two 18-inch guns. The guns were monsters weighing 150 tons each and they fired a shell 18 inches in diameter and 7 feet long to a distance of 30 miles when elevated to an angle of 45 degrees. The weight of the shell was 3600 pounds and it carried 500 pounds of high explosive or more than is carried in the largest torpedoes.
At the 32-mile range the shell would pass through 12 inches of face-hardened armor and at half that range it would pass through armor 18 inches thick, and there is no armor afloat any heavier than this.
Courtesy of "Scientific American"
Hauling a Seaplane up on a Barge so that it may be Towed at High Speed by a Destroyer