It is lamentable that no heed was given to the great sagacity of Mr. Churchill in his special endeavour to give further application to this invention.
In the Submarine Monitor M1, which carries a 12-inch gun, and which is illustrated in this volume, we have the type of vessel I put before the Admiralty in August, 1915. She is the forerunner of the Battleship of the future; but her successors should be built in a much shorter time than she was.
CHAPTER XII
NOTES ON OIL AND OIL ENGINES
How War and Peaceful Commerce will be Revolutionised by the Oil Engine.
On September 17th, 1912, at 3 a.m., I invited two very eminent experts, Sir Trevor Dawson and his coadjutor McKechnie, to leave their beds and come into my room to see an outline of the Fast Ship of the Future, both for War and Commerce, carrying sufficient fuel to go round the Earth with and with an increased capacity of 30 per cent. as compared with similar vessels of the same displacement using steam. At length a special Government Research Department has been set up to develop the Oil Engine, and a sum prohibitive in peace time has been cheerfully accorded by War reasoning to set up this establishment on a big basis. I reiterate what is said elsewhere, that the Oil Engine will revolutionise both War and Commerce when once it is perfected—through the enormous gain it affords in space and smaller crews through riddance of stokeholds and firemen, and facility of re-fuelling and cleanliness and absence of funnels, etc., etc.
Here is a descriptive outline of H.M.S. “Incomparable,” as set forth in the early morning of September 17th, 1912:
Really a Gem! She can be riddled and gutted outside the Central Diamond-shaped Armoured Citadel because nothing vital outside that Citadel! So lightly built she’ll weigh so little as to go Fast, with a hundred and fifty thousand horse power! She’ll shake to pieces in about 10 years! What’s the good of a warship lasting longer? The d—d things get obsolete in about a year!
Ten 16-inch guns to begin with (afterwards 20-inch guns) for main armament.
Eight broadside Torpedo Tubes (21-inch Torpedo).
32 knots speed at least.