The Queen Elizabeth, then, is 600 feet in length—that is to say, just 200 yards. Think of the distance you have often seen measured off for a hundred-yards' race, multiply it by two, and you will have some idea of what this means. Or, if you have ever done any shooting on the range, try to remember how far off the 200-yard target looked, and you will realize what must be the size of a ship long enough to cover all the ground between it and the firing-point. (The Dreadnought, by the way, was only 490 feet in length.) The beam of the Queen Elizabeth is 92 feet—10 feet more than that of the Dreadnought. You may well imagine that the tonnage, or weight of water displaced, by a ship of these dimensions is enormous, and so it is, being no less than 27,500 tons! So, also, is the horse-power of her engines—58,000! But when we know that they have to be able to drive this leviathan through the water at a speed of 25 knots an hour, we can well understand the necessity for powerful engines. To feed their furnaces 4000 tons of fuel are carried. It is not coal, but what is known as "heavy oil", arrangements having been made by the Admiralty for an immense quantity of this fuel, which is considered to have many advantages over coal. Earlier ships carry a proportion of both coal and oil. The engines are, of course, of the turbine type, which has entirely superseded the old reciprocating engines in the Royal Navy.
"The introduction of the turbine engine", writes a naval officer, "has revolutionized the appearance of the engine-room. The flashing piston-rods and revolving cranks have vanished. All the driving-power of the ship is hidden in some mahogany-sheathed horizontal cylinders, and there is nothing to indicate that the engines are in movement but a small external dial and needle no larger than a mantelpiece clock, attached to each of the shafts, of which there are two in each engine-room."[68]
The Queen Elizabeth can hardly be called an "all-big-gun ship", since besides the eight huge 15-inch guns which form her principal armament she carries sixteen 6-inch quick-firing guns, firing projectiles of 100 pounds weight, and about a dozen little cannon specially mounted for firing up at Zeppelins or aeroplanes. But her 15-inch guns are the biggest and most powerful cannon now afloat. Not only do they fire huge elongated shells of 1950 pounds weight, but their range and accuracy is most remarkable. We have seen a little of what they can do in the Dardanelles, when the ship, steaming well out at sea, pitched these terrible projectiles right over the peninsula of Gallipoli, to descend like a combination earthquake and avalanche upon the Turkish forts in the straits. The Dreadnought had 12-inch guns firing 850-pound projectiles, but she carried ten to the four of all her predecessors. But though the Queen Elizabeth had to give up one turret,[69] and therefore two guns, in order to make room for more boiler-power for the production of greater speed, her broadside totals 15,600 pounds of metal as against the 8500 of the earlier war-ship, or the 12,500 pounds of later Super-Dreadnoughts armed with ten 13½-inch big guns. But the ability to throw heavier projectiles was by no means the only reason for increasing the calibre of our big guns. The fact was that gradual improvements in the 12-inch gun had made it so long in proportion to its calibre that there was an imperceptible sort of "whip" at the muzzle on discharge that was yet quite enough to interfere with its accuracy.[70] So we brought out the 13.5-inch, a most formidable weapon, and, later on, the 15-inch gun. With each of these the difficulty of making sure of hitting at long range decreased, and the encounters in the war that have taken place between our ships and those of the Germans which have had the temerity to put their noses outside their harbour defences have all gone to prove the previously-advanced theory that the battles of the immediate future will take place at immense ranges, at which the smaller guns and torpedoes cannot be effectively used.
DECK OF A DREADNOUGHT CLEARED FOR ACTION
It would be superfluous to describe the general appearance of the Queen Elizabeth in words, the photograph opposite presenting it better than the most detailed description: but it may be fairly said that while in picturesque beauty modern battleships cannot compete with the masterpieces of "the days of wood and hemp", there is yet an appearance of power, proportion, and impressiveness about them which forms a combination that may be almost called a beauty in itself. In the same way we may compare the plain, severe beauty of the Parthenon at Athens with the elaborately carved, gilded, and painted workmanship of a Japanese temple. Both are attractive to the eye in their own peculiar and far differing ways. In the old wooden ships an appreciable proportion of their cost went in decoration alone, but out of the £2,400,000 expended on the "Lizzie" such expenditure may be set down practically as nil. A plain slate-coloured coat of paint, extending from truck to water-line, is all the painter has had to do with her external appearance.
The turrets in which the Queen Elizabeth's big guns are carried are four in number, and are placed on the centre line of the ship—two forward and two aft. Each turret contains a pair of guns, and the two innermost turrets are perched up on a species of protected tower or pedestal in such a way that they can fire directly over the foremost and aftermost turrets. By this arrangement four guns can be discharged dead ahead, four astern, and the whole eight on either broadside. We have been some time evolving this arrangement of turrets—in point of fact some foreign "Dreadnoughts" were the first to adopt it.
Our original Dreadnought had five turrets, three on the centre line of the ship and one on either broadside. The same arrangement was carried out in the Bellerophon and St. Vincent classes, which followed her, but in the Colossus class, which succeeded them, the position of the five turrets was altered. There was one right forward on the centre line of the ship, then one on the port side, and farther aft another on the starboard side. In fact, these two turrets were arranged en echelon, just as they were in the earlier Colossus and other ships. The fourth and fifth turrets were on the centre line, and the fourth was able to fire over the fifth, just as the second can fire over the first in the Queen Elizabeth. In the Orion class, which came next, the same arrangement as in the Queen Elizabeth was followed, but as there was an additional turret it was placed by itself right amidships. No change in this respect was made in the King Georges.
We must not leave our typical modern battleship without some reference to the way in which she is protected by armour. As in all such ships, the armour-plating is distributed (a) to protect her flotation and (b) to protect her guns. With the former object in view she has a broad water-line belt of the finest and strongest 13½-inch armour procurable, which is supplemented by an armoured deck of considerable thickness. Each turret stands on a species of armoured tower, going right down to the armoured deck, and is itself made of 13½-inch armour. Her flotation is further safeguarded by minute subdivision below the water-line.
"Long experience of naval war has established a belief, shown by the practice of maritime powers to be unanimous, that a navy should comprise three great classes of ships, these classes admitting of much internal subdivision. In the period of the great naval wars there were ships of the line, frigates, and small craft. These are now represented by battleships, cruisers, and smaller and special-service vessels. Individuals of the first-mentioned class are intended to fight in large groups, that is to say, in fleet actions; those of the second class are intended for solitary service, or, at any rate, to fight only in small groups; while those of the third are intended, according to the subdivision to which they belong, for a variety of special purposes." So writes Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge in his Art of Naval Warfare, and his definitions are clear and compact.