Germany's Fighting Machine / Her Army, her Navy, her Air-ships and Why She Arrayed Them Against the Allied Powers of Europe

by Ernest F. Henderson

Naval warfare has been so far from our thoughts these many years, its terms have become so unfamiliar that it is worth dwelling for a while on the different types of ships and showing their special uses and their special tasks in battle.

Most important of all, with their supremacy unassailed by any of the newly invented types, are the battle-ships or ships of the line. They are called of the line because that is their natural position in battle, the position that renders the fire of their guns most effective. This does not mean that their bows are to be all in a line, though that position may sometimes have to be adopted; but rather that they are to string out, one behind the other at stated intervals, so as to be able to fire a vast broadside often miles in length. It may be that the line must be slanting or again that the position must be constantly changed as new exigencies arise. The ruling idea, of course, is to strike the right balance between the amount of surface presented as a target for the enemy’s guns and the ability to keep up the most effective running fire. All this is diligently practised in time of peace in the so-called maneuvers. The utmost exactness of calculation is required, for the nearer together the ships the more effective is their fire; indeed the great distinction between modern naval encounters and those of former times lies in this team work, if we may call it so. The great dreadnaughts, with their turbine engines and carefully adjusted steering apparatus, are much more manageable and can be brought much closer to one another than was the case with old-fashioned battle-ships. The distance between the bow of one ship and the stern of the next one is reckoned in practise at a hundred yards or less; one can see what an advantage it is to have the eight ships of a squadron all of about the same size and speed. This idea has been carried so far in the German fleet that, even after the superiority of the turbine engine had been demonstrated the ships required to complete a squadron were built in the old style. Single encounters like those which make up such thrilling pages in history are not likely often to occur again, and if they do, will not come to boardings and to hand-to-hand conflicts.

H. M. Cruiser Breslau [4]

The range at which the great naval battles of the future will be fought will be very great, all the way up to ten thousand yards. The great guns can easily shoot that distance, while a reason for not coming nearer until, at least, the heavy ammunition is gone, is that at that range each fleet will be practically safe from the torpedoes of the other. The German fleet often practises at that range, firing at a moving target which is dragged along by another boat. On each modern gun is a telescope, and there are instruments for determining the distance at any given moment, as well as complicated adjustments for sighting and aiming. The projectiles used in the biggest guns weigh each nearly a ton and cost well up into the thousands, so every precaution is taken not to waste them. We can no longer speak of a cannon-ball, for the modern charges are cylindrical, pointed and filled with explosives so as to inflict the utmost damage for the money. Experience has shown that at very close range they will pass through blocks of steel more than a yard thick!

The bore of the greatest guns in the German navy has hitherto been a little over thirty centimeters, but is fast reaching the forty centimeter mark; the guns themselves are from forty-five to fifty-eight feet long and weigh correspondingly. The best are from the foundries of Krupp, who, when he died, left his daughter the richest woman in Germany. The Krupps have a special steel of the utmost toughness and resistance. The gun-barrel is made of a single block, which is regularly excavated or bored; it is then protected by innumerable rings, which are put on when red-hot, and sit firmly ever after. The “kick” of the gun has been entirely eliminated by an ingenious contrivance. Altogether the cannon of to-day have become so complicated and so perfect as instruments that it takes longer to manufacture them than it does to construct the ship, and the English navy gives its orders for them about six months before even the keel is laid. And the life of such a gun is short. It is said that some of the guns on the new English, Japanese and Italian ships will be useless after they have fired eighty shots; on the American, French and German after from one hundred and fifty to two hundred. The difference lies in the construction of the gun-barrel, and there are controversies and rivalries over which methods are the best, just as there are over almost everything else that pertains to warfare: over the best shells, the best powder, the best mechanical contrivances for loading, for getting the range, etc. Dreadnaughts have scarcely yet been tried in actual warfare, and the nation that has made mistakes in theory may live to rue them bitterly in practise.

H. M. Royal Yacht Hohenzollern with His Majesty on Board in the Lock at Kiel

The guns are placed, two and two, in turrets on the battle-ships, and can be turned in any direction; if need be they can fire a whole broadside; while, as two turrets are elevated above the rest, a volley can be fired of four guns direct from the bow or stern. The turrets are armored with tough hard steel and their surface is curved so that a shot will glance off. The King and the Kaiser classes carry ten great guns, the Helgoland and Nassau classes even twelve, but the latter are no more effective, as they have not the two elevated turrets for shooting over the other guns. Some of the new French and American ships are to have three and even four guns to a turret, but the German navy is conservative enough not to wish to try the experiment.

Theoretically at least a great dreadnaught is almost unsinkable. Not only is its hull divided into a great number of cells and compartments but many of the cells themselves are armored, so that even if a torpedo penetrates to them it will not have things all its own way. All vulnerable places, too, are heavily armored with plates that extend away below the water line; while the powder magazines and torpedo tubes are well down in the depths of the ship.