An Unsinkable Titanic: Every Ship its own Lifeboat

by John Bernard Walker

Courtesy of Robinson's "Naval Construction"

Hold Plan.
Inboard Profile.

These drawings show the minute subdivision of a battleship. Below the protective deck (shown by heavy line) the hull contains 500 water-tight compartments.

Plan and Longitudinal Section of the Battleship Connecticut

The double-skin construction, which was used to such good effect in the Great Eastern, is found in every large warship; and in a battleship of the first class, the two skins are spaced widely apart, a spacing of three or more feet being not unusual. The double-hull construction, with its exceedingly strong framing, is carried up to about water-line level, where it is covered in by the protective deck above referred to. Below the protective deck the interior is subdivided into a number of small compartments by transverse bulkheads, which extend from the inner bottom to the protective deck, and from side to side of the ship. The transverse compartments thus formed are made as small as possible, the largest being those which contain the boilers and engines. Forward and aft of the boiler- and engine-room compartments the transverse bulkheads are spaced much closer together, the uses to which these portions of the ship are put admitting of more minute subdivision.

By the courtesy of Naval Constructor R. H. M. Robinson, U.S.N., we reproduce on page [143] from his work "Naval Construction" a hold plan and an inboard profile of a typical battleship,—the Connecticut,—which give a clear impression of the completeness with which the interior is bulkheaded. Although the ship shown is less than one-half as long as the Titanic, she has 27 transverse bulkheads as against the 15 on the larger ship; and all but nine of these are carried clear across the ship from side to side.

Equally complete is the system of longitudinal bulkheads. Most important of these is a central bulkhead, placed on the line of the keel, and running from stem to stern. On each side of this and extending the full length of the machinery spaces, is another bulkhead, which forms the inner wall of the coal-bunkers. Forward and aft of the machinery spaces are other longitudinal bulkheads, which form the fore-and-aft walls of the handling-rooms and ammunition-rooms.

To appreciate the completeness of the subdivision, we must look at the inboard profile and note that the spaces forward and aft of the engine- and boiler-rooms are further subdivided, in horizontal planes, by several steel, watertight decks or "flats," as they are called. Including the compartments enclosed between the walls of the double hull, the whole interior of the battleship Connecticut, below the protective deck, is divided up into as many as 500 separate and perfectly watertight compartments.