Reina Regente 5,372 0 0 Steel
Rio de la Plata 1,775 0 0 Steel
(Torpedo boats.)
Five of Ariete type and one of 750 tons.
LINERS FOR CONVERSION.
NAME. Tonnage. Guns in Speed in Hull.
Batteries. knots/hour.
Magellanes 6,932 0 17.0 Steel
Buenos Aires 5,195 0 14.0 Steel
Montevideo 5,096 0 14.5 Steel
Alfonso XII 5,063 0 15.0 Steel
Leon XIII 4,687 0 15.0 Steel
Satrustegui 4,638 0 15.0 Steel
Alfonso XIII 4,381 0 16.0 Steel
Maria Cristina 4,381 0 16.0 Steel
Luzon 4,252 0 13.0 Steel
Mindanao 4,195 0 13.5 Steel
Isla de Panay 3,636 0 13.5 Steel
Cataluna 3,488 0 14.0 Steel
City of Cadiz 3,084 0 13.5 Steel
INTEREST IN THE WORKING OF MODERN WAR SHIPS.
The puzzle that was troubling every naval authority as well as every statesman in the civilized world, at the outbreak of the war between the United States and Spain, was what would be the results of a conflict at sea between the floating fortresses which now serve as battle-ships. Since navies reached their modern form there had been no war in which the test of the battle-ship was complete. Lessons might be learned and opinions formed and prophesies made from the action of battle-ships in the war between China and Japan, the war between Chili and Peru, and from the disasters which had overtaken the Maine in the harbor of Havana and the Victoria in her collision with the Camperdown, as well as the wreck of the Reina Regente and others. But in all these, combine the information as one might, there was insufficient testimony to prove what would happen if two powers of nearly equal strength were to meet for a fight to a finish.
Whatever was uncertain, it was known at least that there would be no more sea fights like those of the last century and the first half of this, when three-deck frigates and seventy-four-gun men-of-war were lashed together, while their crews fought with small arms and cutlasses for hours. Those were the days when "hearts of oak" and "the wooden walls of England" made what romance there was in naval warfare, and the ships of the young United States won respect on every sea. In the fights of those days the vessels would float till they were shot to pieces, and with the stimulus of close fighting the men were ready to brave any odds in boarding an enemy's craft. It was well understood that the changed conditions would make very different battles between the fighting machines of to-day.
That a naval battle between modern fleets, armed with modern guns, would be a terribly destructive one both to the ships and to the lives of those who manned them, was conceded by all naval authorities. The destructiveness would come not only from the tremendous power and effectiveness of the guns, but also from the fact that the shell had replaced the solid shot in all calibers down to the one-pounder, so that to the penetrating effect of the projectile was added its explosive power and the scattering of its fragments in a destructive and death-dealing circle many feet in diameter.