OCR Text |
Show RUSSIA CONSIDERING IIJIGRAMME Ministry of Marine Decides Upon Construction of 56 War Vessels. Special Coblo to Tho Tribune. ST. PETERSBURG. May IS Several programmes of new naval construction havo recently been under consideration bv the Russian government, somo of which were extremely ambitious. On the ground that the costliness of these would probably have entailed a eood deal of trouble with tho dumn, the I ministry of murine has now decided to content itself with a modest programme pro-gramme consisting, so far as shipbuilding shipbuild-ing is concerned, of four battlo cruisers, cruis-ers, four modium armored cruisers, tbirty.six destroyers nnd twelve submarines. sub-marines. It is proposed to begin work in tho present year and to complete tho whole by 1017. The bnttle-cruisers will bo the most formidably armed of any ships of this typo yet laid down or projected, their armament consisting of twelve four-tocn-inch guns. Tho speed is to be twenty 'seven knotB, nnd although the displacement is not stated it cannot well be less than 35.000 tons or thereabouts, there-abouts, unless the liiultiplc'gun turrot is adopted. So far the smallest ratio of tons displacement to each big gun carried in battlo-cruisoro rr the super-dreadnought super-dreadnought type is 3250, and on this basis the displacement of tho new Russian Rus-sian ships would work out to 30,000 tons. The smaller armored cruisers are to be of 8000 tons, while the only information in-formation as to the destroyers is that they will steam thirty-fivo to thirty-six knots. In addition to the shipbuilding a comprehensive scheme of base development develop-ment will be embarked upon. In order to secure a compnrativoly ice-froo base, Roval is to be developed at tho expense of Cronstadt, which will become simply sim-ply a rcpairine yard. Two drv docks aro ot be constructed at Roval for ships of tho largest typo, and a floating dock with a capacity of -10,000 tons capable of taking a ship drawing thirty-five M If feet of water, will also bo stationed 'H ( J there. Tn addition thero will bo a .(),; ffi smaller dock for cruisers, and a doublo , j.Mln dock for torpedo crafts. Tho total cost ' jiTi of the entire programnio is estimated iuFj nt $270,000,000. - ilIR Russia alreudv has seven battleships : i,m of the dreadnought tvne under con- ' - struction. The four building in .tha J ll'jM Baltic the Poltava, Savastopol, Pet- Mfw ropaulovsk. and Gangut have been .t ,iffJ. launched. Thcv are 23 000-ton ships, l: Mif nro armed with twelve twelve-inch ; Jl cuns in four triple turrets, but aro - fajf. poorlv armored. The throe Black soa ' tft ' vessels. Einporor Alexander IIT Em L ' P'r. press Mario and Catherine, wero laid frflfe down ut the end of October last. There Ij CS .. arc contradictory reports ns to their j Hilh armament. According to ono account H'KJ thov will be two knots slower than the ; f IM4 Baltic ships, twentv-onc knots instead h ty' of twontv-throe, and cnrryinir tho same t -armament, will be correspondingly bet' ter protected. Another account (givc3 1 iham i&n fouxtocn-inch gnzUL jTpl |