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Show jj WHEN THE BIG WARSHIPS MEET. Will the dreadnought or the super-dreadnought super-dreadnought fail to prove the power ful warship it has been represented I Rear Admiral A. T. Mahnn of the United States savy. has his doubts In an interview yesterday he said The problem of the all big gun ship is a highl interesting one, an m.v learn through this war of it." worth Rut the lesson will not be Phow in any ship for ship fiRhl Dreadnought against dreadnought will be no different than one old frlgatn r.cainst another frigate in the days gone by 'The really interesting and instruc-Uve instruc-Uve combat would be between, say a dozen dreadnoughts and a dozen and a half smaller vessels for in stance, of ordinary battleship size We might then see whether or not th twelve and fourteen inch gun is of so crdt importance as has lately been assumed " The admiral intimated that from what data he had been able to obtain It was likely that the vcr big gun might Drove to be a much overrated weapon. In the Russo-Japanese war I he ljeveand many other naval officers agree with me that the bulk of the damage was done by the eight and ! ten-inch guns." he said In that con-' con-' flict I think it was shown that the1 volume of fire, the number of hits, j was much more important than the, single shots from the great guns, and I believe this war will prove the same; thing For example, imagine a single I shot from a 14-inch gun hitting an enemy's ship. It does tremendous1 damage, certainly. But one might almost al-most say it does too much damage That ia. it exerts more power than j is necessary to cripple the adversary.; Two shots from 8-inch guns would be much more effective in battle than one 14-lnch shot. "I cannot say that 1 agree with the Idea of the A B. G ships England, of course, originated the dreadnought, and cackled like a chicken that had laid an egg and got everyone else ! building A R. O s. But I think all I the navies are coming around to what we called the mixed battery' snlp' and it is as It should be. The original dreadnought idea ws a ship with all big guns or 12-Inch or 4-inch caliber and a tew small guns, say 3-inch or l-lnch calibi r, for use ag.ninst torpedo boats But the size of the les.;'jr battery has been c reeping reep-ing i p year bj year, until our newest ships have 6-inch guns with the four-terns, four-terns, and 1 understand some vessels have g-lnch guns, which are pretty sizeable weapons for any use 1 believe this war will show that a well-distributed fire by the medium j slzd Rims will do much more damage dam-age than the slower single shots ol J the big fellows " |