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Show BATTLESHIPS j TO BE JUNKED Twelve Pre-Dreadnaught Warships War-ships to Be Put Out of Commission. WASHINGTON, Jun 8 Twelve pre-dreadnaught battleships will be re- ; lleved of activn duty with the fleet,: placed out of commission and even-1 tuallj broken up for junk or used as' targets by more modern vessels under plans now being worked out by the' navy department. The ship are of the "mixed battery" type and are not, considered to be of any alue against; latest fighting craft Four of the battleships, the historic' squadron comprising the Oregon Indiana. In-diana. Iowa and Massachusetts have already been relegated to the scrap' heap. The remaining eight, apparent- i ly doomed to the same fate, are the I Kearsage, Kentucky. Illinois, Alabama Wisconsin. Maine, Missouri and Ohio i The twelve vessels, built between l 1893 and 1901, represent a total expen-diture expen-diture for hulls and machinery alone of more than $33,300,000. When placed plac-ed out of commission they will release for other duty approximately ten thousand thou-sand enlisted men and nearly 400 officers. of-ficers. The ships long ago outlived their usefulness as combatant units in a fighting fleet, although when the were built they were among the most! formidable war vessels afloat. All1 were used during (he war with Ger-' many as training ships or coast defense de-fense units. Slow of speed, wlLh small coal capacity, Inferior ordnance equip- ment and insufficient protection against present day projectiles, the ships, if kept in commission. v.ould be more of a liability than an asset in the opinion of naval i xperts. They are armed with old typo 12 and 13 inch guns in the m;un batteries and eight inch in the secondary defense. The question of what to do with so niaily practically useless bat tl -h:p- after they have been placed out of commission is beforo the department The historic old Oregon has been offered of-fered to the state of Oregon to be used as the state sees fit for memorial purposes and probably will be accepted accept-ed The Iowa, Indiana and Massachusetts Massachu-setts probably will be broken up fo.-the fo.-the metal. The remaining eight prob ably will be used a3 targets for experi-1 ments In the effects of modern gur fire, as was the old Texas. It has been suggested that a num ber of the vessels could be well utilized util-ized as coast defense units by sink-Ing sink-Ing them in shoal water at tho en ' trance to the more important waterl I making , 1 ii ' itable fort- It is possible that four of them will be QseJ for this purpose. With tliee twelve ship? stnckfn n, from the Ua re-l.-r ih- lle.t will 2 comprise fort ;, dread naught , .md prM . dreadnauidus, 1r) i ih-m of the rnost j "ff modern type and eh-', en of sightly old- P er class Included in the dreainau;ht jj class are the 1 1 1 from the MichlgaB and Son i honuh dtfr j new Colorado and Mar saehuseiflB I classes arc not yet completed. |