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Post by hmssophia on Jun 8, 2019 10:11:28 GMT -6
The 11th Cruiser squadron has been dispatched to South-East Asia to provide additional support for the projected invasion of Hainan. Meanwhile, our submarines have caught two German flagged merchants, boarded and scuttled them. A merchant vessel is no warship - there is no reason to expend expensive missiles when it is easier to simply threaten them into abandoning ship. On the 12th of March, Dreadnought and Rodney led the 14th Cruiser Squadron and their escorts into a channel patrol that ended with an engagement with German ships. Included in this enemy fleet were several older German battleships which were threatening Plymouth's defense batteries. An hour into this battle, a shell from a german battleship struck the Dreadnought's bridge and killed the Captain commanding her along with most of his command staff. Fortunately the conning tower survived the hit and thus while the ship dropped out of line, she was soon back under command. The two British battleships were punished in the battle - that is the result of engaging four of their kind even if they were the less capable cousins. Despite the damage, the German fleet was splintered and spread along the south coast of England. The British fleet, lossless, entered port as night fell. The German fleet, down four destroyers, returned home without achieving whatever their objective had been. After that day, the Royal Navy began a similar strategy as they had used against the Russians - a close blockade of German ports. This time it was even easier, however, as the Germans had fewer ports even with a greater number of ships. Nothing would move in or out of the coastal ports and Germany would have to feed her troops on the breadbasket of Europe - if any of them would sell to her. German merchants attempting to break the blockade and run past the surface fleet were regularly caught by patrolling submarines who slipped up to them beneath the surface before surprising them by emerging with guns readied and scuttling charges prepared. Raids sank minesweepers and coastal cargo ships, further worsening the wars progress for the German forces. Surprising intelligence came through in May - as much as the agencies were focusing on Germany due to the current war, agents in America were still active. The Ohio class, of which at least three were currently under construction, was laid out for all the Admiralty to see. Heavy wing turrets, a small secondary battery; it appeared that Dreadnought had truly set the standard for these new classes of ships. The blockade continued apace, with one of the small number of German submarines sunk by shell fire after she surfaced near a torpedo boat patrol. A major coup was delivered by the submarine E-12, which caught the German battleship Mecklenburg out of position and sent two torpedoes into her flank. She returned to Portsmouth flying a jolly roger which had somehow made it aboard. "How they made it to the Irish Sea I'll never know but when E-4 got radio to us that a German fleet had been sighted off the South coast it was all we could do to make steam and beat out to meet her. I had with me Dreadnought and Rodney, who had proved so impressive these last few months, along with Formidable, Barfleur and Hood, a few cruisers and a gaggle of those torpedo boats. We found them at five in the evening as my man brought coffee to the bridge, just in time for us to head below. The sun was beginning to sink, but we plowed on in confidence that we could drive them off before it sank for good. Of course it was not to be, and we didn't catch them before night fell. I hesitate to call them cowards - our guns are better, our ships larger. Hell, I'm sure I know my opposite number aboard their battleships and I wouldn't say as much to his face so I shan't here. But it was, nonetheless, frustrating."August, 1908. The Russians are the third nation to bring a modern 'dreadnought' type battleship into service. The French Colbert is the only one to move away from this methodology, with heavy firepower on the wings on all other battleships under construction thus far. This Russian design might be under gunned, slow and heavy, but she is very similar to the American Ohio. The future of ship design is interesting to consider. Indeed, the next British ships will likely look nothing like this. The newest design studies, including Bradshaw's 'Ideal Battleship' has most of the turrets mounted aft, is capable of twenty-three knots and masses around 25,000 tons. With four turrets of 14" guns, she would be able to fight eight on the broadside an four aft with one lifted above the other. But will even the british future look like this? With the coal fired Redoubtables still on the slips, they are sure to be far exceeded by the progeny of their design school. "It was madness. The Boche came onto us at night, at less than a mile. Guns firing, shells whistling, that's all I remember fighting the for'rard gun of the Bulldog. Hope was on fire, Brisk was half sunk. Redpole caught a torpedo that was meant for one of the bigger girls and we all think she saved the Navy that night. We was about 800 yards off of one of their big cruisers at one point. Scary stuff, but they was already smoking. We made it back to Harwich by morning but I've never been more certain I was going to die in my life. Scary stuff."
Gunner Harris, HMS Bulldog, Interviewed 1957
HMS Redpole was the only loss for the British at this close-in night battle fought towards the end of 1908. But the Germans would find morning dawning on a mostly untouched fleet - except for SMS Stuttgart. Hit repeatedly at close range by the British cruisers, the Konigsberg class armoured warship was badly holed and slipped beneath the surface just a few miles from Wilhelmshaven.
By the time a new design can be put together, the Redoubtables will be off the slips. What should we build? [ ] More fast cruisers [ ] A battle Cruiser design [ ] Another Battleship
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Post by rugnir on Jun 8, 2019 21:12:51 GMT -6
I think that lessons need to be learned from the difficulties encountered in catching the russians in the earlier war and now stuggling to catch the retreating german fleet out of place. The battle line needs to be fully upgraded with more modern 'dreadnaught-type' battleships to bring it fully to this new 21 knot standard as soon as possible. These new 'Battle-Cruisers' are an interesting concept, and could cause havoc if our enemies were to use them itelligently as blockade raiders without an opposite number on our side, but trying to focus on too many avenues at once will cause difficulty, and the technology for driving such a large ship at an adequate speed is too early - the sacrifices that would have to be made to reach the 25 or 26kt speed required for such a role would render the ship under-armoured and under-armed. Leave it a couple of years, and keep a close eye on the americans' new design.
Fast cruisers are useful for merchant raiding, and for serving the colonies, but the old battleships could also be used for such a purpose, escorting merchants and travelling to the far-flung reaches of the empire. They could see off any enemy attempting to sever the vital trading links of the empire. This tactic has already been used to some extent with the Far East Station's 2nd Battle Squadron.
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Post by warspite1995 on Jun 8, 2019 21:33:22 GMT -6
Get a Battle Crusier in order to win any Cruiser engagements the game throws at you!
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Post by Procopius on Jun 8, 2019 23:57:31 GMT -6
I personally never bother with battlecruisers until I can get 28 knots of speed out of them.
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Post by hmssophia on Jun 9, 2019 7:12:55 GMT -6
The closing months of the war were marked by inconclusive engagements which nonetheless were distinguished by great heroism. The charge of HMS Harpy, a torpedo boat, which did no damage but forced a superior cruiser force to turn away earned her captain and crew several medals. That October battle saw several German elements instead attack piecemeal and the British cruisers were safe. Damage was done on both sides, but none such that every ship did not return to port. Sadly it was around this time that the first british combat submarine loss was reported. E-5, a B class submarine, failed to return from a short patrol off the North-East coast. Presumed she was lost to enemy action, she was struck from the rolls and her crew commemorated in ceremony. It wasn't until several decades later that it was discovered her loss was accidental, the result of faulty valves becoming stuck, and the records updated as such. The December offensive, a mainland amphibious assault on Germany that pushed into the heartlands and threatened to cut off Wilhelmhaven, was held along the coastline. A foothold was purchased in the blood of englishmen but it was a foothold nonetheless. With the enemy fleet blockaded and trade cut off, with the BEF on foreign shores, surely it would only be a matter of time before the enemy was forced to the negotiating table. The first Invincible class battlecruiser was laid down in the first days of 1909. Projected to be capable of twenty-eight knots, armoured almost as much as the Redoubtable class and carrying a smaller but nonetheless similar battery to them. Designed with the failures of the British battle line to keep pace with their enemies in mind, the Invincibles would chase down and sink anything else on the oceans. But of course the capabilities of the design came with a price - a very steep price. At almost £4,000,000 per ship, they are a third more expensive than the Redoubtable class that preceded her. Would more than one be ordered? Only time would tell. March saw an intelligence debacle on a grander scale than the Russian issue. A revolutionary, German-born but long since living in London after being chased out of her homeland, found her way into the hands of the British Intelligence Service. Arguments raged in the halls of power about what to do with her. Some considered her too dangerous to the continent as a whole and thought she should be locked up. Others were concerned about any use of her backfiring. But the winning side considered the capabilities of sending a political reactionary into the enemy heartland and watching them collapse. So sent she was, on a liner from America bound for France before being transported across borders into Germany itself. Two submarines were lost warding off German ships while the transfer was completed. In the same month, two armoured cruisers in the far east caught a German convoy trying to resupply Hainan which was under blockade. In the course of 25 minutes, the two cruisers shelled every merchant ship until they sank below the ocean before escaping without fear. Is the battlecruiser worth it?[ ] That's far too expensive [ ] The speed is worth it [ ] Build one more, but that's enough.
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Post by rugnir on Jun 9, 2019 8:18:31 GMT -6
I am a little concerned by the lack of secondary armament on that battlecruiser - from 14 inch to 3 inch with nothing inbetween leaves me worried that a force of several light cruisers or heavy destroyers could overwhealm such a ship, which surely is to be most effectively used as a sort of independant squadron. I almost think that if such a design could be drawn up, perhaps with 1 or 2 knots knocked off the total, but with a series of medium calibre guns with which to fend off larger groups of small warships, it would be more suited to it's envisioned role.
26kts should be more than enough to chase down out of position enemy ships or flee unfavorable engagements.
28kts will bring the design up to the speeds of destroyers designed just a few years prior, which is an impressive feat, but the compromise in secondary firepower is concerning.
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Post by renlybaratheon on Jun 9, 2019 13:16:07 GMT -6
Sir
I would like to raise the issue of what in my day was the preeminent fighting force in the world,The Royal Navy. It seams to me and a number of former fellow officers with whom I still correspond that the current Navy has somehow lost its way. Debates rage of so called 'battle cruisers' and those dastardly submersibles, to say nothing of those torpedo carrying toys some of the youngsters like to scoot around in.
The answer is simple, as it was in my day and in the days of Howe, Nelson and Collingwood, and Drake and Hawkins before them, bring the enemy to battle at short range and keep firing until their ships are finished. We only need enough speed to bring their battle line to within range of our guns and then we need a devastating broadside. Their lordships in their infinite wisdom never saw fit to grant me my admiralcy but even to someone so obviously undeserving of high rank or office the answer is simple. Battleships sir, let us build more Battleships and show the blasted Hun along with his French and Russian confederates that Britannia still rules the waves. Onwards to Berlin and then we can see about recovering the lost colonies from the so called 'United States'
[letter to 'The Times' from Commodore Nicholas Syke (retired), Godalming, Surrey]
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Post by hmssophia on Jun 10, 2019 4:23:41 GMT -6
"The April Strikes of 1909 were bigger than anything I had ever experienced. My mother took me an my sister, hand in hand, to walk the streets. I didn't know what it meant at the time for a protest of that magnitude to happen in Germany - I just remember wanting my papa to come home. But I can claim with confidence that I was there. I wish I hadn't been. Oh I wish I hadn't."
Memoirs of Hans FeuchenInformation about the French battlecruiser has appeared. Light armour and just 25 knots, she does however carry a heavier gun armament than the Invincibles. Two different schools produce two very different ships. "The fighting in the streets started in May - I was still too young to understand of course, but I knew it all had something to do with my sister being in the hospital. I saw little of my mother in this time, taking care of myself and our city house essentially alone. It was not an easy time for an eight year old, but I was simply thankful I was not lying in bed with a bullet wound. One night the gunshots started and didn't stop for several hours. When I worked up the courage to go to a window, i saw buildings on fire. It seemed very strange to me at the time. Almost unreal."Memoirs of Hans FeuchenThe Preussen, of which the Germans have laid down three, is of great concern to the Admiralty. Presumably it has a ten gun broadside, and a heavy belt as well. it may be slow, but it is a threat, and a major one at that. We must crush Germany before she can bring these to bear. Hopefully it will be at least a year before that time.
"The German's are not our enemies! The people of that state do not choose to fight us. It is their masters, and our masters too, who decide we must fight for no reason more than the continuation of empire and the subjugation of us, the people, the proletariat! People of London, we are but Germans removed by distance. We must rise up against our masters if we are to have peace!"
Speech to the London Communist Party, 1909Dawn, 18th of July, 1909. The Home Fleet sortied after reports of a German breakout attempt were received. British line met German cruisers in the Channel. HMS King Alfred exploded just half an hour after the battle was joined - twenty-four survivors were fished from the water by HMS Goldfinch. Admiral Kent quoted as saying "There's something wrong with those damn cruisers." Two hours into engagement, enemy battleships finally sighted due South. Battle line turned to bring guns to bear. SMS Hannover, pride of the Hochseeflotte sighted as she turned tail. Heavy rain interfered with spotting at 9am, shortly before enemy reached Emden. Chase abandoned. "When I saw soldiers marching down our street, I thought for a moment that the war was over - that papa would return and that I would have my family again. Then they began breaking into houses and dragging people out, shooting them or stringing them up. I remember the chant - Tod den Verratern, Tod den Verratern. Death to the traitors."Memoirs of Hans Feuchen
"Dawn in October is very different to dawn in July. It's cold this time but we had to have the big Dreadnoughts of the British fleet sail out against the Germans. The thunder, Molly, the thunder is unimaginable. B turret, the port gun, we had her trained right across the deck and every time she roared the decking rippled and bent under the force of the blast. It's incredible, in the same way that a storm is. Truly awesome."
Letter from Midshipman Alfie Dosun aboard HMS MagnificentThe decade is coming to a close - what should the 10 year review look at: [ ] Technological development [ ] Strategy changes [ ] Conflict [ ] Other - suggest your own
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Post by renlybaratheon on Jun 10, 2019 7:17:30 GMT -6
"Sir. As the year comes to a close and the festive season hoves in to view I continue to wonder what in blazes the blaggards who run our once proud Royal Navy are doing. Even the army (damn blast them) appears to be doing their part and if the stories from the continent are to be believed then the whole rotten edifice should already have collapsed by now yet still they fight. Damn it all man, bring them to battle once and for all and finish this business, it is after all unacceptable for a gentleman to play with his food. If their lordships can manage this apparently simple task I beseech them to not let it happen again. More battleships and bigger guns sir. Leave the ‘toys’ to the children this Christmas
[letter to 'The Times' from Commodore Nicholas Syke (retired), Godalming, Surrey]
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Post by hmssophia on Jun 11, 2019 6:53:20 GMT -6
The Royal Navy and Technology1890-1910 At the dawn of the 20th Century, the Royal Navy was confidently in control of the seas. But new threats were dawning - the United States and Japan especially. Both were building new, technologically advanced warships to compete with the traditional colonial powers of Britain, France, Germany and Russia and their long-standing fleet. Britain had to find a way to stay one step ahead of the others and technology became the place upon which a nation pinned its hopes of success.
Steam engines heated by coal powering twin shifts gave way to oil fired turbines which drove three propellers. The newest power plant which would drive the Invincible class forward at twenty-eight knots made over eighty-thousand horsepower, almost six times as much as the 1890 Ramillies battleships, and that from pure oil fuelling. Suddenly the Empire's reliance on a network of world-wide coaling stations could be reduced with this new fuel type. In addition, the density of oil meant that it could more easily be carried with a fleet and the range of vessels would improve.
Hull-form matched this development and in its own way drove the changes in armament which we see amongst British warships in this two decade period. Twelve inch guns gave way to fourteens as the standard rifle for capital ships, with three or four turrets increasing firepower even more. Staggering these turrets and clearing the midships section of the previous standard cluttered superstructure gave the British a globally superior eight gun broadside but even then new designs were appearing to take the place of these Dreadnoughts. The so called 'super firing' aft turret of the German Preussen was adapted for the newest studies to allow for a fore-and-aft design with four forwards, four aft, and suggestions that two to four could be placed along the centre line.
It was not just the capital ships which had changed though. Cruisers and destroyers had both grown considerably, with the newest Chelmer class of torpedo boats coming in at nine hundred tons with six tubes and three 4" guns. Those same torpedoes have gone from two thousand yards range at just fifteen knots to seven thousand at twenty two, with a maximum of speed thirty knots. Those same small boats have fittings for mine sweeping gear, depth charges and more and are quickly becoming a multi-use vessel which Britain will surely need more of in the coming years.
January, 1910 Two years of war. An invasion in Hainan and troops threatening Wilhelmshaven. Submarine forces reduced to just five boats by enemy action and accident, and heavy losses to the cruiser forces due to failures in shell handling. The enemy have been blockaded and pushed back and while their raiders have continuously threatened and ravaged trade they have not been able to fight their way out of home ports. Then, towards the end of the month, the RN caught the HochSeeFlotte attempting to sneak south as night fell. SMS Scharnhorst was caught in the darkness and exploded after a shell penetrated her magazine. Another, a Dresden class was repeatedly torpedoed by destroyer action and shelled by the British dreadnoughts and she sank, burning, in the night. At some point, somehow, the torpedo screens found themselves amongst the German fleet and launched huge, panicked spreads of torpedoes in all directions. A third German cruiser stumbled into the battle line and was shelled by heavy guns at close range then torpedoed. HMS Nymphe and Hope were lost. But in return, the Germans sacrificed 40,000 tons of cruiser and a torpedo boat of their own. More torpedoes were fired in close range brawls than had ever been expended in battle before - in fact, British stocks were somewhat diminished by this one engagement. The Battle of Cornwall Bank would later be recorded as a sea-change in naval warfare. Never before had small ships done so much damage so quickly. Indeed, one German survivor who washed up on the Cornish shores reports that the SMS Blucher took four torpedo hits in quick succession on her port side which led to her sinking in under a minute - not as fast as the Scharnhorst lost to magazine explosion, but nonetheless.
Six new Chelmers were laid down after this battle, two named Nymphe and Hope. Their names would be carried forward as their captains heroics had made Cornwall Bank a massive success.
The Majestics are facing obsolescence and so are the other old battleships, the 'pre-Dreadnoughts'. What should be done with them? [ ] Refits to keep them in service as patrol ships and escorts. [ ] Dispose of them at the first opportunity. [ ] Refit a few, dispose of the oldest - they aren't worth it.
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Post by renlybaratheon on Jun 11, 2019 7:49:20 GMT -6
Sir, I note that their lordships are considering scrapping some of out battleships, balderdash I say, absolute rot, these ships have many good years left in them yet, surely if these toys I hear so much about are so good it doesn't matter how 'up to date' our first class ships are does it? After all we can't beat the blasted Hun with all of our ships, how will we beat them with fewer? Why would we want to scrap ships that have so many years of good service ahead of them, are the other traditions of the senior service to be washed away as easily? Oil firing, What will happen when we run short of Oil? we'll be back to coal before you know it, Mark my words.
[letter to the Times from Commodore Nicholas Syke (retired) Godalming, Surrey]
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Post by rob06waves2018 on Jun 11, 2019 10:42:21 GMT -6
Sir, I put it that the poor commodore featured in this column last week is an outdated and bewildered buffoon. The so-called pre-dreadnoughts are so obsolete as to be naught but expensive vanity projects for Victorian by-gones. I say put them out of their blessed misery! One enemy dreadnought would likely destroy the lumbering behemoths before they could even bring their pitiful batteries to bear. In my day, even we admirals hesitated to send good tars to sea in such (barely) floating death-traps. Build our navy a capital fleet with which to rule the waves for the next decades!
Admiral Sir Robert Nelson (ret.), Hampshire.
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Post by hmssophia on Jun 11, 2019 12:59:40 GMT -6
The decision to refit the Canopus class and replace the Majestic's on foreign stations with them was not an easy one to convince the Admiralty of. The Majestic class were barely twenty years old! But it was becoming difficult to ignore their growing obsolescence. Sixteen knots was barely enough to keep up with their closest cousins and it left them lagging far beyond the twenty knots of the newest, most modern ships. So they would be disposed of in the coming years, sent to the breakers or left to rust away as barracks ships and while the Canopus would remain for a little while longer eventually she too would be retired. But there was a war to win first. February had the army come calling for some extra money, a cut from the Navies budget to allow for new equipment to drive a new push into the German heartland. The Admiralty begrudgingly allowed it, taking the painful cut so that the war might be one. But it came with a warning - victory, or this would become the navies fight and the army wouldn't get another penny. "I couldn't have seen it coming - I was a child. But I'm not sure what anyone could have. My mother certainly didn't and she was home by then, March of 1910. Where once there had been soldiers on the streets, suddenly there were normal men and women with guns and the fighting lasted three days without pause. No silence, no peace. Three days of explosions and gunfire and... well, one day I woke up and it stopped. The fighting was over and the Kaiser, all the papers were saying, was dead. Der Kaiser to whomwe pledged allegiance, strung up outside the gates of his palace with a rope around his neck. There was a new law in Germany. A communist one."Memoirs of Hans FeuchenThe continent had expected a war between Britain and Germany to last either a few days or a decade - nobody could have foreseen it lasting just two years and in the process bringing about the end of a European Monarchy. The King was devastated. He may have been an enemy for a few short years but the Kaiser was family. Nobody wanted to see their family hanged so brutally by their own people. The Admiralty, on the other hand, was quite pleased. The treaty that followed a sudden armistice gave the navy new bases in Hainan, the Carolinas and the Marianas. Kiatschou Bay and the Bismarck Archipelago also came under British administration. A noose was tightening around the Americas and, while the Germans were left their colonies in Africa as a 'goodwill' gesture to the new government a diplomatic point to the General Secretary of the People's Republic of Germany. Five ships of the Canopus class went into the docks for a refit in June, just waiting to replace their cousins on foreign stations. Soon the Majestic's would be done with, and the Navy would have the budget for new construction. They were finished by October and four of them were immediately deployed to the Med. It is December of 1910. A decade is under the British belts and two wars have proven comfortably that they are still Rulers of the Sea. The face of the world is changing. It's time to prepare for it. The Pacific in 1910 Choose a building program[ ] Fleet in being - the heaviest ships in Europe. [ ] Le Jeune Ecole - upgrade and replace light cruisers, destroyers first and foremost. [ ] Balanced - Battleships must come - but we cannot forego other spending. (Ps, we have unlocked 18 inch guns which... I don't see myself ever using.)
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Post by renlybaratheon on Jun 12, 2019 6:50:55 GMT -6
Sir. So the Kaiser is dead, im not sure what was worse a Germany led by a mad dog or a Germany led by these so called communeists. I can not see this state of affairs lasting very long, we should remain ready to intervene once the Germans decide they were better off as Saxons, Hannoverians and Bavarians than as the underlings of a mad man in Berlin.
I know what the cry will be from the so called liberals, we have won the war they will say, the so called 'peace dividend' will be demanded. I say absolute rubbish. we must maintain a strong and powerful fleet in being and let us not forget the 'two power standard' has served us well for many years, we should not sacrifice it now
[letter to the Times from Commodore Nicholas Syke (retired) Godalming, Surrey]
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Post by rob06waves2018 on Jun 12, 2019 14:15:07 GMT -6
Sir, For once, my dear adversarial counterpart in this column, the commodore Syke, has it right. No proud nation such as ours can survive very long in peace, especially with the exponentially rising number of maniacal tyrants that plague this world. No cuts should be made other than totally obsolete vessels. I would suggest a round of colonial expeditions to force the government to release more capital.
On the so-called communists, I would say they are a menace to be wiped out. Should the fanatical ideology ever take root on these here islands, I fervently believe it would spell the end of our glorious empire. They must be crushed decisively as soon as our ships are refitted and re-armed.
From my sources in the Admiralty, I have discovered that the navy has developed a design for an 18" gun. However, they profess that such a weapon is too heavy to be useful. Be that as it may, there is a large amount to be said for an intimidating leviathan sailing the ocean waves. I would suggest two of the dreadnought pattern with nine of these guns in three turrets.
Admiral Sir Robert Nelson (ret.), Hampshire
[Letter to the Times]
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