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Their hulls were protected by 12-inch armour, and the turrets by 14-inch armour, while an important improvement was introduced by providing what is called a "protective deck," that is, a horizontal deck, of armour several inches thick, which prevents shot from penetrating to the engines, etcetera, below.
The only torpedo machine employed at the Battle of Jutland was a Sunbeam fitted with a 14-inch torpedo, and it was not until just before the Armistice that a squadron of torpedo aircraft was ready for operations with the Grand Fleet.
The regiments of marines shared with the magnificent army their part of the hard-won victory; wonderfully trained gun-crews of sailors manned the monster 14-inch guns which marked a new departure in land warfare while naval officers and men in all parts of the world did their full part in the operations which mark the heroic year of accomplishment.
Meanwhile the need of big guns on the French front was becoming more and more apparent and one officer, Captain, and later Admiral, Plunkett bethought him of a number of great 14-inch navy guns which were not in use. He conceived the idea of mounting these on railway carriages and making great mobile batteries of them.
There was a fine old stock of deadly weapons mostly machine-guns and some field-pieces, and enough shells to blow up the Gallipoli peninsula. All kinds of shell were there, from the big 14-inch crumps to rifle grenades and trench-mortars.
But in addition to all the power of the ship, as a ship, or an energy greater than that of 275,000 muskets, she has the power of all the guns, twelve 14-inch guns, and twenty-two 5-inch guns, whose projectiles, not including the torpedoes fired from four torpedo-tubes, have an energy at the muzzle equal to 750,000 muskets, seven-eighths of all the muskets in the German standing army.
The report tells of notable achievements in ordnance, especially the work of the 14-inch naval guns on railway mounts on the western front, which hurled shells far behind the German lines, these mounts being designed and completed in four months. The land battery of these naval guns was manned exclusively by bluejackets under command of Rear-Admiral C. P. Plunkett.
This relative feebleness was due, of course, to the insignificance of muskets compared to navy guns, of railway-trains compared to battleships, etc. an insignificance far from being neutralized by the greater number of the units, for one 14-inch shell has an energy equal to that of about 60,000 muskets, and no army contains anything approximating the powerfulness of a battleship.
And: "It is all very well to say 'damn the torpedoes," said Secretary Daniels, in discussing this point, "but a navy cannot invite annihilation by going into mined harbors, and ships can do little or nothing against coast fortifications equipped with 14-inch guns. Experience at Gallipoli emphasizes this fact. And yet" here the secretary became cryptic "there is more than one way to kill a cat.
She carried twelve 12 and 14-inch guns in her turrets on the center line, while her torpedo battery of 5 and 6-inch guns numbered twenty. The "all-big-gun" feature of our big battleships began with the construction of the dreadnaught Delaware, in 1906. The Kennebunk was heavily armored on the waterline and barbettes.
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