The super-Dreadnought" Tennessee, said to be the largest battleship afloat, was on June 3 put in commission in Brooklyn Navy Yard, where she was constructed at a cost of $20,000,000. Her length is 625 feet, beam 98 feet, and displacement 32,500 tons. She carries twelve 14-inch, fourteen 5-inch, and four 3-inch guns, and two 21-inch submerged torpedo tubes.
A special feature of -the Tennessee is her "fighting brain," enclosed near the topmast, in which all the devices for observing enemy ips are concentrated. Another feature is the electrical control of speed, enabling a quick change from her top speed of 21 knots to almost imperceptible motion.
The United States Navy Department is considering mounting 18- inch guns on some of che newest battleships. The latest American Dreadnoughts have main batteries of 16-inch guns, but ordnance experts have been conducting experiments with an 18-in. gun with a to its adoption on battle cruisers now under construction.
While the naval authority had not obeyed the directives of] Ssu, ® Teticence on the subject, Secretary Daniels admits that ex-the Supreme Command in the} letter or the spirit, and he was now compelled to' draw back all] his troops to the north of the Marne to meet Maunoury's attack, Jeaving in front of the British at) first only rearguard and Marwitz's cavalry, and, what was worse, leaving the gap of a whole Army front between himself and von Bilow's Army. Into this gap the British penetrated, and had von Kluck delayed his retreat to the; Aisne for 24 hours it is nearly certain that the German Armies would have suffered a disaster.
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