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both ships — the Donskoy, which was one of the older type, and the Swietlana, which was like a yacht — there was considerably more combustible material than on the newer type of battleship.

For a great many years in naval gunnery two distinct ideas have prevailed — one is to inflict on the enemy, although not necessarily much (in quantity), severe and heavy damage — i.e. to stop movement — to penetrate under the water line — to get a burst in the hull below the water line — briefly, to put the ship at once out of action. The other is to pour upon him the greatest volume of fire in the shortest time — though it be above water and the actual damage caused by each individual shot be immaterial — in the hope of paralysing the ship, trusting that if this were done it would not be difficult to destroy her completely — that she would, in fact, sink by herself.

With modern guns, in order to secure the first of the above ideas, solid armour-penetrating projectiles must be employed — i.e. thick-coated shells (whose internal capacity and bursting charge is consequently diminished), and percussion fuzes with retarded action, bursting the shell inside the target. To secure the second idea shells need only be sufficiently solid to ensure their not bursting at the moment of being fired. The thickness of their walls may be reduced to the minimum,