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Seeking the German Fleet
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in the line were the Delaware and North Dakota, our earliest dreadnoughts, mounting ten 12's and fourteen 5's.

In displacement the ships varied from the 20,000 tons of the Delaware to the 27,500 tons of the Oklahoma. The belt armor was from 11 inches to 13½ inches in thickness, and the maximum speed of the fleet was 21 knots.

Every ship could fire its whole broadside on either beam, and in every minute of the coming engagement we would be able to hurl at the enemy 110 tons of projectiles, every one of which, if it landed squarely, would pass entirely through the belt armor of the enemy and burst in the interior of the ship.

Ship for ship and gun for gun, we knew that we could crush that German fleet, which, the radio had told us, was approaching somewhere to the eastward.

But where was the enemy? In what