The Russo-Japanese war has proved the wisdom of building torpedo boat destroyers of the dimensions and power that characterize the latest models. With their length of 220 feet, beam of over 20 feet and draft of between 9 and 10 feet, giving a displacement of between 300 and 400 tons, the modern destroyer is a very serviceable sea boat, which was more than could be said for the torpedo boat of an earlier decade. The high freeboard and the provision of a raised turtle-back forward, render these boats able to maintain their high speed in fairly rough water, and in the present operations the flotillas of Japanese destroyers seem to have been perfectly well able to keep the sea in all weather. Evidently the lessons taught by the disasters that happened to some of the high-powered British torpedo boat destroyers, when they were badly wrenched, and in one case actually broken in two in a heavy seaway, have been laid to heart, and the Japanese destroyers which did such good work around Port Arthur are evidently seaworthy vessels.

A surprising feature of torpedo boat service in the Far Eastern struggle is the wide range of duties which were assigned to the destroyers. Scouting work which ordinarily would be given to cruisers from 3,000 to 6,000 tons displacement was satisfactorily carried out by these little 400-ton craft.

By reference to the section diagram on page 77 the reader can obtain a very complete idea of a torpedo boat interior. Forward in the bow is a collision compartment formed by a bulkhead, located several feet from the bow. Aft of that is the chain locker, and then the torpedoes, of which half a dozen are carried on a vessel of this character. Since the torpedo boat carries no armor whatever, the torpedoes, the war-heads, and the magazines are placed below the water-line, where they are safe from any except a plunging shot. The torpedoes are stowed with their war-heads containing the guncotton charge unscrewed, the latter being stowed separately, as shown in the engraving. Aft of the war-heads is the forward magazine and a compartment given up to the general ship's stores. On the deck above are the quarters for the crew, which will number between fifty and sixty men in the larger boats.