Before its attack a ship would derive small advantage from a crinoline
of steel netting; for the large torpedo conceals in its head a smaller
torpedo, which, as soon as the netting is struck, darts out and blasts
an opening through which its longer brother, after a momentary delay,
can easily follow. The netting penetrated, the torpedo has yet to
strike twice before exploding. On the first impact, a pin, projecting
from the nose, is driven in to reverse the engines, and at the same
time a certain nut commences to travel along a screw. The nut having
worked its way to the end of the thread, the head of the torpedo fills
slowly through a valve, giving it a downward slant in front. The
engines are again reversed and the nut again travels, this time
bringing the head of the torpedo up, so as to strike the vessel at a
very effective angle from below.
This torpedo has passed beyond the experimental stage. It is reported
that by command of the Swedish Government, to whom Mr. Orling offered
his invention, and of the King, who takes a keen interest in the ideas
of his young countryman, a number of experiments were some time ago
carried out in the Swedish rivers. Torpedoes were sent 2-1/2 miles,
directed as desired, and made to rise or sink--all this without any
tangible connection. The Government was sufficiently satisfied with
the result to take up the patents, as furnishing a cheap means of
defending their coasts.
Mr. Orling has described what he imagines would happen in case of an
attack on a position protected by his ingenious creations. “Suppose
that I had twelve torpedoes hidden away under ten feet of water in a
convenient little cove, and that I was directed to annihilate a
hostile fleet just appearing above the horizon. Before me, on a little
table perhaps, I should have my apparatus; twelve buttons would be
under my fingers. Against each button there would be a description of
the torpedo to which it was connected; it would tell me its power of
destruction, and the power of its machinery, and for what distance it
would go. On each button, also, would be indicated the time that I
must press it to release the torpedoes. Well now, I perceive a large
vessel in the van of the approaching fleet. I put my fingers on the
button which is connected with my largest and most formidable weapon.
I press the button--perhaps for twelve seconds. The torpedo is pushed
forward from its fastenings by a special spring, a small pin is
extracted from it, and immediately the motive machinery is set in
motion, and underneath the water goes my little agent of destruction,
and there is nothing to tell the ship of its doom. I place my hand on
another button, and according to the time I press it I steer the
torpedo; the rudder answers to the rays, and the rays answer to the
will of my mind.”[2]
[2] _Pearson’s Magazine._
If this torpedo acts fully up to its author’s expectations, naval
warfare, at least as at present conducted, will be impossible. There
appears to be no reason why this torpedo should not be worked from
shipboard; and we cannot imagine that hostile ships possessing such
truly infernal machines would care to approach within miles of one
another, especially if the submarine be reinforced by the aërial
torpedo, different patterns of which are in course of construction by
Mr. Orling and Major Unge, a brother Swede. The Orling type will be
worked by the new rays, strong enough to project it through space.
Major Unge’s will depend for its motive power upon a succession of
impulses obtained by the ignition of a slow-burning gas, passing
through a turbine in the rear of the torpedo. The inventor hopes for a
range of at least six miles.
What defence would be possible against such missiles? Liable to be
shattered from below, or shivered from above, the warship will be
placed at an ever-increasing disadvantage. Its size will only render
it an easier mark; its strength, bought at the expense of weight, will
be but the means of insuring a quicker descent to the sea’s bottom. Is
it not probable that sea-fights will become more and more matters of a
few terrible, quickly-delivered blows? Human inventions will hold the
balance more and more evenly between nations of unequal size, first on
sea, then on land, until at last, as we may hope, even the hottest
heads and bravest hearts will shrink from courting what will be less
war than sheer annihilation, and war, man’s worst enemy, will be
itself annihilated.
SUBMARINE BOATS.
The introduction of torpedoes for use against an enemy’s ships below
the waterline has led by natural stages to the evolution of a vessel
which may approach unsuspected close enough to the object of attack to
discharge its missile effectively. Before the searchlight was adopted
a night surprise gave due concealment to small craft; but now that the
gloom of midnight can be in an instant flooded with the brilliance of
day a more subtle mode of attack becomes necessary.
Hence the genesis of the submarine or submersible boat, so constructed
as to disappear beneath the sea at a safe distance from the doomed
ship, and when its torpedo has been sped to retrace its invisible
course until outside the radius of destruction.
To this end many so-called submarine boats have been invented and
experimented with during recent years. The idea is an ancient one
revived, as indeed are the large proportion of our boasted modern
discoveries.
Aristotle describes a vessel of this kind (a diving-bell rather than a
boat, however), used in the siege of Tyre more than two thousand years
ago; and also refers to the divers being provided with an air-tube,
“like the trunk of an elephant,” by means of which they drew a fresh
supply of air from above the surface--a contrivance adopted in more
than one of our modern submarines. Alexander the Great is said to have
employed divers in warfare; Pliny speaks of an ingenious diving
apparatus, and Bacon refers to air-tubes used by divers. We even find
traces of weapons of offence being employed. Calluvius is credited
with the invention of a submarine gun for projecting Greek fire.
The Bishop of Upsala in the sixteenth century gives a somewhat
elaborate description of certain leather skiffs or boats used to
scuttle ships by attacking them from beneath, two of which he claims
to have personally examined. In 1629 we read that the Barbary corsairs
fixed submarine torpedoes to the enemy’s keel by means of divers.
As early as 1579 an English gunner named William Bourne patented a
submarine boat of his own invention fitted with leather joints, so
contrived as to be made smaller or larger by the action of screws,
ballasted with water, and having an air-pipe as mast. The Campbell-Ash
submarine tried in 1885 was on much the same principle.
Cornelius van Drebbel, an ingenious Dutchman who settled in England
before 1600, produced certain submersible vessels and obtained for
them the patronage of two kings. He claims to have discovered a means
of re-oxygenating the foul air and so enabling his craft to remain a
long time below water; whether this was done by chemical treatment,
compressed air, or by surface tubes no record remains. Drebbel’s
success was such that he was allowed to experiment in the Thames, and
James I. accompanied him on one of his sub-aquatic journeys. In 1626
Charles I. gave him an order to make “boates to go under water,” as
well as “water mines, water petards,” &c., presumably for the campaign
against France, but we do not hear of these weapons of destruction
being actually used upon this occasion.
[Illustration: _The “Holland” Submarine Boat._]
These early craft seem to have been generally moved by oars working in
air-tight leather sockets; but one constructed at Rotterdam about 1654
was furnished with a paddle-wheel.
Coming now nearer to our own times, we find that an American called
Bushnell had a like inspiration in 1773, when he invented his famous
“Turtles,” small, upright boats in which one man could sit, submerge
himself by means of leather bottles with the mouths projecting
outside, propel himself with a small set of oars and steer with an
elementary rudder. An unsuccessful attempt was made to blow up the
English fleet with one of these “Turtles” carrying a torpedo, but the
current proved too strong, and the missile exploded at a harmless
distance, the operator being finally rescued from an unpremeditated
sea-trip! Bushnell was the author of the removable safety-keel now
uniformly adopted.
Soon afterwards another New Englander took up the running, Fulton--one
of the cleverest and least appreciated engineers of the early years
of the nineteenth century. His _Nautilus_, built in the French
dockyards, was in many respects the pattern for our own modern
submarines. The cigar-shaped copper hull, supported by iron ribs, was
twenty-four feet four inches long, with a greatest diameter of seven
feet. Propulsion came from a wheel, rotated by a hand winch, in the
centre of the stern; forward was a small conning-tower, and the boat
was steered by a rudder. There was a detachable keel below; and fitted
into groves on the top were a collapsible mast and sail for use on the
surface of the water. An anchor was also carried externally. In spite
of the imperfect materials at his disposal Fulton had much success. At
Brest he took a crew of three men twenty-five feet down, and on
another day blew up an old hulk. In the Seine two men went down for
twenty minutes and steered back to their starting-point under water.
He also put in air at high pressure and remained submerged for hours.
But France, England, and his own country in turn rejected his
invention; and, completely discouraged, he bent his energies to
designing boat engines instead.
In 1821 Captain Johnson, also an American, made a submersible vessel
100 feet long, designed to fetch Napoleon from St. Helena, travelling
for the most part upon the surface. This expedition never came off.
Two later inventions, by Castera and Payerne, in 1827 and 1846
respectively, were intended for more peaceful objects. Being
furnished with diving-chambers, the occupants could retrieve things
from the bottom of the sea; Castera providing his boat with an
air-tube to the surface.
Bauer, another inventor, lived for some years in England under the
patronage of Prince Albert, who supplied him with funds for his
experiments. With Brunel’s help he built a vessel which was
indiscreetly modified by the naval authorities, and finally sank and
drowned its crew. Going then to Russia he constructed sundry
submarines for the navy; but was in the end thrown over, and, like
Fulton, had to turn himself to other employment.
The fact is that up to this period the cry for a practical submarine
to use in warfare had not yet arisen, or these inventions would have
met with a far different reception. Within the last half century all
has changed. America and France now rival each other in construction,
while the other nations of Europe look on with intelligent interest,
and in turn make their contributions towards solving the problem of
under-wave propulsion.
America led the way during the Civil War blockades in 1864, when the
_Housatonic_ was sunk in Charleston harbour, and damage done to other
ships. But these experimental torpedo-boats were clumsy contrivances
compared with their modern successors, for they could only carry their
destructive weapon at the end of a spar projecting from the bows--to
be exploded upon contact with the obstacle, and probably involve the
aggressor in a common ruin. So nothing more was done till the
perfecting of the Whitehead torpedo (see Dirigible Torpedoes) gave the
required impetus to fresh enterprise.
France, experimenting in the same direction, produced in 1889 Goubet’s
submarine, patent of a private inventor, who has also been patronised
by other navies. These are very small boats, the first, 16-1/2 feet
long, carrying a crew of two or three men. _Goubet No. 2_, built in
1899, is 26-1/4 feet long, composed of several layers of gun-metal
united by strong screw-bolts, and so able to resist very great
pressure. They are egg-or spindle-shaped, supplied with compressed
air, able to sink and rise by rearrangement of water-ballast.
Reservoirs in the hull are gradually filled for submersion with water,
which is easily expelled when it is desired to rise again. If this
system goes wrong a false keel of thirty-six hundredweight can be
detached and the boat springs up to the surface. The propulsive force
is electricity, which works the driving-screw at the rear, and the
automobile torpedo is discharged from its tube by compressed air.
“By the aid of an optical tube, which a pneumatic telescopic apparatus
enables the operator to thrust above the surface and pull down in a
moment, the captain of the _Goubet_ can, when near the surface, see
what is going on all round him. This telescope has a system of prisms
and lenses which cause the image of the sea-surface to be deflected
down to the eye of the observer below.
“Fresh air for the crew is provided by reservoirs of oxygen, and
accumulations of foul air can be expelled by means of a small pump.
Enough fresh air can be compressed into the reservoirs to last the
crew for a week or more.”
The _Gymnote_, laid down in 1898, is more than double the size of the
_Goubet_; it is cigar-shaped, 29 feet long by 6 feet diameter, with a
displacement of thirty tons. The motive power is also electricity
stored in accumulators for use during submersion, and the speed
expected--but not realised--was to be ten knots.
Five years later this type was improved upon in the _Gustave Zédé_,
the largest submarine ever yet designed. This boat, built of
phosphor-bronze, with a single screw, measures 131 feet in length and
has a displacement of 266 tons; she can contain a crew of nine
officers and men, carries three torpedoes--though with one torpedo
tube instead of two--has a lightly armoured conning-tower, and is said
to give a surface speed of thirteen knots and to make eight knots when
submerged. At a trial of her powers made in the presence of M.
Lockroy, Minister of Marine, she affixed an unloaded torpedo to the
battleship _Magenta_ and got away unobserved. The whole performance of
the boat on that occasion was declared to be most successful. But its
cost proved excessive considering the small radius of action
obtainable, and a smaller vessel of the same type, the _Morse_ (118 ×
9 feet), is now the official size for that particular class.
In 1896 a competition was held and won by the submersible _Narval_ of
M. Laubeuf, a craft shaped much like the ordinary torpedo-boat. On the
surface or awash the _Narval_ works by means of a Brulé engine burning
oil fuel to heat its boilers; but when submerged for attack with
funnel shut down is driven by electric accumulators. She displaces 100
odd tons and is provided with four Dzewiecki torpedo tubes. Her radius
of action, steaming awash, is calculated at some 250 miles, or seventy
miles when proceeding under water at five knots an hour. This is the
parent of another class of boats designed for offensive tactics, while
the _Morse_ type is adapted chiefly for coast and harbour defence. The
French navy includes altogether thirty submarine craft, though several
of these are only projected at present, and none have yet been put to
the practical tests of actual warfare--the torpedoes used in
experimenting being, of course, blank.
Meanwhile in America experiments have also been proceeding since 1887,
when Mr. Holland of New York produced the vessel that bears his name.
This, considerably modified, has now been adopted as model by our Navy
Department, which is building some half-dozen on very similar lines.
Though it is not easy to get any definite particulars concerning
French submarines Americans are less reticent, and we have graphic
accounts of the _Holland_ and her offspring from those who have
visited her.
These vessels, though cigar-shaped liked most others, in some respects
resemble the _Narval_, being intended for long runs on the surface,
when they burn oil in a four-cylinder gasolene engine of 160
horse-power. Under water they are propelled by an electric waterproof
motor of seventy horse-power, and proceed at a pace of seven knots per
hour. There is a superstructure for deck, with a funnel for the engine
and a small conning-tower protected by 4-inch armour. The armament
carried comprises five 18-inch Whitehead torpedoes, 11 feet 8 inches
long. One hundred and twenty tons is the displacement, including tank
capacity for 850 gallons of gasolene; the full length is 63 feet 4
inches, with a beam of 11 feet 9 inches.
[Illustration: _An interior view of the “Holland.” The large pendulum
on the right actuates mechanism to keep the Submarine at the required
depth below the surface._]
The original Holland boat is thus described by an adventurous
correspondent who took a trip in her[3]: “The _Holland_ is fifty-three
feet long, and in its widest part it is 10-1/4 feet in diameter. It
has a displacement of seventy-four tons, and what is called a reserve
buoyancy of 2-1/2 tons which tends to make it come to the surface.
[3] _Pearson’s Magazine._
“The frames of the boat are exact circles of steel. They are set a
little more than a foot apart. They diminish gradually in diameter
from the centre of the boat to the bow and stern. On the top of the
boat a flat superstructure is built to afford a walking platform, and
under this are spaces for exhaust pipes and for the external outfit of
the boat, such as ropes and a small anchor. The steel plates which
cover the frame are from one-half to three-eighths of an inch in
thickness.
“From what may be called the centre of the boat a turret extends
upwards through the superstructure for about eighteen inches. It is
two feet in diameter, and is the only means of entrance to the boat.
It is the place from which the boat is operated. At the stern is an
ordinary three-bladed propeller and an ordinary rudder, and in
addition there are two horizontal rudders--“diving-rudders” they are
called--which look like the feet of a duck spread out behind as it
swims along the water.
“From the bow two-thirds of the way to the stern there is a flooring,
beneath which are the storage batteries, the tank for the gasolene,
and the tanks which are filled with water for submerging; in the last
one-third of the boat the flooring drops away, and the space is
occupied by the propelling machinery.
“There are about a dozen openings in the boat, the chief being three
Kingston valves, by means of which the submerging tanks are filled or
emptied. Others admit water to pressure gauges, which regulate or show
the depth of the vessel under water. There are twelve deadlights in
the top and sides of the craft. To remain under water the boat must be
kept in motion, unless an anchor is used.
“It can be steered to the surface by the diving rudders, or sent
flying to the top through emptying the storage tanks. If it strikes
bottom, or gets stuck in the mud, it can blow itself loose by means of
its compressed air. It cannot be sunk unless pierced above the
flooring. It has a speed capacity of from eight to ten knots either
on the surface or under water.
“It can go 1500 miles on the surface without renewing its supply of
gasolene. It can go fully forty knots under water without coming to
the surface, and there is enough compressed air in the tanks to supply
a crew with fresh air for thirty hours, if the air is not used for any
other purpose, such as emptying the submerging tanks. It can dive to a
depth of twenty feet in eight seconds.
“The interior is simply packed with machinery. As you climb down the
turret you are confronted with it at once. There is a diminutive
compass which must be avoided carefully by the feet. A pressure gauge
is directly in front of the operator’s eye as he stands in position.
There are speaking-tubes to various parts of the boat, and a
signal-bell to the engine-room.
“As the operator’s hands hang by his sides, he touches a wheel on the
port side, by turning which he steers the little vessel, and one on
the starboard side, by turning which he controls the diving machinery.
After the top is clamped down the operator can look out through
plate-glass windows, about one inch wide and three inches long, which
encircle the turret.
“So long as the boat is running on the surface these are valuable,
giving a complete view of the surroundings if the water is smooth.
After the boat goes beneath the surface, these windows are useless; it
is impossible to see through the water. Steering must be done by
compass; until recently considered an impossible task in a submarine
boat. A tiny electric light in the turret shows the operator the
direction in which he is going, and reveals the markings on the depth
gauges. If the boat should pass under an object, such as a ship, a
perceptible shadow would be noticed through the deadlights, but that
is all. The ability to see fishes swimming about in the water is a
pleasant fiction.
“The only clear space in the body of the boat is directly in front of
the bench on which the man in the turret is standing. It is where the
eighteen-inch torpedo-tube, and the eight and five-eighths inch aërial
gun are loaded.
“Along the sides of this open space are six compressed-air tanks,
containing thirty cubic feet of air at a pressure of 2000 lbs. to a
square inch. Near by is a smaller tank, containing three cubic feet of
air at a fifty pounds pressure. A still smaller tank contains two
cubic feet of air at a ten pounds pressure. These smaller tanks supply
the compressed air which, with the smokeless powder, is used in
discharging the projectiles from the boat.
“Directly behind the turret, up against the roof on the port side, is
the little engine by which the vessel is steered; it is worked by
compressed air. Fastened to the roof on the starboard side is the
diving-engine, with discs that look as large as dinner-plates stood on
end. These discs are diaphragms on which the water-pressure exerts an
influence, counteracting certain springs which are set to keep the
diving rudders at a given pitch, and thus insuring an immersion of an
exact depth during a run.
“At one side is a cubic steel box--the air compressor; and directly in
the centre of this part of the boat is a long pendulum, just as there
is in the ordinary torpedo, which, by swinging backwards and forwards
as the boat dives and rises, checks a tendency to go too far down, or
to come up at too sharp an angle. On the floor are the levers which,
when raised and moved in certain directions, fill or empty the
submerging tanks. On every hand are valves and wheels and pipes in
such apparent confusion as to turn a layman’s head.
“There are also pumps in the boat, a ventilating apparatus, and a
sounding contrivance, by means of which the channel is picked out when
running under water. This sounding contrivance consists of a heavy
weight attached to a piano wire passing from a reel out through a
stuffing-box in the bottom. There are also valves which release fresh
air to the crew, although in ordinary runs of from one-half to one
hour this is not necessary, the fresh air received from the various
exhausts in the boat being sufficient to supply all necessities in
that length of time.”
Another submersible of somewhat different design is the production of
the Swedish inventor, Mr. Nordenfelt. This boat is 9-1/2 metres in
length, and has a displacement of sixty tons. Like the _Goubet_ it
sinks only in a horizontal position, while the _Holland_ plunges
downward at a slight angle. On the surface a steam-engine of 100
horse-power propels it, and when the funnel is closed down and the
vessel submerges itself, the screws are still driven by superheated
steam from the large reservoir of water boiling at high pressure which
maintains a constant supply, three circulation pumps keeping this in
touch with the boiler. The plunge is accomplished by means of two
protected screws, and when they cease to move the reserve buoyancy of
the boat brings it back to the surface. It is steered by a rudder
which a pendulum regulates. The most modern of these boats is of
English manufacture, built at Barrow, and tried in Southampton Water.
The vessels hitherto described should be termed submersible rather
than submarine, as they are designed to usually proceed on the
surface, and submerge themselves only for action when in sight of the
enemy.