BIG GUNS, SMALL-ARMS, AND AMMUNITION.
Woolwich Arsenal--Enfield Small-arms Factory--Lord Armstrong and
the Elswick Works--Testing Guns at Shoeburyness--Hiram S. Maxim and
the Maxim Machine Gun--The Colt Automatic Gun--Ironclads--Submarine
Boats.
WOOLWICH ARSENAL.
Since early days, Woolwich has been an important centre for warships and
war-material. Here ships were built and launched when England first
began to have a navy of specially constructed men-of-war, for Henry
VIII. established the Woolwich dockyard, and also appointed
Commissioners of the navy, and formed the Navy Office. Some of the
earliest three-deckers, or, as we may almost call them, five-deckers,
were built at this dockyard; and of these the most famous was the _Great
Harry_, so named after the king, which was launched here in 1514. For
the period, the ship was a large one, being of a thousand tons burden;
though we should not think much of her size now, when we have ironclads
of over eleven thousand tons. There are models of her in the Greenwich
Naval Museum, which is not far from Woolwich; and a curious lofty wooden
castle she is, rising far up above the water-line, and offering a fair
target, if the cannon of those days had any accuracy.
[Illustration: The _Great Harry_.]
On June 3, 1559, Queen Elizabeth came down to Woolwich to witness the
launch of a large ship called after her name. In 1637 a ship half as
large again as the _Great Harry_ was launched at Woolwich. She was the
marvel of her days, and though named the _Royal Sovereign_, was more
often called the _Golden Devil_, from the amount of mischief she wrought
in the Dutch fleet. Her guns were probably of small size; but she
carried enough of them on her three flush-decks, her forecastle, her
half-deck, her quarter-deck, and in her round-house; for in her lower
tier were sixty ports; in the middle, thirty; in the third, twenty-six;
in her forecastle were twelve; in her half-deck were fourteen. She was
decorated in the emblematical style of the time with gilding and
carvings; and these designs were the work of one Thomas Haywood, an
actor, who has left us an account of the ship which he adorned, in a
quarto volume published the same year in which she was launched. We can
imagine what she looked like, with her lofty forecastle and poop, the
latter provided with five lanterns, one of which, we are told, was large
enough to contain ten persons.
Old Samuel Pepys gives us many references to Woolwich in his famous
_Diary_. He paid frequent visits to the dockyard on his duties as
Secretary to the Admiralty, and seems to have looked after his business
well. For instance, on June 3, 1662, he writes: 'Povy and Sir W. Batten
and I by water to Woolwich; and there saw an experiment made of Sir R.
Ford's Holland yarn, about which we have lately had so much stir; and I
have much concerned myself for our rope-maker, Mr Hughes, who
represented it so bad; and we found it to be very bad, and broke sooner
than, upon a fair trial, five threads of that against four of Riga yarn;
and also that some of it had old stuff that had been tarred, covered
over with new hemp, which is such a cheat as hath not been heard of.'
The next month he is looking after the hemp again, and writes: 'To
Woolwich to the rope-yard, and there looked over several sorts of hemp,
and did fall upon my great survey of seeing the working and experiments
of the strength and charge in the dressing of every sort; and I do think
have brought it to so great a certainty, as I have done the king some
service in it, and do purpose to get it ready against the Duke's coming
to town to present to him.' He adds pathetically: 'I see it is
impossible for the king to have things done as cheap as other men.'
Of as early date probably as the dockyard, was the 'Warren,' the name by
which the Arsenal was formerly called. This establishment seems to have
begun as a cannon-foundry, and such, indeed, it chiefly continues to be.
Moreover, in other days when the dockyard flourished, stores of ships'
cannon were kept here, ready to be placed on ships as soon as
commissioned. But now that the dockyard is a thing of the past, and now
that the large building-slips, workshops, and ropewalk are empty, the
cannon at the Arsenal are chiefly those for the royal artillery and for
forts. The dockyard has been closed since 1869; its broad roads are
deserted, its workshops are silent, and its large sheds are only used
for stores; but the Arsenal has increased in magnitude; and the
'Warren,' in which, before the establishment of the Plumstead magazines,
powder was proved ('before the principal engineers and officers of the
Board of Ordnance, to which many of the nobility and gentry were often
invited, and afterwards sumptuously entertained by them'), has now
become an enormous establishment, covering acres of ground, and
containing workshops provided with the most complicated machinery, and
foundries of enormous size. It is round this Arsenal that we propose to
take the reader.
Having gained admittance, the visitor is put in charge of a guide. The
tapping of the great furnace is a remarkable sight. A stream of molten
steel runs into a huge tank which can contain four or five tons of
metal, and this tank is dragged off by some score of men to fill the
various moulds. It is remarkable, also, to see a huge steam-hammer of
some forty tons' force welding a mass of metal at white-heat.
The Arsenal is divided into four departments--the Laboratory, the Gun
Factory, the Gun-carriage Department, and the Stores; and of these four
divisions, the first two contain the chief things not to be found in
very many other places.
The Gun-carriage Department has workshops both for metal and wood work,
and each branch contains many subdivisions. There is nothing, however,
in this department which is peculiar to the Arsenal, with the exception,
of course, of the special articles which are manufactured; that is to
say, forging, steam-carpentering, wheel-making, and so on, are carried
out as they would be executed elsewhere. The guides always make a point
of showing the wheel-shoeing pit, as it is called, in which the tyre is
put on a gun-wheel. The machinery in this department is very complete,
especially in the carpenters' shops, where the lathes which work
automatically, and turn wheel-spokes and such things according to a
given pattern, and the steam-saws for cutting dovetails for sides of
boxes, and other machinery, are all constructed on highly ingenious
principles. With regard to the articles constructed, the trail of a gun
may be followed in all stages of its construction until it appears
complete with its wheels, and ready for the gun to be placed on it.
Here, too, may be seen the ingenious Moncrieff gun-carriage, by which
the gun is only raised above a fortification at the moment when it is
fired, the 'sighting' being done from below by an arrangement of
mirrors.
The Stores, again, are remarkable only for the quantity of material
stowed away ready for use. For instance, there are ten thousand complete
sets of harness for guns and baggage wagons always kept in stock. But
when the visitor has just walked once through these storehouses, he will
probably have seen all that he cares to see there.
It is, however, when we come to the Gun Factory that the special
interest of the Arsenal begins. Imagine a huge mass of steel welded--for
casting would not give sufficient strength--into the form of the trunk
of a large fir-tree, and you have the first stage of a gun's existence.
This solid mass is to form the tube of a cannon, and the solid core has
to be removed by ingenious and powerful machinery. It takes a week or
two to bore the interior of some of the larger guns. Some of the
machines are constructed to bore a hole which is continually enlarged by
successive tools; while others actually cut out a round solid mass from
the interior. The tube has also to be subjected to the process of being
turned both within and without, and it is then fit for the next process,
which is that of cutting the grooves within it which give the required
spin to the projectile, commonly called rifling. This is a delicate and
intricate process, for the utility of the gun of course depends largely
on the accuracy with which the grooves are made. The actual cutting is
performed by a machine which travels up the tube at the required spiral;
but as the work proceeds, the man in charge carefully examines the
grooves along their whole length with the aid of a candle fixed at the
end of a long rod which he pushes up the tube.
But when the tube has been bored, turned, and rifled, the gun is by no
means finished. The tube by itself would be far too delicate for the
large charges of powder employed; and, consequently, it has to be fitted
at the breech end with two or three outer cases or jackets, the outside
one of which bears the trunnions on which the gun rests. At last the gun
is completed; and the next thing is to subject it to a severe test by
firing from it a charge of powder proportioned to its size. For this
purpose, it has to be taken to Plumstead Marshes, a portion of which
forms the testing-ground and powder-magazines connected with the
Arsenal. Lines of railway run down to the marshes, and the gun is
mounted on a truck and dragged off by a locomotive to the place
appointed for its trial. It may be mentioned that lines of railway run
in all directions through the Arsenal, one of narrow gauge being
introduced into most of the workshops, so that the visitor has to keep a
lookout lest a tiny locomotive with a train of what may almost be called
toy trucks should bear down upon him as he is walking along.--But to
return to the gun. When it has been finally tested, cleaned, polished,
and stamped, it is coated with a particular varnish, and is fit for
service.
The next most interesting place to the Gun Factory is the Laboratory,
where shells and bullets are manufactured. Shells are cast rough, and
then finished off in a lathe. A band of copper now usually takes the
place of the copper studs which were formerly inserted to enable the
shell to fit into the rifled grooves. This band is expanded by the force
of the explosion when the gun is fired, and fills up the grooves, so as
to give the necessary spin to the shells. Shells are charged with their
interior bullets at the Laboratory; but the powder is added down at the
marshes. A shell when completed has become a very expensive article,
especially if it is a large one. Some of those projectiles are so heavy
that the guns from which they have to be fired are provided with small
cranes for lifting them up to the breech. The shells are, like the guns,
beautifully finished off and varnished, and then sent off to the stores.
Perhaps the most interesting place in the Laboratory department is the
Pattern Room, which is a sort of museum where shot and shells of all
sorts are to be seen, from the old-fashioned chain-shot, made of round
balls fastened together, to the most perfect specimens of modern shells.
Here, also, are to be seen those strange weapons of modern warfare
called torpedoes, amongst them the famous 'fish torpedo,' which with its
complicated mechanism may be almost described as an under-water ship. It
is so constructed that it finds its way unseen and unheard, with its
terrible charge of dynamite, to the side of a hostile vessel.
THE ENFIELD SMALL-ARMS FACTORY.
It is at Enfield, on the river Lea, some twelve miles down the Great
Eastern Railway, that small-arms are manufactured, almost entirely, as
required by our army.
Enfield Factory has not, like Woolwich Arsenal, an ancient history of
its own. In the days of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth, of the Duke of
York and his faithful secretary, Samuel Pepys, Woolwich was famous for
the production both of ships and of guns; but the small-arms factory on
the borders of Essex dates only from the early part of this century. Its
site seems to have been chosen regardless of any peculiar advantages for
manufacturing purposes. It is simply a collection of workshops built in
the flat meadows through which run the various branches, natural and
artificial, of the lazy Lea; and the nearest town, about a mile and a
half distant, is quiet and remote little Waltham, chiefly known for its
Abbey Church, the burial-place of King Harold, which rises in its midst.
The situation of the Enfield Factory is, however, advantageous in this
way: the canals form a safe means of water transit for the gunpowder
which is manufactured in the adjacent mills at Waltham, and which is
required at Enfield for use in the proving of the barrels of firearms;
while the far-stretching marshes provide an apparently interminable
range for carrying out the necessary experiments and trials with regard
to the accuracy of the weapons manufactured.
Where one of the canals has been conducted into a square-shaped basin,
the older and principal buildings of the manufactory have been located.
They form a quadrangle of some extent; and here, too, are situated the
offices and the quarters of the executive staff, which is composed
partly of civilians and partly of military officers. Behind these, on
the east side of the enclosure, and on the banks of one of the canals,
are rows of workmen's cottages. Near the entrance gates are situated
schools for the workmen's children; and at the other end of this street,
as we may call it, is a church, which is served by the clergy of the
parish of Enfield. On the west side extend north and south the flat
meadows or marshes which form so convenient a spot for the testing and
proving of the rifles.
All sorts of personal weapons required for the arming of a soldier in
the English army are made here, not only firearms, such as rifles and
revolvers, but lances, swords, and bayonets, the last having now become
a sort of short sword. There is also one class of weapons which occupies
a sort of intermediate position between those carried by the soldier
himself and those drawn by horses--that of machine guns, as they are
called, which, though not carried by men on their shoulders or in their
hands, are drawn about by them on small carriages. These machine guns
are classed with personal arms, because they are usually employed in
connection with infantry; and also because--which is a far more
important reason--the ammunition required for them is similar to that
used in rifles. In fact, they are in principle only a collection of
infantry rifles fastened together, or, as we shall see, a single rifle
barrel with machinery attached which enables it to discharge with great
rapidity.
There is one more general principle which we shall do well to bear in
mind before we enter the factory. It is this, that of course the
manufacture of small-arms is in as much a condition of uncertainty as
that of larger warlike weapons in these days. What we see now may become
obsolete in a very short time, and we shall be shown specimens of
firearms which formed the universal weapons of the British army only a
very few years ago, but are now as much out of date for practical
purposes as cross-bows. Remembering this, let us go first when we enter
to one of the offices, where we shall see arranged in a rack against the
wall, amongst others, specimens of the old Enfield muzzle-loader, of the
same weapon converted into a breech-loader, of the Martini-Henry rifle,
and of the latest pattern of all, the magazine rifle. While, stored
away in some out-of-the-way corner, it is just possible we might come
across a specimen of the old smooth-bore or 'Brown Bess,' which formed
the weapon of certain English linesmen so late as the beginning of the
Crimean War.
The Enfield workshops are of course in appearance much like other
workshops. There are the same processes of forging and casting, and the
same machinery for hammering and turning and boring and drilling which
we see elsewhere.
A rifle, as every one knows, consists of three portions--the wooden
stock, the barrel, and the lock. The stock is usually made of walnut
wood, and is manufactured in what we should perhaps describe as a
carpenter's shop. Formerly, the stock of a rifle was formed out of one
long piece of timber; but now the complicated machinery of the breech
and lock cannot be contained in a hollow in the wood, as was formerly
the case, but has to be enclosed in a steel case, to which the wooden
butt and barrel support are screwed. To the rifles of the newest pattern
there hangs, just below the lock, the magazine, in which are carried
five or, in some cases, ten cartridges, which spring up into place in
turn, ready to be discharged. In short, the rifle has become, as regards
its rapidity of action, something similar to a revolver pistol. We shall
find that a lock has in its manufacture to pass through an almost
infinite number of processes, each part having to be forged or beaten
out till the whole can be fitted together.
Let us pass on to the barrel-making shop. Rifle barrels are made from a
solid round bar of steel, which is at first considerably shorter and
stouter than the finished barrel will be. This steel bar is heated
red-hot, and is passed between several pairs of rollers, which convert
it outwardly into the required form. It has, however, afterwards to be
bored and then rifled--that is, furnished with the spiral grooves
within, which gives the bullet the necessary spin. Of course the barrel
is by far the most important portion of a firearm, and the barrels of
rifles are, at Enfield, tested and proved in the most ingenious and
searching manner. The first proof takes place after the barrel has been
bored, but before it is rifled. The barrels are loaded with cartridges
of considerably greater weight both in powder and bullet than those
which will be used in them when they are ready for service, and are
enclosed in a sort of strong box which has one side open. They are then
discharged through the open side into a heap of sand, and examined; but
it is a rare event to find a barrel that has not been able to bear this
test. The second proof, which takes place after the rifling, is of a
similar character.
But these proofs are only to test the strength of a barrel; the test of
its accuracy is a much more delicate operation. Of course the machinery
by which it is bored and rifled works with the most admirable precision;
but yet it is necessary to put this machine-work to trial. There are,
amongst others, two highly ingenious methods for doing this. In the one
case it is placed on a stand which is so constructed that on it the
barrel can be made to revolve rapidly. The barrel is pointed towards a
window, and in front of it is a fixed sight. The workman looks through
it while it is revolving; and if the sight remains steady to his eye,
that is a proof that the barrel may be said to be straight. But there is
yet another method. The mechanism of this testing apparatus is rather
difficult to describe, but is something of this fashion. The barrel is
made to revolve as before; but this time there is inserted in it a
spindle, on which is fixed a short arm with a point which touches very
lightly the interior of the barrel. If there is any inequality, or if
the barrel is not perfectly straight, this short arm is of course
shaken, and when this is the case, the motion is further communicated to
a long arm at the end of which is an indicator, which is looked at by
the workman through a magnifying glass.
[Illustration: Gatling Gun on Field Carriage.]
Barrel, stock, and lock being at last completed and tested, the rifle is
put together; but even then it is subjected to one more trial. This is
carried out on the proof-ground in the marshes, and takes the form of an
actual discharge of the weapon at a target. The rifle is screwed to a
fixed and firm support, and then a certain number of rounds are fired at
ranges of five hundred and one thousand yards respectively. In this test
the hitting of the centre of the target, or 'bull's-eye,' is not the end
in view, as it is in ordinary target practice. That sort of shooting
depends of course on the steadiness with which the marksman holds the
rifle. In this case, however, the fixed _rest_ may be directed on any
portion of the target, and the _grip_ will always be the same. The only
object of the test is to see whether the rifle throws the bullet at each
round on or near the same spot. A marker at the butt examines the
position of each shot, and the smaller the space on which they strike,
the better the weapon.
We have not yet spoken of the machine guns. These weapons are, as part
of the regular equipment of armies, quite modern, though the idea of
binding together a quantity of barrels and then discharging them at
once, or with great rapidity one after another, is not altogether novel.
Sometimes, instead of a number of barrels, one only is required, and the
cartridges are discharged from short barrels or chambers which are
brought in turn into position with the longer one. This is the ordinary
revolver system; but modern machine guns are a great improvement on this
method, and entirely dispense with the necessity of loading separate
chambers. Machine guns have succeeded one another with extraordinary
rapidity, and a gun seems only to be adopted in order to be superseded.
Thus we have had during the last few years a series of these weapons
bearing the names of Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, and Maxim, described
on a later page.
[Illustration: Nordenfelt-Palmcrantz Gun mounted on Ship's Bulwark.]
As we walk about the factory we see, besides the workmen, here and there
groups of men in military uniform. These are armourer sergeants, who
attend classes at which they are taught the mysterious mechanism of the
breech-loaders and machine guns. In former days, Tommy Atkins could be
instructed how to keep his weapon in order, lock and all; but now its
complications are beyond the power of his understanding or of his
fingers, perhaps of both, and he has to hand over his rifle to a more
skilled superior when it is out of order. Truly, military matters, from
the movement of the vast army corps of the present day down to the
mechanism of the soldier's weapons, have become a highly technical
matter.
LORD ARMSTRONG AND THE ELSWICK WORKS.
Sir W. G. Armstrong, the chairman and founder of this great firm of
warship builders and makers of big guns at Elswick, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
is the son of a Cumberland yeoman, and born at Newcastle in 1810. He
early showed a turn for mechanical contrivances, and delicate youth as
he was, when confined to the house he was quite happy making toys of old
spinning-wheels and such-like things. He would also spend hours in a
joiner's shop, copying the joiner's work, and making miniature engines.
He had ample opportunity in his father's house of making himself
acquainted with chemistry, electricity, and mechanics. In spite of his
turn for mechanics, he was articled to a solicitor, who, at the finish
of his apprenticeship, made him his partner. In his leisure hours he
conducted his experiments. Fishing was also a favourite pastime with
him, and in 1836, while rambling through Dent Dale, he saw a stream
descending from a great height and driving only one single mill. This
led him to think that there might be a more economical use of this water
hydraulically, with the result that he produced a hydraulic engine,
which was followed by the invention of a hydraulic crane for raising
weights at harbours and in warehouses. It was soon adopted at the
Albert Dock, Liverpool, and elsewhere.
[Illustration: LORD ARMSTRONG.]
Next he invented an apparatus for extracting electricity from steam,
afterwards introduced into the Polytechnic Institution, London. Napoleon
III. heard of this famous machine, and sent experts to examine it.
Armstrong began to receive recognition; he was elected a member of the
Royal Society in 1846, and a year later, aided by some friends, he began
on a small scale the Elswick Engine-works in the suburbs of Newcastle,
which have grown to be the largest concern of the kind in the country.
At first the enterprise chiefly consisted in the manufacture of
hydraulic cranes, engines, accumulators, and bridges.
The addition of ordnance and shipping, for which Armstrong became
chiefly known, came later. Previous to the year 1853, the weapon used by
the infantry portion of the British army was a clumsy smooth-bore
musket, which was only effective up to three hundred yards at the
farthest; the usual distance at which practice was made by the soldier
seldom exceeding one hundred yards. In the above-named year, an arm was
brought into use, termed, from the locality of its manufacture, the
Enfield rifle. This weapon being lighter, and possessing a much greater
range than the old small-arm, Brown Bess, as it was called, threatened
very seriously to diminish the effect of field-artillery, if not to
abolish that arm entirely, as, indeed, many infantry officers were
sanguine enough to predict. Nor were they without good reason for their
boasting, the only field-artillery consisting of 6-pounder brass guns
for horse-artillery, 9-pounder guns for field-batteries, and sometimes
12-pounder and 18-pounder guns as batteries of position--that is to say,
batteries used when the general of a force meant to make any stand in a
suitable position; on these occasions, the guns were taken to the
requisite places, and there left. Now, all these guns were
smooth-bored; and as the range of the 6 and 9 pounders was limited in
practice to about one thousand yards, it was a fair enough supposition
that a company of concealed riflemen with their Enfield rifles could
pick off the gunners and remain themselves comparatively secure,
especially as their muskets being sighted up to, and effective at,
eleven hundred yards, the guns also would be a good mark to aim at, and
the riflemen hard to see, even if exposed.
Such was the state of affairs when Armstrong stepped in to the rescue of
the artillery, and provided the British government with the rifled
cannon now in use, and about which so much has been written.
Armstrong, during the Crimean War, made an explosive apparatus for
blowing up ships sunk at Sebastopol. This led him to turn his attention
to improvements in ordnance. He invented a kind of breech-loading
cannon, and soon had an order for several field-pieces after the same
pattern. He began with guns throwing 6 lb. and 18 lb. shot and shells,
and afterwards 32 lb. shells; and the results at the time were deemed
almost incredible. He had both reduced the weight of the gun by
one-half, reduced the charge of powder, and his gun sent the shell about
three times farther. His success led to his offering to government all
his past inventions, and any that he might in the future discover. A
post was created for him, that of Chief Engineer of Rifled Ordnance for
seven years provisionally.
The founder of this great firm was knighted by the Queen in 1858, and
made C.B. In 1887 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Armstrong of
Cragside. His mansion and estate of Cragside is at Rothbury, and it is
fitted up with the electric light and every convenience of wealth and
taste. Armstrong's peculiar partnership between government and the
Elswick Works was brought to a close in 1863, since which time the
progress of the firm has been continuous. In 1882 an amalgamation took
place between the Elswick Works and the firm of Charles Mitchell & Co.,
shipbuilders at Low Walker. Dr Mitchell, who was a native of Aberdeen,
and a munificent donor to Newcastle and Aberdeen, was one of the
directors of Armstrong, Mitchell, & Co. till his death in 1895.
This firm are now the leading warship builders in the world. Krupp's
works at Essen (described in the earlier part of this book) are the only
parallel to them in Europe. The engineering works, begun, as we have
seen, in 1847, now occupy about nine acres; the ordnance works, founded
ten years later, occupy about forty acres; while about five thousand men
are employed. The shipbuilding yards are at Low Walker, nearer the sea.
The hydraulic machinery for the Tower Bridge and the Manchester Ship
Canal were both produced by this great firm.
Some years ago one of his biographers wrote: 'He entertains the great
institutes of England when they visit his native city on royal lines, in
regal splendour. His works at Elswick enjoy all modern improvements. His
home at Jesmond is the abode of art, literature, and luxury. When his
health complained under its heavy load, he cultivated agriculture,
botany, and forestry for recreation; bought an estate at Rothbury, where
the kindly invigorating air had healed him in days gone by; converted
the barren hills into an earthly paradise; lighted his Cragside mansion
with Swan's lamp and his own hydraulic power; applied water-power to his
conservatory, that his plants might secure the sun. But amid all the
luxuries which surround him, his life is as simple as nature; and now,
at the ripe age of seventy-three, he maintains the freshness and
elasticity of youth. He was wont to run like a deer along the moors of
Allenheads to examine the target fired at by the original Armstrong
gun.'
Lord Armstrong has been honoured both at home and abroad, and has done
much for the amenity of Newcastle; and Jesmond Dene, part of his Jesmond
estate, was thrown open to the public by the Prince of Wales while his
guest at Cragside. The high-level bridge, giving easy access to the park
for the town, cost L20,000. Other benefactions have been L12,500 towards
a museum; a hall for the literary society, a mechanics' institute,
schools at Elswick, &c.
A recent purchase was at Bamborough, the ancient capital of the
Northumbrian kings, where, nearer our own time, Grace Darling was born
and died. Already great improvements are in progress there in the shape
of workmen's houses; and the parish church is being restored. Bamborough
Castle, which is also included in the purchase, is an imposing mass of
masonry, standing on a pile of columnar basalt, which is mentioned early
in history; there was a castle here as early as the fifth century. By
the will of Lord Crewe it had been devoted as far back as 1721 to
charitable purposes.
In the autumn of 1893, Lord Armstrong told the Elswick shareholders that
he believed the time was coming when armoured ships would be as obsolete
as mail-clad men. 'Do what we will,' he said, 'I believe that the means
of attack will always overtake the means of defence, and that sooner or
later armour will be abandoned.' His reason for this statement was the
use of high explosives and quick-firing guns. In the future, light
vessels of great speed, armed with quick-firing guns, are likely to be
the order of the day. The life of a battleship, he also said, was far
too valuable to be staked on the use of its ram; special ships should
therefore be built for ramming. On another occasion he discussed the
improvements in the manufacture of cordite which had made it possible to
secure enormous power even with moderate-sized guns. With a 6-inch gun
of 45 calibre, and a 100 lb. projectile, a velocity of nearly 3000 feet
per second has been reached, giving an energy of 5884 tons, as against
the 5254 tons of the 8-inch gun of ten years ago. This last gun could
only fire four rounds in five minutes; now we hear of ten and eighteen
rounds in three minutes. As to speed, some warships built for the
Argentine Republic and for Japan had reached a speed of 26-1/4 miles an
hour, and were at the time the fastest war-vessels afloat.
At the annual meeting of shareholders in 1895, Lord Armstrong said that
the war-material which they supplied for the great naval war in the East
thoroughly stood the test, and the quick-firing guns of the Japanese
navy had greatly helped their victory. The heavily-armed high-speed
cruisers also deserve a share of the credit, and these had been built by
their firm.
In connection with an official inquiry it was found that in 1896 there
were 18,000 men employed in the arsenal at Elswick alone, and that 13
ironclads and cruisers, and 1400 guns were being built.
TESTING GUNS AT SHOEBURYNESS.
It is at Shoeburyness, in the county of Essex, that experiments are
carried out with the guns, large and small, manufactured at Woolwich and
Enfield.
Shoeburyness has become a military centre, not because of any advantages
afforded by its position on the sea, but because it consists of a large
tract of dreary marshes flanked to the south and east by the
far-stretching Maplin sands, which are almost entirely uncovered at
low-water. These sands form the attraction from a scientific point of
view.
The first connection of Shoeburyness with modern military matters
appears to have been made so lately as the time of the Crimean War,
when the flat rough marshland was employed as a camping ground for men
and horses with the view of accustoming both to the hard work which lay
before them in the East. This tract of country has thus become the
property of the War Department, and that administrative body soon found
another use for it, in which the half-submerged sands were to bear an
important part. The idea was conceived that targets might be erected on
these sands, and that the projectiles which were fired at them might be
recovered at low-water. Hence the first connection of Shoeburyness with
the artillery of the present day. A safe range can be found across the
sands to almost any distance, and these marshes have therefore become
the stage on which our great guns, such as Armstrongs and Whitworths,
have made, so to speak, their first _debut_.
To reach Shoeburyness we take the railway which runs along the south
coast of Essex and the northern bank of the Thames. As we near the mouth
of the estuary we pass Southend, beloved of _trippers_, with its pier
stretching out in its length of over a mile, and then cross the base of
the ness itself, when we reach the sea again. On the south-eastern face
of the ness we are at our journey's end, and the railway also, so far as
the general public is concerned, has come to a full stop. We walk
through the little town or village, and on the farther side find what we
may call the original settlement of gunnery experiments, now for the
most part a group of barracks and quarters such as we might find at any
military station. A few differences we notice, however, for, as we pass
through the barrack-yard, we observe that one building is labelled
'Lecture-room,' and other evidences there are here and there that the
artillerymen who are quartered here are not altogether engaged in their
ordinary duties. We shall probably not linger long at the barracks, but
we shall not fail to observe that the officers' quarters and mess-room
occupy an extremely pleasant position on a wooded bank above the sea,
and that at high-water the waves come rippling up to the very trees
themselves. Farther on are the houses appropriated to married officers,
all alike situated on the pleasant sea-bank.
We see in front of us huge wooden erections standing on the edge of the
shore. These are conning-towers from which, when practice is going on, a
view is obtained of the direction of the shot. Beneath them are the
batteries from which the guns are fired, and here go on the courses of
instruction in practical artillery work, which are necessary for newly
joined officers.
But we have by no means seen the most important part of Shoeburyness
when we have visited the barracks and the batteries. We notice that a
line of rails winds its way in and out amongst guns and storehouses, and
if we have timed our visit right we shall find a little miniature train
just about to start for what is called _The New Range_. Taking our
places in this train we shall be carried first through the village and
past the terminus of the public line, and then along a private railway
which winds along amongst the corn-fields, until we reach a retired spot
on the sea-shore hemmed in by lofty trees. In this private place are
carried on all the experiments for which Shoeburyness is famous, and
here both guns and explosives are tested to their utmost capability.
It is not altogether an unpicturesque spot at which we have arrived.
Grouped together in this immediate neighbourhood are certain nice old
farmhouses and other buildings which have been taken possession of by
the military. The space in front would no doubt be an admirable
rabbit-warren, only the whole ground is now covered by guns of various
sizes, targets, shields, breastworks, and models of portions of ironclad
and other vessels. Amongst these run lines of rails by which guns and
materials can be moved to any part of the ground; and in places there
are overhead travelling cranes by which heavy cannon may be hoisted on
to or off from their carriages or into trucks, as need may require; and
we again see lofty conning-towers, though target practice at a distance
is not carried on here to the same extent as it is in that portion of
the establishment which we first visited. The work at _The New Range_ is
connected rather with experiments as to the force of explosives and the
penetrating power of projectiles than with accuracy of aim and the
direction of the shot.
We ought first to say a few words about modern explosives. Old-fashioned
gunpowder, or _black_ powder as it is now usually called, is composed,
as everybody knows, of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur mixed together
in the proportion usually of seventy-five, fifteen, and ten parts
respectively.
Two chief varieties of the new brown powders are now made, and are known
as 'slow-burning cocoa'--from the fact that cocoa-nut fibres were first
employed in the experiments--and 'Prism brown I.' The former contains
about four per cent. of sulphur, and burns rather more rapidly than the
latter, which contains only two per cent. Baked straw is the material
now used to supplant the charcoal, as it provides a form of cellulose
which may be readily reduced to a fine state of division. The shape is
still the perforated hexagonal prism introduced in America.
The burning of these powders is steady and the increase of pressure
gradual, attaining a maximum when the bullet is about half-way down the
barrel of the gun. The damage inflicted on the firing-chamber is very
slight; perhaps as slight as ever will be obtained with such large
charges of powder.
Uniformity of velocity is secured by ensuring that in the making the
proportions employed shall be accurate and the mixing complete. The
prisms of any given class of powder are made exactly the same in weight
and composition, and in consequence, a charge composed of a given number
of prisms will give in every case almost exactly the same propelling
force. It is thus that fine aiming adjustments are made possible, as two
consecutive bullets of the same weight may be propelled almost exactly
the same distance--varying only a few yards in a range of several
miles--by equal weights of powder of uniform composition.
But explosives of the present day are composed of other substances.
Cordite, of which we now hear so much, is made of nitro-glycerine,
gun-cotton, and mineral jelly in the proportion of fifty-seven,
thirty-eight, and five parts. It is also steeped in a preparation of
acetone. Gun-cotton itself is dipped in a mixture of three parts of
sulphuric to one of nitric acid. The force of cordite over gunpowder may
be judged from the following facts. A cartridge containing seventy
grains of black powder fired in the ordinary rifle of the army will give
what is called a muzzle velocity of one thousand three hundred and fifty
feet a second, while thirty grains only of cordite will give a velocity
of two thousand feet. In larger arms, a little less than a pound of
cordite fired in a twelve-pounder gun will give more velocity than four
pounds of black powder fired in the same weapon. It need hardly be said
that in the experiments at Shoeburyness it is the new-fashioned
explosive which is chiefly used.
Let us examine one of the guns, a breech-loader, and see what
improvements have been made which may conduce to rapidity of fire. We
see that in the older pattern three motions were necessary to open the
breech. First the bar which is fixed across the base of the block had to
be removed, then a half turn had to be given to the block to free it in
its bed, and then it had to be pulled forward. Firstly, it had to be
thrown back on its hinge so as to open the gun from end to end. We are
shown that in later patterns the cavity or bed into which the block fits
is made in the form of a cone, so that the breech-block itself can be
turned back without any preliminary motion forward. In artillery work,
time is everything, and any one motion of the gunner's hands and arms
saved is a point gained. Now let us look at the mechanism by which the
recoil or backward movement of the gun is checked at the moment of
firing. The gun slides in its cradle, and its recoil is counteracted by
buffers which work in oil, something in the fashion of the oil springs
which we see on doors. Iron spiral springs push the gun back again into
place. Another interesting piece of mechanism is the electric machinery
by which the gun is fired. When the recoil has taken place, the wire,
along which runs the electric current, is pushed out of place, so that
it is impossible to fire the gun, even though it be loaded, until it has
been again fixed in its proper position on the cradle. Truly a modern
cannon is a wonderful machine, and yet it is only a development from the
sort of iron gas-pipe which was used in the middle ages. Hard by is a
gun which has come to grief. In experiments which are carried on at
Shoeburyness, guns are charged to their full, or, as in this case, more
than their full strength. There is an ugly gash running down the outer
case or jacket, as it is called, of the gun, and the latter has broken,
and nearly jumped out of its cradle. Nursery phraseology certainly comes
in strongly in the technical slang of gunnery when we have to do with
_Woolwich Infants_.
After looking at the guns we naturally go on to look at the targets at
which they are fired. Targets at _The New Range_ are not so much marks
as specimens of armour-plates and other protections. Some of these are
built up with a strength which to the uninitiated appears to be proof
against any attack. Here, for instance, we find a steel plate of
eighteen inches in thickness, and behind this six inches of iron, the
whole backed up by huge balks of timber. But notwithstanding its depth,
the enormous mass has been dented and cracked, and in places pierced.
When we look at plates which are not quite so thick, we see that the
shells have formed what are pretty and regular patterns, for small
triangles of metal have been splintered off and turned back, so that the
aperture is decorated with a circle of leaves, and resembles a rose with
the centre cut out. Where the shell has entered the plate before it
bursts, the pattern remains very perfect; but when it explodes as it
touches the surface, some of the encircling leaves are entirely cut off.
One target is pointed out to us which represents the iron casing of the
vulnerable portions of a torpedo boat, consisting of engine-room,
boilers, and coal-bunkers. These compartments have been riddled again
and again. Even a service-rifle bullet can penetrate one side, and a
shell of the smallest size will go through both, for torpedo boats are
not very heavily built.
HIRAM S. MAXIM AND THE MAXIM MACHINE GUN.
Statisticians inform us that the entire loss of life in wars between
so-called civilised countries from the year 1793 down to 1877 had
reached the enormous amount of four million four hundred and seventy
thousand. To many persons these figures convey a sad and salutary
lesson. But, leaving the sentimental part of the subject aside, all will
readily unite in admiring the wonderful mechanism which makes the Maxim
Machine Gun an engine of terrible destructiveness. Stanley provided
himself with this formidable weapon, to be used defensively in the
expedition on which he started for the relief of Emin Bey. It obtained a
gold medal at the Inventions Exhibition, and has been approved of, if
not actually adopted, by many governments.
[Illustration: Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun.]
Its rate of firing--770 shots a minute--is at least three times as rapid
as that of any other machine gun. It has only a single barrel, which,
when the shot is fired, recoils a distance of three-quarters of an inch
on the other parts of the gun. This recoil sets moving the machinery
which automatically keeps up a continuous fire at the extraordinary rate
of 12 rounds a second. Each recoil of the barrel has therefore to
perform the necessary functions of extracting and ejecting the empty
cartridge, or bringing up the next full one and placing it in its proper
position in the barrel, of cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger.
As long as the firing continues, these functions are repeated round
after round in succession. The barrel is provided with a water jacket,
to prevent excessive heating; and is so mounted that it can be raised or
lowered or set at any angle, or turned horizontally to the left or to
the right. The bore is adapted to the present size of cartridges; and
the maximum range is eighteen hundred yards. The gun can therefore be
made to sweep a circle upwards of a mile in radius.
Nor is the gun excessively heavy, its total weight being only one
hundred and six pounds, made up thus: Tripod, fifty pounds; pivot (on
which the gun turns and by which it is attached to the tripod), sixteen
pounds; gun and firing mechanism, forty pounds. The parts can be easily
detached and conveniently folded for carriage, and may be put together
again so quickly that, if the belt containing the cartridges is in
position, the first shot can be delivered within ten seconds. It would
therefore be extremely serviceable in preventing disaster through a body
of troops being surprised. Reconnoitring parties, too, would deem it
prudent to pay greater deference to an enemy's lonely sentry on advanced
outpost duty if the latter were provided with this new Machine Gun,
instead of the ordinary rifle.
Immediately below the barrel of the gun, a box is placed, containing the
belt which carries the cartridges. The belts vary in length. Those
commonly used are seven feet long, and capable of holding three hundred
and thirty-three cartridges; shorter ones hold one hundred and twenty
cartridges; but the several pieces can be joined together for continuous
firing. Single shots can be fired at any time whether the belt is in
position or not--in the former case by pressing a button, which prevents
the recoil; in the latter, by hand-loading in the ordinary way. To start
firing, one end of the belt is inserted in the gun, the trigger is
pulled by the hand once, after which the movement becomes continuous and
automatic as long as the supply of cartridges lasts. At each recoil of
the barrel, the belt is pushed sufficiently onward to bring the next
cartridge into position; the mechanism grasps this cartridge, draws it
from the belt, and passes it on to the barrel. Should a faulty or an
empty cartridge find its way in, and the gun does not go off in
consequence, there is of course no recoil to keep up the repeating
action, and the mechanism ceases to work until the obstruction is
removed.
To devise and adjust the necessary parts of the machine with such
precision that each part performs its proper function at the exact
moment pre-arranged for it--to do all this while the gun fires at the
enormous rate of six hundred rounds a minute, must have cost an
immensity of thought, of labour, and of time.
The 'Colt Automatic Gun,' a new machine gun manufactured by the Colt
Firearms Company, of Hartford, Connecticut, promised in 1896 to be a
rival to the Maxim, as it fired 400 shots a minute.
Hiram S. Maxim was born in the state of Maine in 1840, and in his
fourteenth year was apprenticed to a carriage-builder. From his father,
who had a wood-working factory and mill, he learned the use of tools and
derived his inventive turn of mind. After some experience in
metal-working in his uncle's works at Fitchburg, he was in turn a
philosophical instrument maker, and on the staff of some ironworkers and
shipbuilders. About 1877 he became a consulting electrical engineer, a
branch of science which he studied and became master of in a short time.
Some of the earliest electric lights in the States were devised and
erected by him. He was in England and Europe in 1880 in order to
investigate electrical methods there. He was back in London in 1883, and
after that visit, like Siemens, he made it his headquarters. What
leisure he now had (1883-4) on hand he devoted to inventing his
automatic machine gun, which should load and fire itself, and the
British government was the first to recognise its merits and adopt it.
The making of it has been taken over by the Maxim-Nordenfelt Gun
Company, which has a capital of about two millions sterling.
Like Edison he has taken out about a hundred different patents, some of
which are connected with oil motors and smokeless gunpowder. His
flying-machine, as described in his paper at the British Association in
1894, burns oil fuel, which developed three hundred and sixty
horse-power. It was driven at sixty miles an hour horizontally, and the
machine contained an aeroplane sloping six degrees to the horizon. The
weight to be lifted was eight thousand pounds. After running nine
hundred feet, the machine exerted an upward thrust of two thousand
pounds greater than its own weight. The machine, after one thousand
feet, broke loose; the steam was shut off, and it fell. The experiments
have been conducted at Bexley, in Kent, where Mr Maxim had a light track
of railway laid down, sixteen hundred feet long, on which the machine
moved. The back part of the machine having been liberated from the
check-rail too soon caused the accident at the experiment, and sent the
whole machine off the track. There is sufficient evidence that it did
rise from the ground, and Lords Rayleigh and Kelvin have become
believers in its possibilities. This machine, as described at the time,
with its four side sails and aeroplanes set, is over one hundred feet
wide, and looks like a huge white bird with four wings instead of two.
It is propelled by two large two-bladed screws, resembling the
screw-propellers of a ship, driven by two powerful compound engines.
IRONCLADS.
A modern ironclad is an enormous piece of complicated mechanism. In
order to protect this mechanism from hostile shot, the greater part of
it is placed under water and covered by a thick steel deck; the
remainder above water being protected by vast armour-plates varying from
eight to twenty-four inches in thickness. From the exterior, an ironclad
is by no means a thing of beauty; one writer has described it as 'a
cross between a cooking apparatus and a railway station;' but in place
of this ingenious parallel, imagine a low flat-looking mass on the
water; from the centre rises a huge funnel, on either side of which are
a turret and a superstructure running to the bow and stern; two short
pole masts, with platforms on the top for machine guns, complete an
object calculated to bring tears to the eyes of the veteran sailor who
remembers the days of the grand old line-of-battle ship, with its tall
tapering masts and white sails glistening in the sun. A stranger going
on board one of our newest types of ironclads would lose himself amid
the intricacies and apparent confusion of the numerous engines,
passages, and compartments; it is a long time, in fact, before even the
sailors find their way about these new ships; and the Admiralty allow a
new ironclad to remain three months in harbour on first commissioning
before going to sea, in order that the men may become acquainted with
the uses of the several fittings on board, each ironclad that is built
now being in many ways an improvement on its predecessor.
Those who have not been on board a modern ironclad can form no idea of
the massiveness and solidity of the various fittings; the enormous guns,
the rows of shot and shell, the huge bolts, bars, and beams seem to be
meant for the use of giants, not men. Although crowded together in a
comparatively small space, everything is in perfect order, and ready at
any moment to be used for offensive or defensive purposes. It is not,
perhaps, generally known that the captain of a man-of-war is ordered to
keep his ship properly prepared for battle as well in time of peace as
of war. Every evening before dark the quarters are cleared and every
arrangement made for night-battle, to prevent surprise by a better
prepared enemy. When at anchor in a harbour, especially at night, the
ship is always prepared to repel any attempts of an enemy to board or
attack with torpedoes or fireships. In addition to the daily and weekly
drills and exercises, once every three months the crew are exercised at
night-quarters, the time of course being kept secret by the captain, so
that no preparations can be made beforehand, the exercise being intended
to represent a surprise. In the dead of night, when only the officers of
the watch and the sentries posted in the various parts of the ship are
awake, the notes of a bugle vibrate between the decks; immediately, as
if by magic, everything becomes alive; men are seen scrambling out of
their hammocks, and lights flash in all directions; the huge shells are
lifted by hydraulic power from the magazines, placed on trucks, and
wheeled by means of railways to the turrets; men run here and there with
rifles, boarding-pikes, axes, cases of powder and ammunition; others are
engaged laying fire-hose along the decks, others closing the water-tight
doors; while far down below, the engineers, stokers, and firemen are
busy getting up steam for working the electric-light engines, turrets,
&c. At the torpedo ports, the trained torpedo-men are placing the
Whiteheads in their tubes; others are preparing cases of gun-cotton for
boom-torpedoes. In ten minutes, however, all is again silent and each
man stands at his station ready for action. The captain, followed by his
principal officers, now walks round the quarters and inspects all the
arrangements for battle, after which various exercises are gone through.
A bugle sounds, and numbers of men rush away to certain parts of the
ship to repel imaginary boarders; another bugle, and a large party
immediately commence to work the pumps; another low, long blast is a
warning that the ship is about to ram an enemy, and every man on board
stretches himself flat on the decks until the shock of the (supposed)
collision takes place. After a number of exercises have been gone
through, the guns are secured, arms and stores returned to their places,
the men tumble into their hammocks again, and are soon fast asleep.
[Illustration: One of the 'Wooden Walls of Old England.' _The Duke of
Wellington_ Screw Line-of-Battle Ship. One hundred and thirty-one Guns.]
It would be interesting to glance at some of the principal offensive and
defensive capabilities of a modern ironclad. The first-class
line-of-battle ship of fifty years ago carried as many as a hundred and
thirty, what would be called in the present day, very light guns; in
contrast to this, her Majesty's armour-plated barbette ram _Benbow_
carries _two_ guns weighing a hundred and ten tons each. These enormous
weapons are forty-three feet eight inches long, and are capable of
sending a shot weighing three quarters of a ton to a distance of seven
miles. The effect of a shell from one of these guns piercing the armour
of a ship and bursting would be very disastrous, and there are few, if
any, ships whose armour, when fairly hit at a moderate distance, could
withstand such a blow.
Guns, however, although terrible in effect, are now supplemented by
other and more deadly means of offence. Foremost amongst these stands
the Whitehead or Fish Torpedo. This infernal machine can be discharged
from tubes in the side of a ship to a distance of a thousand yards under
water at a speed of twenty-five miles per hour. Armed with its charge of
gun-cotton it rushes forth on its mission; and, if successful in
striking the ship against which it is aimed, explodes, and rends a large
hole in her side, through which the water pours in huge quantities. In
order to protect a man-of-war from this danger, she can be surrounded at
short notice with thick wire-nettings, hanging from projecting
side-spars, against which the torpedo explodes with harmless effect.
These nettings are, however, principally intended for use when ships are
at anchor in harbour at night; they could not well be employed in action
with an enemy, as they offer such resistance to the water as to reduce
the speed of the ship by four or five knots, and so encumber her as to
render her liable to be rammed by a more active opponent.
All large ironclads now have two or three torpedo boats. These craft are
constructed of steel one-sixteenth of an inch thick, and steam at a
speed of sixteen knots, some of the larger kind reaching twenty or
twenty-one knots an hour. Carrying two Whiteheads, they are valuable
auxiliaries to the parent ship; their rapid movements, together with
their dangerous freight, distracting the attention of an enemy.
[Illustration: The _Majestic_.]
Machine-guns, however, form a very effective remedy for them; a single
torpedo boat attacking an ironclad would, directly she got within range,
be riddled with Gardner and Nordenfelt shot, and sunk in about fifteen
seconds. It is only when three or four approach in various directions,
or during night attacks, that they become really dangerous. The electric
search-lights, with which most large men-of-war are now provided, will
show a torpedo boat at the distance of a mile on the darkest night; but
there is of course always a chance of their getting close enough to a
ship to discharge a torpedo before they are discovered.
The bow of many of our ironclads is constructed for the purpose of
ramming (running down and sinking) an antagonist. To use a ram requires
great speed and facilities for turning and manoeuvring quickly; for
the latter purposes, short ships are better than long ones. It would
be a comparatively easy thing for a ship steaming fourteen knots to
ram another that could only steam ten; a small ship might also
outmanoeuvre and ram a long one; but it would be extremely difficult,
in fact almost impossible, for a ship to ram another vessel of equal
speed and length. To secure facilities in turning and manoeuvring, all
our modern ships are built as short as possible, and have two screws,
each worked by entirely separate sets of engines, so that one can go
ahead whilst the other goes astern. If one set of engines is disabled,
the other can still work independently, and a fair speed be maintained.
We always think that two ships at close quarters trying to ram one
another, must be like a game at chess, requiring the closest observation
of your opponent's movements and the nicest judgment for your own, a
wrong move being fatal to either.
It is the opinion of many naval men of authority that a modern naval
battle would only occupy about half the time of a fight in the old
Trafalgar days; that half the ships employed would be sunk, and that
most of the remainder would be so battered as to be unfit for further
service for months to come.
In connection with the Navy Estimates for 1896-7 it was announced in
the House of Commons that the following vessels would be constructed: 13
first-class battleships, 10 first-class cruisers, 16 second-class
cruisers, 7 third-class cruisers, and 48 torpedo-boat destroyers.
SUBMARINE BOATS.
In 1864, during the American civil war, a submarine boat succeeded in
sinking the Federal frigate _Housatonic_. This boat, however, was hardly
an unqualified success, as, running into the hole made by its torpedo,
it went down with the ship; and three crews had previously been lost
while carrying out its initial experiments. Since then, many methods of
submersion have been tried; but it is only within recent years that
naval powers have awakened to the fact that a submersible boat, though
by no means so formidable for offensive purposes as its name at first
leads one to believe, is a factor which might have to be taken into
consideration in the next naval war.
Modern types of these boats are the Holland, Nordenfelt, Tuck, and
Goubet. The Holland boat comes to us from over the Atlantic, and is
peculiar in its weapon of offence. It is fifty feet long, eight feet in
diameter, and is driven by a petroleum engine carrying sufficient fuel
for two days' run. The diving is effected by means of two horizontal
rudders, one on each side of the stern. This only allows of submersion
when the boat is in motion; and the boat cannot be horizontal while
submerged. It carries ten-inch gelatine blasting shells, fired from a
pneumatic gun twenty feet long, whose radius of action is two hundred
yards under water and one thousand yards above. The use of gelatine is
also objectionable, as the confined space and the vibration of the boat
prevent such explosives being carried without some risk of premature
explosion. It is for this reason that gun-cotton is adopted in torpedo
work, as it will not explode on concussion, and is little affected by
change of temperature.
The principal features of the Nordenfelt boat are its method of
submersion and its propulsion by steam. The boat is one hundred and
twenty-five feet long, twelve feet beam, and displaces two hundred and
fifty tons when entirely submerged, one hundred and sixty tons when
running on the surface. Her propelling machinery consists of two double
cylinder compound engines, with a horse-power of one thousand, and
propelling the boat at fifteen knots on the surface. The submersion of
the boat is effected by means of two horizontal propellers working in
wells at each end. Two conning-towers project about two feet above the
deck, of one-inch steel, surmounted by glass domes, protected with steel
bars, for purposes of observation. The boat usually runs on the surface
with these towers showing, unless the buoyancy, which is never less than
half a ton, is overcome by the horizontal propellers, when the boat
becomes partially or totally submerged according to their speed. To
ascend to the surface it is only necessary to stop the horizontal
propellers, which also stop automatically on reaching a set depth. In
the forward tower are the firing keys, machinery and valves necessary
for driving or steering the vessel, for controlling the horizontal
propellers, and for discharging the Whitehead torpedoes. Four of these
are carried, and they are discharged with powder from two tubes in the
bows. In the conning-tower are also placed the instruments indicating
the depth, level, and course. When the boat is awash, the funnels have
to be unshipped and the boat closed up before submersion. The length of
time, twenty-five minutes, required for this operation is an objection
to this boat, though when submerged it does not get unpleasantly hot.
The temperature after a three hours' submerged run was only ninety
degrees Fahrenheit. The crew consists of a captain and eight men.
The Tuck also comes from America. It is of iron, cigar-shaped, thirty
feet long and six feet in diameter. It is submerged by means of a
horizontal rudder in the stern and a horizontal propeller acting
vertically amidships beneath the boat. It is driven by electricity,
supplied from storage batteries packed closely in the bows. Compressed
air is carried in reservoirs, but a supply is usually obtained when the
boat is not far from the surface, by means of an iron pipe twenty feet
long, which usually lies on deck, but which can be raised to an upright
position by gearing from within. The top then rises above the surface of
the water, and by opening a valve in the foot and attaching a pump,
fresh air is drawn into the interior. The crew need not exceed three
men.
[Illustration: Section of the Goubet Submarine Boat.]
The Goubet class are of iron, sixteen feet long, three feet wide, and
about six feet deep. The motive power is a Siemens motor driven by
storage batteries. Fifty of these boats were purchased by the Russian
government. They have no rudder, but a universal joint in the screw
shaft permits of the screw being moved through an arc of ninety degrees.
The torpedo is carried outside the boat, secured by a catch worked from
inside. On arriving under the enemy, the torpedo is released, and
striking the ship's bottom, is held there by spikes. The boat then
withdraws, unreeling a connecting wire; and when at a safe distance,
fires. The absence of a rudder, however, causes erratic steering, and
the spikes with which the torpedo is fitted might fail to stick in
steel-bottomed ships.
Submarine boats cannot be driven under water at a speed exceeding six
knots. If driven beyond, they are inclined to dive, and in deep water,
before the corrective forces against a dive have had time to act, might
reach a depth where the pressure would drive in the sides or compress
them to a sufficient extent to seriously reduce the displacement. In
shallow water, the boat might be driven on to the bottom, and if it be
clay, held there, an accident attended with fatal consequences in the
case of one boat.
It is also difficult to direct the course of a submarine boat; and it is
doubtful whether the advantage of not being seen counteracts the
disadvantage of not being able to see. According to Mr Nordenfelt in a
lecture on Submarine Boats, 'The mirror of the surface throws a strong
light into the boat; you cannot see forward at all, and you cannot see
far astern; it is as black as ink outside; you can only see a sort of
segment.' This means that you cannot safely advance at a great speed
under water. It is impossible to think of a submarine boat as a boat
that actually manoeuvres and does its work under water. The boat should
run awash, and you can then see where you are. When we consider, then,
that a boat totally submerged cannot be driven over six knots, and
cannot be properly directed; when we consider the speeds of seventeen
and eighteen knots attained by modern battleships, we arrive at the
conclusion that boats totally submerged are useless against modern
battleships in motion. Running awash, they could be tackled by torpedo
catchers and torpedo boats.
[Illustration]