Torpedoes in Naval Warfare.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXX, Issue 1513, 10 May 1898, Page 3

Torpedoes in Naval Warfare.

The discussion of tho question whether tho American battleship Maine was destroyed by a torpedo or not, has directed attention, (says the Hawke's Bay Herald), to the use of torpedoes in modern naval warfare. Spain has a large proportion of torpedo boats over America, and American writers are now discussing whether , the money would not have been better spent in building these destroyers in preference to expending enormous suras on large battleships. It is pointed out that the Maine represents at least 25 first class torpedo boats, and by increasing the number of coast-defence fighting ships of the monitor type, like the Puritan and Terror, and building a large fleet of torpedo boats and torpedo destroyers, America would have had a navy prepared for defence and security, and not with an eye to foreign wars and conquests. Professor Alger, of the United States Ordnance Bureau, maintains that torpedoes simply tear a great hole in the hull and sink the ship, and’ his statement is borne out by the history of the past. la the American Civil War there were two notable instances of the effects of torpedoes during the operations off Charleston in 1863 and 1864 An unsuccessful one was the attack of the Confederates on the Federal vessel New Ironsides. A torpedo was exploded near the ship and about three feet under water. It gave the big ship a bad shaking up only, but destroyed the attacking torpedo boat. Three months later the Confederates made a successful attempt upon the Housatonic. In this case the exploding weapon wrecked both the Housatonic. and the torpedo boat. It was but a few days later that Lieutenant Cushing succeeded in his daring feat of blowing up the Confederate ram Albemarle in Boanoke River., The Albermale was lying at a wharf, protected by floating logs. Cushing drove his launch over tho logs to reach his prey and fired his torpedo. There was a muffled report, a column of water sprang into the air, and the ram careened enough to show her assailant a terrific rent in her hull, and then quickly settled to the bottom. The Parana River was the scene of the next effective explosion of torpedoes in actual warfare. The Rio Janeiro, an ironclad of the allied forces, was sunk by two submerged torpedoes against which she struck. The incident occurred in the operations of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay against Paraguay 1856, A deed rivalling Gushing’s was performed in the Lower Danube in 1877. A party of Russian soldiers in small boats succeeded, under cover of darkness, in fastening a torpedo to the hull of a large Turkish monitor and carrying its wires to the shore. At three o’clock in the morning they exploded the torpedo, sinking the monitor with officers and crew. An experiment on an old frigate was made at Cherbourg in 1877. She was struck with a small torpedo. The result was a hole that would admit an omnibus. During the civil war in Chili, in 1891, the Government gunboats Lynch and Condell surprised the rebel cruiser Blanco Bncalada in Caldera Bay while she was undergoing repairs, and one of several torpedoes fired from a little more than 100 yards struck the Encalada amidships. She foundered in nine minutes, carrying down with her 120 human lives. The weapon was a Whitehead torpedo. Divers afterwards reported a hole in her double bottom over 20ft in length and about 12ft in width. The torpedo carried 601b of gun cotton An incident quite similar occurred during the revolt of the Brazilian navy under Admiral Mellow in 1893. r l he most effective vessel of the rebel fleet was the armor clad turreted ship Aquidaban, a vessel of the Maine type, though somewhat smaller. The Brazilian torpedo boat Sampaio approached her within 200 yards and struck the Aquidaban with a whitehead torpedo under tho forward turret. The ship sprang out of the water with a great hole in her how. She settled by the head, as the Maine did, in 24 feet of water, while the after compartments, being still uninjured, continued to float her stern. She was afterwards raised and manaced to steam to Rio de Janiero. Tho Chinese warship Chen Y uen was tho latest victim of the torpedo, in her late war with Japan. She was struck amidships of the hull in such a way as to tear a great hole in the very backbone of tho vessel, and she sank immediately.