IN THE "TIN FISH" SHOP

Grey River Argus, 13 April 1916, Page 2

IN THE "TIN FISH" SHOP

HOW THE TORPEDO WA% "EDUCATED.' (By William T. Palmer in "Daily Express.") The torpedo shop has never wel comedr visitors, .and to-day so strict are the sentries that the Avorkcrs are almost afraid to get a hair cut lest they should be chal lenged and presented AAdth the business point of the bayonet. From its first invention the tor--pedo has been manufactured in secret, and no one beyond the selected gangs has entered the enclosure at any time. That old Avooden hovel Avhich used to stand in an empty lot at the far end of the dock could tell a thing or two. Those smart foreign attaches AA'ere for ever on the Aratch, paying and plotting to get at its little secrets, and to-day spies and traitors are doing their best to g«et : within its mystery, though the slightest slip means a firing party at dawn. "Its the torpedo,' said old Bill, Avho has had tAventy or more years at the game, "that has made modI'ern tactics at sea. Without it the submarine Avould not have been developed, and evolutions, would still have been carried out at ten knots an hour. Yes, the torpedo's a wonderful thing. "I remember a few things of the early days. For instance, there Avas that experiment at daAvn Avith a nneA r steering-gear, and Aye had the dock gates opened to give the torpedo a thousand yards run. Not a big distance, say you. It Avas in those days when tlie .effective range of a torpedo Avas reckoned at a thousand feet, and some of the old admirals still thought that the only AA^ay was to tow the torpedo against the hull of a ship at anchor, or to fasten it on a spar arid send a boat's creAv to bang the fire Avorks against an enemy's ship. A daft-likc game that, but still it came off sometimes! GIVING TORPEDO A CHANCE. "The first submarine that fired a torpedo bucked backwards and ■went to the mud, so the old school sAvor.e the thing Avas more dangerous to the f irer than to the enemy, and so tbey Avmild ouly build steam kettles to fire torpedoes from, deck tubes. Those little things could hardly carry a modern torpedo, for it's a mighty big machine .iioav, with all sorts of nice little, things inside. "The old heavyweights steam-* ing their ten knots or so Avere not worth ■ fitting with torpedo tubes. It took about half an hour to Avear them round to a mark, and by that time tbe other ship AvoiVd be out of ra"ii b ? or sunk by gunfire. The^preswit fleet has some fine torpedoing ships. Look at the biggest class Aye have — 'the "battle-cruisers as long as a decent liner, running 25 knots and turning 'as sharp a» a destroyer or a scout. By gum, it's Avonderful That's something like giving the torpedo a chance. One of our 'cat' squadron put a brave -of tor pedo.es into the Blucher and seti tied her hash in the race to Heligoland. "But A\ r e've nothing to do, in the torpedo shed, with .cither flats or decktubes. Our Avork is to got the tin-fish into full running and exploding order. And a tender, Avisc-like job some of it is. I often look over a torpedo ready. to go from the shed to the loaders, and tr yto' think hoAv it's been built up. 'No one man has brought the .torpedo to perfection. Tbe engines are the Avork of one school of inventrs, and the steering gear belongs to another lot, and the bal" anotehr lot to study. Some of ance chamber is a thing for still the machinery is that small that a Avatchbuilder Avouldn't mind its credit. And there's trips here and cocks there to keep tbe torpedo to its depth, and there's turbines to drive it along. "It's a vastly different thing to the old torpedoes AA^e used to try in the dock at daybreak Avith a. fine spring inside to put them along, and good luck mainly for balance and direction. I'm one of the older hands iioav, and keep to tbe bench, but I saA\ r a good deal of the practical work which made our naval torpedo the gem it is. It's all right to say it's modelled on this system and that, for a few men have made great discoveries, but it's the work inside the AA'oi-kshops and the experi mental clock that has turned the intentions into most use. It's been a bit more here, a bit less there, add this and drop that, form the start, until the thing fin ished and ready' for issue Avould hardly have been recognised by its inventor. NORTH SEA 'FIREWORKS.' • ' Mishaps to torpedoes — Aye used to have little else of trial days, an da diver would go along, walking the dock mud, to find where the blessed thing had got to. But in a bit problem after prob lem Avas worked out — range, speed, accuracy, poAver, and charge— and one loosed a torpedo fairly sure it Avould go to the right place. It wasn't .easy to come at— a. thing that Avould keep direction across the tide-rips of all strengths, and Avould keep to one level, and would get there before a cruiser could steam half a mile forward. Then, when Ave'd got the torpedo so that it would "go straight, somebody invented tbe i\et device, and all the job had to be Avorked out again; Thinner

torpedoes Avere tried, but tbey just altered the mesh to stop them "But the trick of piercing steel nets Avas found out, and now ate have torpedoes that can cut chain or wire just like paper, and a run of four miles or so is not at all unusual Avith their compressed air motors. "I'll tell you what I would likr Though I've been tAA r enty years m the sheds, I've never seen a torpedo explode except at the cinema and -I would like to spend half-an-jhour on the bridge of areally SAA r ift destroyier that day Avhen the German fleet comes out of its canal and there's a full-pitched battle in the North Sea. The tor pedo Avork Avill be Avorth seeing. There'll be a million pounds' worth of fine fireworks loose in the North Sea in next to no time. '