SUBMARINE NAVIGATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12589, 26 August 1901, Page 5

SUBMARINE NAVIGATION.

AN UNFAVOURABLE VERDICT. THE FRENCH BOATS. United Press Association—Cßy Electrio Telegraph—Copyright. PARIS, August 23; M. Camille Pellet an, the French Marine Minister, in his Budget report, expresses a doubt as to the efficiency of the submarine boat Gustavo Zede, and other types of submarine boats. In the Ministers opinion the feats performed by the submarine under test conditions would be impossible in time of xvar.

Writing on June 29 the Loncon correspondent of tire “New hoik Sun’ says: The torpedo boat destroyer’ Vernon has been experimenting for a few days at Portsmouth with secret Admiralty devices for destroying submarine boats. “ Engineering ” gives general particulars of the trials whioa it affirms xvere of the most import ant inventions of the ago. The submarine boats, nnden* present conditions, before attacking a ship, must come to the surface and take bearings or else betray their presence with an optic tube or a periscope. With the nexv invention the righting of a submarine beat entails on her almost certain 'destruction. The sighting is now practically certain. It is not to the pxiblic benefit, however, that the means employed should) ba stated, for the principle has other and varied! xrses. But in general terms it may be stated that it is proposed that each destroyer shall be fitted with a crutch upon which a. boom forty-two feet long works. This boom normally stows inboard and forward. At the) far end a charge of explosives is carried which can be set off like all spar torpedoes. On going into action the boom is slung out xvell forward and immersed at tire proper moment. The immersion Cannes the boom end downward and aft, and it is exploded! d'.rectly the submarine boat is passed. The speed of the destroyer carries her past the centre of explosion before its full effects reach her, though: in any case the destroyers ore too light to be seriously affected. With the submarine boat it is different, as it experiences the full force of the concussion. Within sixty or one hundred feet or more of the centre of the explosion,, according to the charge employed, the sides of the submarine beat should be oomp'ressed sufficiently to cause fatal leaks, while even at a greater distance stability should be destroyed. The experiments at Portsmouth were nolb enough' to indicate exactly the best position for the boom, and the first boats fitted out with the new device will probably vary somewhat between having it on the quarter or right aft. The additional weight of tine boom will be slight, and in the case of the destroyer which has been experimentally fitted, the weight; has been more than compensated) by fitting her with alumimiuan instead! of the usual torpedo tubes. This particular device is merely one of several equally simple guards against submarine torpedo boats.