TORPEDOES AND SUB-MARINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12758, 7 January 1905, Page 6 (Supplement)

TORPEDOES AND SUBMARINES.

Lv vie*- of llie fact that this is the typical Maritime nation of the world it is nothing short of extraordinary that the ignorance ot the majority. of Britons respecting matters nautical should ho as great as it is. It is not perhaps so much the fault of the layman that he its not altogether an fait with marine architecture as that of the expert who writes leuiiicdlv of knots, displacement and other •technical mutters unmindful of the fact that his leaders have but the most elementary knowledge of the subject he treats and arc ■•unable to follow his emails' in their entirety in consequence. The artist ton who depicts a naval cu-ca-'n-nient. for the sake of pictorial effect, aW Vols the mnvarv astray. battleships i-.ve shown engaged in deadly warfare within a tew hundred yards of each other, because to depict them as they would appear villi one oriwf/ miles of sea between them w-uid not be altogether impressive. the mui in the street is led to believe that- a tor-pedo-boat must necessarily launch it torpedo at its prev from a range of anything viider a. hundred yards, and the reason is mi; far to seek when the picture is conjured ni) in the mind of a diminutive torpedo craft ,',;,', .J;.- an .'.her warship at a very short. distance! As a matter of fact, a duel at- sea uoirr.ived true to nature, and without exalteration, is no longer conducive- to pictivnal treatment, but the subject has been popular from Nelsons day onwards, and on that account truth is sacrificed for effect. j At the time of the American Civil war. ';:> the early sixties, the greatest torpedo] success was"attained by tk* use of the spar | outrigger torpedo, which was carried by the LittackTng vessel, and exploded when under the cover of darkness it reached the im- . radiate proxhnitv of the doomed craft. A wonderful advance, however, was made in torpedo warfare when .Mr. Whitehead invented the missile that- bears his name, but until the invention, or rather adoption of the gyroscope to the torpedo, to keep the yamo'ou a straight course. 630 yards was considered the limit (A distance within winch the torpedo should be despatched 'against its prcv. To-day, ho enormously lias the efficiency of the torpedo increased, it is possible to attain greater success at 2000 v.'.rds range than was formerly possible at 800 yards. A torpedo despatched on a journey against a vessel anchored a thousand yards oft would make very effective practice, but if that vessel, instead of being anchored, was .loving, allowance would have iv be made i r-i- her rate of progression. For between j one and two thousand yards the torpedo used so effectively bv the Japanese against the Russian fleet at Tort- Arthur has a speed of 34; miles an hour— is to say. in-one minute it would cover 1012 yards. Probably nine out of every ten Britons arc of an opinion that the cigar-shaped missile used with sue:; effect at Port Arthur is of a size that renders it capable of being easily handled by one able-bodied seaman.' but such is net the case. The weight of the explosive contained in the deadly tube would equal that of a man scaling 14st 2ib. while the complete torpedo weighs as much as twelve men of an average weight of list 91b. The terrible disaster that occurred last March off the Nab Lighthouse has naturally riveted the attention of the public upon Glibmarine craft, and numerous illustrations have appeared in the press of the peculiar vessel that have given a- distinctly wrong imnressi&n of her appearance. As a matter of "fact, the ill-fated Al is generally portrayed having the appearance of an artificial porpoise with a length that is about four times its diameter, whereas in reality the length of the vessel is no less than ten times its diameter. A 'submarine vcs.se! resembles an exaggerated torpedo with a conning-tower. One hundred fee. long (as compared with 112 ft in the ease of the French Narval and 65ft in that of the United States Adder), the Al has a diameter of about 10ft. » girth of 31ft, aad a speed, submerged, of eight or nine miles an hour for rather over four hours, her motive power when below the surface being tin electric motor run by storage batteries.