EXPERIMENTS WITH THE BRENNAN TORPEDO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1970, 22 August 1889, Page 18

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE BRENNAN TORPEDO.

A VESSEL COMPLETELY DESTROYED. Hurst Castle, at the Needles entrance to Spithead, was on Wednesday the scene of an experiment highly interesting to both naval and military officers. This experiment consisted of a trial to blow up a supposed enemy's ship coming through the Needles Channel, with a "Brennan torpedo" launched aud worked from Hurst Castle. The target was an old coal hulk purchased at Dartmouth by the Admiralty for the purpose, aud called the Monarch. She was about SOO tons aud ldOffc long, and was towed up the channel by a tug at a speed of al'out 12 knots an hour. , Mr Brennan, the lucky inventor of the attacking weapon, gave the order, and the torpedo was immediately launched, the target being then about a mile off. Mr Brennan, having entire charge of direoting the course of the torpedo, could have at once destroyed the Monarch, but to show the complete control the manipulator had over it he proceeded to literally play with hiß prey, first making a feint and apparently missing his object by a few yards, he made the torpedo turn and follow the ill-fated ship, which was cow about a mile and a-half distant. She waa quickly overtaken and hit fairly in the centre, an immense column of water and debris shot into the air, and when this subsided it was seen that the old hulk had bren blown into matchwood, the sea within a radius of 300 yds being covered with portions of thß wreck. The experiment was witnessed by the Secretary of

' State for War, the Duke of Cambridge; Lord Wolseley, Lord George Hamilton, Jbh'e Commander-in-Ohlef of Portsmouth, and a number of naval and military officers. The success of this experiment points to the fact . that the Government were not far wrong in paying £100,000 to Mr Brennan for his torpedo, for it will be a valuable adjunct to the defence of places that have positions from which the torpedo could be successfully worked, such as narrow channels or outlying forts ; but as the weapon is limited to a twomile range, or, perhaps, two aud a-half at the outBide, it would be obviously useless to prevent bombardment of coast towno by ships carrying the long range guns of the present day, as they would not probably come within the effective rsnge of the Brennan torpedo. It ia to ba hoped that this invention will be kept as much a secret as possible, and that no distinguished foreigners will be given the opportunity of inspecting its mechanism.— Western Morning flews, June 28. . >