ANEW TORPEDO.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14199, 30 January 1915, Page 6

ANEW TORPEDO.

Great improvements have been made recently in the torpedo. ' Lieutenant Hardeastle, of the British Navy, has perfected a torpedo that weighs 1600 pounds, and that carries a charge of 250 pounds of guneotten, enough to blow the wholo side out of a battleship. It has a range of 7000 yards, or about 4 miles. In this case, too, the gyroscope plays a vital part. A torpedo fitted with the new gyroscope is more certain of hitting its mark than- the big guns. Furthermore, the gyroscope rudder can bo set so that the torpedo can be fired from the broadside of a ship, when it will turn through an angle of ninety degrees and run dead ahead to its target.

Other great improvements that have completed the revolution of the torpedo :iro the substitution of the turbine engine for the old thre3-cylindor engine of the original Whitehead torpedo, and a method of heating the compressed air that furnishes the power. Air under high pressure is contained in a flask within the torpedo.

When the latter is fired a valvo is opened admitting air to tho engine through a reducing valve which brings down tho pressure to 300 pounds. As the flask is emptied the temperature falls, sometimes below zero. This freezes oil on the bearings and generally retards the torpedo and renders it ineffective. By adding a flask of alcohol with a method of igniting it when the torpedo is fired, the air is heated after leaving tho reducing valvo and beforo entering the turbines, thus greatly increasing its efficiency.

When the pressure in the air flask is reduced and the temperature falls, another burner is automatically lighted that heats the air flask itself, thus preA r enting freezing. This quadruples tho range of the projectile.

THIS