THE DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF TORPEDOES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9448, 28 May 1898, Page 2

THE DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF TORPEDOES.

While there has been little to guide the publioin forming an opinion as to tha result of two modern battleships meeting, there is abundant testimony to the destruo tive power of torpedoes. In the American civil war there were at least eight ironclads destroyed by torpedoes. It may be said they wero not battleships as we regard them now. That is true, but it is equally true that the torpedo of 1863, with its 60 pounds of explosive, is not to be compared With the torpedo of to-day, carrying 250 pounds and improved in speed and dirjgibiliiy by later inventions. In the Paraguayan war Brazil lost its finest ironclad by a torpedo explosion. Russia heia the Turkish fleet in check on the Danube in 1878 wholly by the use of torpedoes, and with them destroyed at least two fine vessels. In the French operations in China in 1884 hostilities were practically confined to the sinking of two Chinese naval vessels by French spar torpedoes. The most notable action in the Chilian war of 1891 was the sinking of the battleship Blanco Enoalada, with all her crew, by torpedoes. The decisive naval movement of Japan in the war against China in 1894 was the attack ?pon the fleet defending Weihaiwei with her torpedo flotilla. There were but | two attacks made, resulting in the destruction of four Chinese vessels, two of which were her best armored battleships. Ana last, butnot least, we have the United States cruiser Maine in Havana harbour. The present war may decide whether the nations will go on building huge battleships or confine their attention to fast cruisers for preying upon an enemy's commerce For if a torpedo boat, which can I be built in two or three months at a cost of £30,000, is an effective weapon of attack against an ironclad which takes three years to build and costs something like £1,000,000, the days of big battlethips are numbered.