NETTING SUBMARINES.

Western Star, 20 May 1904, Page 2

NETTING SUBMARINES.

A new way of preventing the attack of submarines was put to the test during the mimic battle which the Prince of Wales witnessed at Portsmouth in the middle of March. As the Home Fleet came rushing up to the attack- destroyers far ahead, two cruisers next, and the battleships in the rear—it was seen that the battleships were dropping picquet boats.

The operation (says the Telegraph's correspondent) aroused curiosity, because it could not be conjectured what the object in view was. This, however, was made clear at a later stage in the engagement, when it was found that Sir Arthur Wilson had invented an exceedingly ingenious expedient for thwarting the elusive submarine. "

Picquet boats, though small, steam l at from sixteen to eighteen. knots -an hour, while submarines only travel at about ten on the surface, and six or seven when submerged. Moreover, submarines travel only from ten to twenty feet below the surface. When the picquet boats were dropped from the battleships they had with them some fine nets of specially fine hard steel. * Along one side of each a hawser was threaded. One picquet boat kept one end of the hawser, and the other end was held in a second picquent boat. Ihe net thus contrived at once sank down like a thin r wall into the water.

Officers on the picquent boats saw a periscope moving on the face of the water, and they manoeuvred so as, to •make the net bar its progress. A few minutes later a straining at the hawser told them that they had. stopped the career of; the submarine. Immediately the boats altered course, so as to completely envelop the unfortunate underwater craft. The manoeuvre was crowned with success. The poor little vessel found itself in the toils, and as the hawser carried away the periscope, its sole means of seeing what was happening on the surface, the crew could do nothing but await developements. The submarine was raised to the surface and the startling experiences of the crew was explained.. They will not soon forget, however, how they were caught like fish in the isleverely planned steel sieve.