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TORPEDOES, FIRE-ENGINES, ETC.-I. Monitor.

2. Torpedo barricade. 3. American torpedo-boat. 4.

10. Pollock's dout

7. Winged-torpedo. 8. Transportable fire-engine. 9. Dawnton's pump.
barrel-torpedo. 14. McEvoy's torpedo detector. 15. Edison-Sims electric torpedo.

Torpedo.

late war were percussive. The torpedo-boat invented by Admiral Porter, and constructed before the Turkish war, is an almost submerged steam launch, of iron, with a double skin, carrying four persons-the spar-man, who commands and manages the torpedo, the battery-man, a steersman, and an engineer. The idea was borrowed by the English about 1878, but almost all these boats are too large for the purpose. They carry a spar from the bow, and sometimes one on either side. The torpedo is launched, by dropping the spar, so as to strike the enemy at about 10 ft. below water; and a bowsprit, often with a spring buffer, prevents the launch approaching nearer than 20 ft. at the least, the limit of safety for the equivalent of 150 lbs. of powder. The Whitehead and its American prototype, the Harvey, and other towed torpedoes, and boom or spar tor pedoes from a vessel itself, are all either uncertain in effect or impotent when in action and in a sea-way, from the very necessities of the case. Defense against torpedoes lies in booms of logs, with nets and, if possible, battery attachments, to show where the attack is made, and guns ready trained on certain points. Against torpedo-boats Hobart Pacha was the first to use a cordon of logs, made fast by lines to his yard-arms, and boomed out from the hull. Nets, and now wire-netting, have been substituted, with a line of spars all round to keep them at proper distance. The electric light should be used, with patrol boats, and a sufficient number of handy guns should be kept in readiness, so as to be quickly trained on any point. Gatling guns in the tops will pierce any common launch, made as they are of boiler iron; and the English rocket battery might be found useful. Better than anything is the new Hotchkiss repeating gun.

All the varieties of torpedo which military experts are testing at the present time, may be classed under two general heads: (1) the dirigible automobile torpedo, that is aimed, launched, steered, and exploded from a vessel or shore-battery by means of electricity; and (2) the self-steering torpedo, which after being started on its course makes its own way under the water toward its object, against which it explodes upon

contact.

Of the first class the best known torpedoes are the Sims-Edison, which is somewhat favored by the United States Government, and the Patrick (also known as the Long, Hargin, or Wood). Several inventors have combined to improve and perfect the latter, which has been very favorably mentioned by a commission of United States officers after seven tests at the Torpedo School, Newport, R. I. The Patrick torpedo has been concisely described by Ensign J. M. Ellicott, U.S.N., as "a cigar-shaped vessel built of sheet-copper, about 40 feet long and two feet in diameter, and rigidly fastened on its back is a cigar-shaped float longer and narrower than the torpedo, made of the same material. Thus, while the float remains on the surface of the water, just awash, the torpedo hangs about four feet beneath it. The float is filled with lampblack, so that even if punctured repeatedly by bullets its buoyancy will not be seriously changed. It also carries two short flag-staffs, which indicate by their little flags the torpedo's course in the water. The torpedo carries in its head a charge of two hundred pounds of dynamite; in its central portion, a tank of liquid carbonic acid, and another containing lime and sulphuric acid separated; and in its after end a spool of wire and an engine. It is started, steered, stopped, and exploded from the shore by electricity conveyed to it through a wire cable. About 7000 feet of cable is wound upon the spool in the torpedo, after being properly connected with the charge, the engine, and the rudder, and it then passes out through the propeller-shaft which is hollow and leads to the shore-station."

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The torpedo is run out into the water upon a little truck, as shown in the illustration. A connection being then established between the lime and the sulphuric acid, heat is generated in the tank, and the carbonic acid passing by a coil of pipe through this heated receptacle goes on to the engine, which it sets to work, and the torpedo slips from the truck into the water, under which it glides toward the enemy, paying out the cable at its stern, and controlled by the operator at the station, who determines its progress by the little flags that rise just above the surface of the water. At the proper moment the touch of a button explodes its charge of 200 pounds of dynamite against the hull of the enemy's vessel. The Patrick torpedo has a range of a little less than a mile, and requires about three minutes to complete its run. The United States Government at the end of 1891 had purchased 15 of the Sims-Edison and 3 of the Patrick torpedoes.

The second form of torpedo is best represented by the Whitehead as a type, and it is this weapon which has been generally adopted by the governments of Europe. It represents the development of an idea originally put into shape in 1860 by Captain Luppis of the Austrian navy. The first design was for a torpedo-boat to be run by hot air and carrying a heavy charge of gun-cotton. This was to move above the water and to be guided and exploded from the shore. It was not then, in its inception, so different from the dirigible torpedoes already described. But Mr. Robert Whitehead, who was consulted by the inventor, so modified it as to produce an entirely novel form of torpedo, and one that now represents a quarter of a century of thought and study. It consists of a body of steel or bronze some 14 feet in length, and about a foot in diameter. It carries a much less powerful charge than the Patrick torpedo; in fact, only some 60 to 70 pounds of gun-cotton. Its range is about half a mile, and it covers this distance in little more than a minute. It is driven by compressed air, which propels the torpedo by means of two screws, while the stern is fitted with two rudders. The Whitehead can be carried to sea by ships and from there launched at an enemy at a considerable distance.

The secret of the Whitehead torpedo has been purchased from the makers by each of the governments of Europe, except that of Turkey, for some $75,000. Turkey declined to buy because during the Russo-Turkish war of 1878 two of these missiles fell into the possession of the Turkish admiral, Hobart Pasha, at Batoum. The secret was thus at the mercy of the Turks, and the manufacturers hastened to seek the recovery of the two torpedoes, a favor which was granted in return for the permission to manufacture the weapon without paying any royalty to the Whiteheads. The regular cost of each torpedo is $1500.

The Whitehead torpedo is now used in the navies of England, Austria, France, and Italy, and of late the United States government has made a partial adoption of them.

The French Whitehead is 18.9 feet in length and 14.9 inches in diameter. It weighs 880 pounds, and has a speed of 28.5 knots up to 400 yards. The impulse of the weapon out of the torpedo tube is by gunpowder. All Whiteheads jump clear of the ship's side to a distance of about fifteen feet, plunge head foremost into the water like a great fish, dive down to a distance of about twenty feet, immediately shoot up again by the action of the water-valves, regulated to close and open under certain depth pressures, and then, for a hundred yards, pursue a slightly wavering motion until the action is progressive in a plane parallel to the surface of the water.

The Navy Department demands, drawn up in 1889 for the Howell torpedoes, were that the greatest diameter should not exceed 14.2 inches; that they might have any uniform length between 9 feet 6 inches and 12 feet. The total weight, it was specified, might vary in a proportional manner, from 428 pounds for a length of body or spindle of 9 feet 6 inches to 453 pounds for an extreme length of 12 feet, provided the space allowed for a charge of compressed wet gun cotton should be at least sufficient properly to stow a weight of that material equal to 173 per cent. of the total weight of the loaded torpedo. The Howell torpedo is now compelled to have a speed of at least 32 knots per hour for the first 400 yards' run, and a speed of 28 knots for the second 400 yards' run. The vertical deviation after the first 100 yards must not exceed 2 feet, and the initial dive must not be greater than 25 feet.

The projectile of the submarine gun possesses elements of great simplicity, but since it depends entirely for its speed and range upon the force of its ejection, its usefulness is limited in radius below that of the automobile weapon. The automobile torpedo aims to attack the under-water hull of an enemy; in other words the vitals. To offset the attack of this weapon ships have been compelled to adopt the worst form of hamper ever 'foisted on ships of war-the net. All seagoing men-of-war are now compelled to carry the net as part of their defense system. No commander will use his net in action if he knows that his opponent does not carry automobile torpedoes, and every commander, it is safe to say, will use his net if he knows that his enemy carries them. A commander without automobile torpedoes, no matter how crude, must clog himself with this hamper, while he leaves his opponent who is provided with them not only unincumbered, but with a weapon capable of deciding an action at a single shot. The conclusion is an inevitable one that torpedoes must be employed so long as there is no weapon presented serving effectually to replace them.

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