Inventions of the Great War

by A. Russell Bond

SEAPLANE TOWING-BARGES

When the war on the U-boat was carried up into the sky, many new naval problems cropped up, particularly when German submarines chose to work far out at sea. Big seaplanes were used, but they consumed a great deal of fuel in flying out and back, cutting down by just so much their flying-radius at the scene of activities. A special towing-barge was used. These barges had trimming-tanks aft, which could be flooded so that the stern of the barge would submerge. A cradle was mounted to run on a pair of rails on the barge. The body of the seaplane was lashed to this cradle and then drawn up on the barge by means of a windlass. This done, the water was blown out of the trimming-tanks by means of compressed air and the barge was brought up to an even keel. The barge with its load was now ready to be towed by a destroyer or other fast boat to the scene of operations. There water was again let into the trimming-tanks and the seaplane was let back into the water. From the water the seaplane arose into the air in the usual way.

Unfortunately, when the sea is at all rough it is exceedingly difficult for a seaplane to take wing, particularly a large seaplane. A better starting-platform than the sea had to be furnished. At first some seaplanes were furnished with wheels, so that they could be launched from platforms on large ships; and then, to increase the flying-radius, seaplanes were discarded in favor of airplanes. Once these machines were launched, there was no way for them to get back to the ship. They had to get back to land before their fuel was exhausted.

On the large war-vessels a starting-platform was built on a pair of long guns. Then the war-ship would head into the wind and the combined travel of the ship and of the airplane along the platform gave speed enough to raise the plane off the platform before it had run the full length of the guns. But as long as aviators had no haven until they got back to land, there were many casualties. Eager to continue their patrol as long as possible, they would sometimes linger too long before heading for home and then they would not have enough fuel left to reach land. Many an aviator was lost in this way, and finally mother-ships for airplanes had to be built.

Courtesy of "Scientific American"

Electrically Propelled Boat or Surface Torpedo, Attacking a Warship, under Guidance of an Airplane Scout

THE "HUSH SHIPS"

The British Navy had constructed a number of very fast cruisers to deal with any raiders the Germans might send out. These cruisers were light vessels capable of such high speeds that they could even overtake a destroyer. They were 840 feet long and their turbines developed 90,000 horse-power. The construction of these vessels was for a long time kept a profound secret and it was not until the German fleet surrendered that photographs of them were allowed to be published. Because of this secrecy the boats were popularly known as "hush ships." They were not armored; it was not necessary to load them down with armor plate, because their protection lay in speed and they were designed to fight at very long range. In fact, they were to carry guns that would outrange those of the most powerful dreadnoughts. Our largest naval guns are of 16-inch caliber, but the "hush ships" were each to carry two 18-inch guns. The guns were monsters weighing 150 tons each and they fired a shell 18 inches in diameter and 7 feet long to a distance of 30 miles when elevated to an angle of 45 degrees. The weight of the shell was 3600 pounds and it carried 500 pounds of high explosive or more than is carried in the largest torpedoes.

At the 32-mile range the shell would pass through 12 inches of face-hardened armor and at half that range it would pass through armor 18 inches thick, and there is no armor afloat any heavier than this.