Courtesy of "Scientific American"
Hauling a Seaplane up on a Barge so that it may be Towed at High Speed by a Destroyer
MOTHER-BOATS FOR AIRPLANES
Armed with such powerful guns as these, the "hush ships" would have been very formidable indeed; but when the guns were mounted on one of the cruisers, the Furious, they were found too powerful for the vessel. It was evident that the monsters would very seriously rack their own ship. So the guns were taken off the cruiser and it was turned into a mother-ship for airplanes. A broad, unobstructed deck was built on the ship which provided a runway from which airplanes could be launched, and this runway was actually broad enough to permit airplanes to land upon it. Under the runway were the hangars in which the airplanes were housed. Other "hush ships" were also converted into airplane mother-boats and there were special boats built for this very purpose, although they were not able to make the speed of the "hush ships." One of these special boats had funnels that turned horizontally to carry off the furnace smoke over the stern and leave a perfectly clear flying-deck, 330 feet long.
TORPEDO-PROOF MONSTERS
As for the 18-inch guns, they were put to another use. Early in the war the British had need for powerful shallow-draft vessels which could operate off the Flanders coast and attack the coast fortifications that were being built by the Germans. The ships that were built to meet this demand were known as monitors, because like the famous "monitor" of our Civil War they carried a single turret. These monitors were very broad for their length and were very slow. At best they could make only seven knots and in heavy weather they could not make more than two or three knots.
To be made proof against torpedoes these boats were formed with "blisters" or hollow rounded swells in the hull at each side which extended out to a distance of twelve to fifteen feet. The blisters were subdivided into compartments, so that if a torpedo struck the ship it would explode against a blister at a considerable distance from the real hull of the ship and the force of the explosion would be expended in the compartments. The blisters were the salvation of the monitors. Often were the boats struck by torpedoes without being sunk.
Unfortunately, this form of protection could not be applied to ordinary vessels, because it would have interfered seriously with navigation. The blisters made the monitors very difficult to steer and hampered the progress of a ship, particularly in a seaway.
With ships such as these the British bombarded Zeebrugge from a distance of twenty to twenty-five miles. Of course, the range had to be plotted out mathematically, as the target was far beyond the horizon of the ship, and the firing had to be directed by spotters in airplanes.