CHAPTER III.
DEFENSIVE TORPEDO WARFARE—continued.
BY electrical submarine mines is meant those whose charges are ignited by the agency of electricity.
Submarine Mines during the Crimean and American Wars.—It was during the Crimean war (1854-6) that this description of defensive torpedoes was for the first time employed on actual service. Several of the principal Russian harbours were protected by this form of submarine mine, but owing to the smallness of their charges, and to the want of electrical knowledge on the part of the Russian officers and men in charge of them, none of the ships of the Allies were sunk, or even rendered hors de combat by this mode of harbour defence, though in several instances ground known to be covered with submarine mines was passed over by both English and French vessels of war.
Subsequently the Confederates, during the American civil war, employed electrical submarine mines in considerable numbers for the defence of their numerous harbours, rivers, &c.; but though in so far as the size of the torpedo charges was concerned, they did not make the same mistake as the Russians, yet, owing to the absence of proper electrical apparatus, and the want of any practical knowledge of the manipulation of electrical sea mines, on the part of the Confederate torpedoists, they were almost entirely unsuccessful in destroying the Federal warships; the Commodore Jones being the sole instance, out of the large number of vessels belonging to the Northerners which were sunk and severely injured by torpedoes, of a war steamer being sunk by means of electrical submarine mines.
In the Franco-German and Russo-Turkish wars which have lately occurred, electrical sea mines were very extensively used in coast defence, but with the exception of the loss of the gunboat Suna to the Turks, during the latter struggle, by this form of defensive torpedo, no other damage to vessels resulted from their use, yet owing to the vast moral power possessed by these submarine weapons, they were enabled to most effectually carry out the work of defence entrusted to their care.
Of late years many important discoveries have been made in the science of electricity, and vast improvements have been effected in electrical apparatus, to which causes may be traced the vastly improved system of electrical submarine mines as adopted by the English, American, and principal European governments at the present day, as compared with those that have hitherto been employed.
The certainty of action when required of electrical submarine mines, which is of course the desideratum of all torpedoists, has, by the improved mode and manner of ascertaining the exact electrical condition of each particular mine, and of the system as a whole, which is at present in vogue, been made almost absolute.
Advantages of Electrical Submarine Mines.—This form of defensive torpedo possesses numerous important advantages, the principal of which are as follows:—
1.—They are always absolutely under control.