Submarine Warfare, Past, Present, and Future

by Herbert C. Fyfe

The fact is that every new invention has its infancy of weakness and failure, its adolescence of partial adoption, and doubtful success, and its manhood of completion and achievement. Unfortunately the natural conservatism of a profession and perhaps of human nature is apt to deride the early failures, and to prejudice the invention so as to delay its adoption. Every inventor can tell stories of the obstruction he has met with, and often of his ultimate triumph, like Mr. Whitworth and his steam hammer pile-driving competition, when he succeeded in driving piles with his steam hammer in as many minutes as it took hours under the method previously adopted, much to the astonishment of the old hands.

Certainly the submarine has had its period of failure and ridicule, for the attempt to use submarines dates from very ancient days, as Mr. Fyfe’s interesting historical résumé shows, yet it is only now arriving at the stage of development which forces us to reckon with it as a serious factor in naval warfare.

We need not follow Mr. Fyfe in his early history of the submarine, but leaving James I.’s somewhat apocryphal voyage under the waters of the Thames, the inventions of Bushnell, Fulton, Warner, and others, we may come to the Confederate diving boat during the war of secession. Here we have a real diving boat which, though it drowned three crews, did succeed in destroying the United States sloop Housatonic, one of the blockading fleet off Charleston, though she was herself sunk in the effort, drowning her fourth crew. It is interesting to compare this submarine boat with one of our modern Hollands.

The following is the description given by Captain Maury, the well-known hydrographer, then at the head of the Confederate torpedo bureau, of this unfortunate craft, or David as she was called. “It was built of boiler iron, about 35 feet long, and was manned by a crew of nine men, eight of whom worked the propeller by hand, the ninth steered the boat and regulated her movements below the surface of the water. She could be submerged at pleasure to any desired depth, or could be propelled on the surface. In smooth, still water she could be exactly controlled, and her speed was about 4 knots.”

It is further stated that she could remain submerged for half an hour “without inconvenience to her crew,” and in action she was to drag a torpedo under a ship’s bottom, which was intended to explode on striking.

Now contrast this rude and dangerous craft with the “Holland” boats now building for the British Government, and the advance which has been made in the last forty years is evident.

I need not describe the Holland here, but motive power, speed, radius of action, and torpedo are all essentially different; but above all it has been proved that a modern submersible boat like the French Gustave Zédé, or Narval, or our Holland can remain under water truly “without inconvenience to her crew” for periods of nine or ten hours, so that all the problems connected with submarine navigation may be said to have been solved, except that of seeing under water, for when submerged the submarine is in cimmerian darkness, and more helpless than an ordinary vessel in the densest of fogs. Nor is it likely that invention has said its last word in regard to the submarine now that it is acknowledged to be a weapon of practical value.

On this point it is convenient to call to mind the remarkable development of the Whitehead torpedo since it was first adopted in our Navy rather more than thirty years ago. It happens that I have been able to refer to an article on torpedoes which I wrote in Fraser’s Magazine just thirty years ago, in which I described the Whitehead of that day as having a speed of from 7 to 7½ knots, a range of 1,000 yards, and a charge of 67 lbs. of gun-cotton. Now, the speed of our modern Whiteheads is 30 knots, the range 2,000 yards, the charge 200 lbs. of gun-cotton, and, thanks to the gyroscope, it can be discharged with extraordinary accuracy.

Admitting, then, that the submarine is with us, and that it will remain, let us see what is likely to be its function in war. The submarine compares naturally with the torpedo destroyer or torpedo boat; like them it will attack by stealth, and it has neither their speed nor radius of action. But, whereas searchlights and quick-firing guns are effective weapons against the latter, they are of little use against the submarine, and as all these craft are to act by surprise, the advantage is strongly in favour of the submarine, which can approach with little danger of being discovered, with the cupola only showing, until close to her enemy, thus rendering a close blockade by large vessels impossible.

I have said that is naturally the weapon of the weaker power, but that it can be used and that it will be used by the stronger power acting on the offensive I see no reason to doubt. It can certainly be employed against ships at anchor unless they are suitably protected, and it can probably render good service in removing obstructions and clearing passages defended by torpedoes.