Submarine Warfare, Past, Present, and Future

by Herbert C. Fyfe

When running awash, the submarine presents a very small target; the hull is 3 to 5 feet below the surface, which would deflect all projectiles from machine guns, and the armoured conning tower, which is alone visible, would be a difficult object to hit.

After running awash for some distance the submarine will submerge herself, but in spite of periscope and optical tube she will most probably have to come to the surface once or twice to take a short sharp look round before firing her torpedo. This is the moment when the attack must be made upon the diving vessel, and the idea is to destroy her either by firing a shell from a gun, or an outrigger torpedo from a swiftly moving vessel. In so much as it is difficult to make a shell burst with certainty at the right instant, the second method is the one that seems most to commend itself to the authorities.

The Lords of the Admiralty in the course of their visit to Portsmouth in June, 1901, witnessed the working of a method of destroying submarines that had been devised by the Vernon’s staff. The trials took place at a considerable distance from shore, and were confidential, and therefore no official account of what took place has appeared. Still from various sources it is possible to piece together a “story,” the moral of which (according to some writers) seems to be that a satisfactory method of destroying the enemy’s submarine boats has been found, and that henceforth the British fleet has nothing to fear from the attacks of these “marine devils.”

In the present state of the science, they say, a submarine attacking a ship is bound to come to the surface to take bearings or else to betray her presence by optic tube or periscope. With the new invention that has been evolved on the Vernon, the sighting of a submarine entails her almost certain destruction. Sighting is said to be now practically certain, though it is not to the public benefit that the means which will be employed should be stated, as the principle has other and varied uses.

The experiments were made with H.M. torpedo-boat destroyer Starfish. On the starboard side certain plates had been strengthened, and above there was a crutch upon which worked a spar or outrigger torpedo. A spar-torpedo is really a movable observation mine. In the present instance it consisted of a stout pole some 42 feet in length, at the end of which was an explosive charge of 32 lbs. of wet gun-cotton, explodable by an electric current by the crew in the boat. Normally this boom stows inboard and forward, but on going into action it is slung out well forward and immersed in the water in the proper moment. This immersion carries the boom end downward and aft, and it is exploded directly the submarine is past. The idea is that the speed of the destroyer will carry her past the centre of the explosion before the full effects reach her. Her strengthened plates add to her safety, and it is thought that in any case destroyers are too light and “cork-light” to be seriously affected. As for the submarine below the waves, the men of the Vernon make out a pitiable case for her. She will experience the full force of the terrific concussion. Within from 50 feet to 100 feet or more of the centre of explosion, according to the charge employed, the sides of the submarine should be compressed sufficiently to cause fatal leaks, while even at a greater distance stability should be destroyed.

At the Portsmouth experiment the “dummy” submarine consisted of a barrel sunk some 10 feet below the surface of the water to represent a submerged boat. This was attacked and destroyed by the torpedo-boat destroyer Starfish in the following way. When within striking distance of the barrel, the boom was dropped and the gun-cotton exploded by electrical contact. The officers who carried out the experiment are reported to have said that any submarine within an area of 60 feet of the outrigger boom when the explosion occurred must infallibly have been annihilated by the bursting of the charge, and that if a submarine came up to within a 1,000 yards of a boom-fitted destroyer, it would certainly be done for.

EXIT SUBMARINE.

It was stated that the single experiment carried out at Portsmouth was not enough to indicate exactly the best position for the boom, and the first boats to be fitted will probably vary somewhat between having it in the quarter or right aft. The additional weight of the boom is slight; in the case of the Starfish, the destroyer experimentally fitted, the weight had been more than compensated for by fitting her with aluminium, instead of the usual torpedo tubes.

To say that if a submarine rises anywhere near a destroyer armed with a spar, her destruction is absolutely certain, is, we think, going too far. To blow up a stationary barrel is not a very difficult task, but it must not be forgotten that if the destroyer sights the submarine, the submarine will also sight the destroyer and will endeavour to launch a torpedo at the destroyer before the latter can explode its weapon. Besides this the submarine having sighted the destroyer can dive and make off in a direction which the latter cannot foretell, and there would seem to be a good chance of her escaping.