In a leading article in the issue of December 23, 1887, the Engineer said: “We may—we hope we shall—have quite a little fleet of Nordenfelts when Christmas comes round again. When once Columbus had shown the way to America, the water was freely traversed.”
The correspondent of the Army and Navy Gazette said that the Nordenfelt had a great and assured future before it, that with a gun or two on her turtle back, and working as an above-water torpedo boat, she certainly possessed many advantages over the ordinary first-class torpedo boat, and that her powers of submersing should make her the more valuable craft, the cost being the same. “It is not likely or advisable that a number of such boats should be at once built, but the country which can give £100,000 for a Brennan torpedo would do well to further, in every possible manner, trials and experiments with a boat so simple, yet possessing such possibilities in the future.”
It will be very naturally wondered why, in spite of these favourable opinions, the Nordenfelt was so soon forgotten. The answer may be found in some recent issues of the Engineer. This journal published, during the years 1886–1888, all the information that was suffered to leak out concerning the experiments with the Nordenfelt boats. In 1901, by the courtesy of Mr. P. W. D’Alton (now Chief Engineer to the Central London Railway), who was associated with Mr. Garrett and Mr. Nordenfelt, it was enabled to state much more than had hitherto been made public.
Taking first the Turkish boat, it was easily proved that as a boat working near the surface, but not wholly submerged, she was fast, manageable, and a very dangerous foe because of the difficulty of finding her, and the very small mark which she offered.
As a submarine boat, she was entirely a failure.
“She had the fault of all submarine boats, viz., a total lack of longitudinal stability. All submarines are practically devoid of weight when under water. The Nordenfelt, for example, weighed by a couple of hundredweights less than nothing when submerged, and had to be kept down by screw-propellers provided for the purpose. The Turkish boat was submerged by admitting water to tanks aided by horizontal propellers, and raised by blowing the ballast out again and reversing the propellers. Nothing could be imagined more unstable than this Turkish boat. The moment she left the horizontal position the water in her boiler and the tanks surged forward and backwards and increased the angle of inclination. She was perpetually working up and down like a scale beam, and no human vigilance could keep her on an even keel for half a minute at a time. Once, and we believe only once, she fired a torpedo with the result that she as nearly as possible stood up vertically on her tail and proceeded to plunge to the bottom stern first. On another occasion all hands were nearly lost. Mr. Garrett was in the little conning tower. The boat was being slowly submerged—an operation of the utmost delicacy—before a committee of Ottoman officers, when a boat came alongside without warning. Her wash sent a considerable quantity of water down the conning tower, the lid of which was not closed, and the submarine boat instantly began to sink like a stone. Fortunately Mr. Garrett got the lid closed just in time, and Mr. Lawrie, the engineer, without waiting for orders, blew some water ballast out. It was an exceedingly narrow escape. In spite of these difficulties, the Ottoman officers were so impressed that the Turkish Government bought the boat. It goes without saying that it was only with the greatest difficulty the price was extracted from the Sultan’s treasury. But no use whatever has been made of her, and she lies rotting away in Constantinople, unless, indeed, she has found her way piecemeal to the marine-store dealers. A paramount difficulty in the way of utilising her was that no engineers could be got to serve in her. If men were appointed they promptly deserted. Indeed, it may be taken as certain that not one man in five hundred is fit to take charge of any submarine boat.”
The Engineer is not less severe on Nordenfelt IV.
“To all intents and purposes the Nordenfelt was a total failure as a submarine boat. She began badly. As soon as she was launched from the stocks at Barrow it was seen that a mistake had been made in calculating weight, as she was down by the stern, drawing 9 feet aft and about 4 feet 6 inches forward. This would have been partially rectified by her torpedoes, but she never had one on board. Extra ballast had to be put in forward, and it was always held, rightly or wrongly, that this made it all the more difficult to keep her on an even keel, when submerged. The extra weight carried militated greatly against her speed as a surface boat. Another mistake was that the water ballast tanks were too large, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that they were not sufficiently subdivided. When she was in just the proper condition to be manœuvred by her horizontal propellers the ballast tanks were only about three-quarters full, and the water being left free surges backwards and forwards in them. It must not be forgotten, however, that ample tank capacity was necessary because the quantity of ballast needed, depended on the number of tons of coal and stores on board. Subdivision would, however, have prevented the surging of the ballast water. If, for example, the boat was moving forward or on an even keel at, say, two knots, if a greaser walked forward a couple of feet in his engine room her head would go down a little. Then the water surged forward in the tanks, and she would proceed to plunge, unless checked, and in shallow water would touch the bottom, as she did on the Mother Bank in the Solent, or if in deep water she would run down until the pressure of water collapsed her hull. No one who has not been down in a submarine can realise their extraordinary crankness. The Nordenfelt was always rising or falling, and required the greatest care in handling.”