A submarine when submerged is handled mechanically. Those in charge cannot see where the vessel is going. The officer in charge steers according to the ranges he has taken when on the surface, and it is absolutely impossible to see obstructions that may be ahead. It is impossible to see another submarine unless the two are floating near the surface and in bright daylight. For this reason it is impossible for one submarine to fight another when submerged.
CHAPTER XXX
THE TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY IN WAR
[SEVENTY PER CENT OF CASUALTIES DUE TO ARTILLERY FIRE] — [INCREASED RANGE] — [MODERN GUNS] — [RAPID FIRING] — [HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED] — [AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS.]
A full century ago, Napoleon the Great, himself an artillery officer, had developed the fighting power of artillery of his day so as to make its fire a dominant factor on the battle-field. In the present war its action is even more important, since we learn from the front that seventy per cent of the casualties are due to artillery fire. It was the gun that took Liège and Antwerp, and it is the gun which held the contending armies pent up within a semicircle of fire. Once massed formations were abandoned, the gun lost its terrors to a great extent, and did not regain its place in military estimation till the introduction of the shrapnel shell.
This is a hollow steel projectile, packed with bullets, and containing a charge of powder in the base. (See [Fig. 1].) It is exploded by a time-fuse, containing a ring of slowly burning composition which can be set so as to fire the powder during the flight of the shell, when it has traveled to within fifty yards of the enemy. The head is blown off, and the bullets are projected forward in a sheaf, spreading outwards as they go. The British eighteen-pounder shell covers a space of ground some three hundred yards long by thirty-five yards wide with its 365 heavy bullets.
Types of Shells
Fig. 1.—Shrapnel shell, packed with bullets that spread. Fig. 2.—A French quick-firer shell, like an enlarged rifle cartridge. Fig. 3.—The “Universal” shell, combining the action of shrapnel and high explosives. Fig. 4.—A fuse-setting machine.