[THE USE OF TORPEDOES IN WAR.]
HOW THEY ARE MADE, AND WHAT THEY DO.
BY FRANKLIN MATTHEWS.
he most dreaded implement of war in these days is the torpedo. One of these darting fishes of death, costing a little more than $3000, can almost instantly send the most powerful battle-ship, costing as much as $5,000,000, to the bottom of the sea. This shark of war has a destructive charge of guncotton in its nose. When it strikes the war-ship it destroys itself and the ship also. No ship has ever been built stout enough to withstand an attack by one of these artificial monsters of the sea. They are made to leap from the side of a vessel into the water, and after they are once released they go with the speed of an express train to the place where they are aimed to go. They propel themselves through the water, and they keep exactly at a depth which is fixed before they are fired. Nowadays they dive from the ship into the water. It is probable that soon they will be sent into the water below the surface and out of sight of the enemy. Then no captain of a ship in battle will know when to expect an attack by a torpedo, and perhaps when he fancies that he has beaten his enemy, and has the other ship at his mercy, a torpedo may be darting at him, unseen and unerring in its track, that will send him and his ship to the bottom before any one on board can save himself.
A CONTROLLABLE TORPEDO IN ACTION.
Torpedoes are of two general kinds. One is the automobile type and the other is the controllable type. The first goes its own way, that is, controls itself. The second may be steered or controlled from the place of its discharge. This country and most other countries use the automobile torpedoes, and we have two kinds of them. One is the Whitehead torpedo, and the other is the Howell. The Whitehead is practically a submarine boat, intended to destroy itself and anything else it hits after a limited run under the water. It has its own engine for propulsion, and uses compressed air as the motive power. The Howell is also intended to cause as much destruction as the Whitehead, and is also a submarine vessel. It is propelled by the rotation of a centrifugal wheel, which has been turned by machinery up to about 10,000 revolutions. As this wheel unwinds itself, so to speak, it sets the machinery of the torpedo in motion, and it goes on its errand of destruction. The Whitehead is a foreign invention, and the Howell is the invention of one of our own naval officers. This government has favored the Whitehead for the equipment of most of the ships of the navy, and for the purposes of this article we may take that as a type.
These torpedoes require as much delicacy in their manufacture as a watch. They are boats, and must be fashioned in their outlines so as to glide through the water without the slightest deviation. Any inequality of shape would send a torpedo flying off in some other direction than that in which it was intended it should go. Inside, the complex machinery must act as accurately as the machinery of a watch, or the torpedo will fail of its purpose. It would be tiresome to go into the full details of the machinery of a torpedo, and, besides, it is practically a government secret; but we may tell about the general features of these engines of war.