Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/833

 Undersea Fighting of the Future

II. —Battling with Telephones

By Edward F. Chandler

The author of this article has conducted extensive researches in the art of submarine radio transmission, applying the results to defensive and offensive means of warfare. The system of submarine navigation described in this article is the result of conclusive tests. — Editor.

��IF the war has taught us anything it has taught us that the submarine must be reckoned with both as an annihilator of battleships and as a de- stroyer of commerce. Of the dozens of instrumentalities invented for killing on a wholesale scale it is the most terrible. And yet how crude is this new weapon! Com- pared with what it can be made it is what the blunderbuss of old is to the modern rifle.

Consider for a mo- ment how a submarine boat is handled. The commander plows along at the surface much as he would on any ship. In the offing he sees a pillar of smoke. Friend or foe? He must investigate. Changing his course, he steers for that cloud on the horizon. In fifteen minutes he has approached near enough to dis- cover that the smoke is pouring from the funnels of a hostile collier. She flies the naval ensign of her country, and she is convoyed by a torpedo-boat destroyer. The submarine commander gives an order. Water surges into tanks in the subma- rine's hold. The craft sinks until only her periscope projects from the water. Heading for the collier the submarine arrives within half a mile of its prey. The commander takes the bearings of the collier by compass and orders com- plete submergence. In another minute the craft is completely under the surface. A sharp command, and a puff^ of com- pressed air starts a torpedo from one

���Edward F. Chandler, whose most important work thus far probably is the development of a subma- rine range-finding system and its application to the detection and destruction of hostile submarines

��of the launching-tubes. In less than a minute it has reached the collier. There is a dull explosion. Fifteen minutes later a cargo of four thousand tons of coal lies at the bottom of the sea, and a hundred brave men have per- ished miserably.

Why the Submarine Is Crude

It seems very simple, very certain, this tor- pedoing of a ship from a safe place under the water. But for all that it is unscientific and haphazard. The sub- marine commandei sees nothing below the sur- face ; that is why he must take aim before he submerges. To strike, the target must be large and ver>' near ; other- wise he would surely miss. Suppose that you were told to shoot blindfolded at a mark one hundred yards awa\' and that you were given two minutes to locate the target before your eyes were covered. You would be exactly in the position of a submarine com- mander about to torpedo a hostile ship. Is it any wonder that torpedoes must be fired at close range? Is it not obvious that the submarine could be made still more terrible if the submarine commander could locate his quarry accurately in the inky blackness in which he is immersed?

To use lights under water is hopeless. Even millions of candlepower would not reveal the presence of a ship a mile off to a submerged underwater craft. But suppose that the commander of a sub-

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