Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/97

 Protecting a Battleship Against Torpedoes

��A new application of the net which may popularize its use

���© Paul Thompson

Above: Setting a tor- pedo net around a British dreadnought. The net is held out about thirty feet

THE protection of a battle- ship against its pigmy but deadly assailant, the tor- pedo, is a problem which inventors have yet to solve. In the British Navy some reliance has been placed on nets held out as a sort of shield around the ship, but the results have been unsatisfactory. The booms which held the nets out have been large and unwieldly and have been fixed in such a way that the shock of a discharge was certain to unship them. Further- Tiore, it was impossible to -e them once the ship was under way. As may be expected the handling and fixing of a net, even during fine weather, is no easy task.

Great Britain is the only

power which has put the

<^orpedo net to an exhaus-

ive test. Our Navy has

iicver required them.

The accompanying

��Testing a new torpedo "catcher" at the Naval Topedo Station at Newport

��otos © Int. Film Serv.

The torpedo at the instant of contact with the "catcher." The net is connected with a shock absorber

��photographs show a new torpedo "catcher" (the in- ventor's word for net) which its spon-

���NET FMTENtD TO 5H1ELD

��Details of the elaborate torpedo net operated by hydraulic cylinders. No booms are used

��sor thinks is strong enough to protect a ship from torpedo attack. It consists of half-inch wire cables in net form on an L-shaped sliding steel frame. It is hung about twenty-five feet from the ship's side.

The net defense of a ship is always divided into three different parts, namely, the main defense, bow de- fense, and stern defense. The main defense covers the middle and most vital parts of the vessel — that is to say, the engines and magazines, and the bow and stern defenses cover the other parts of the ship. These latter, however, are used only when the ship is at anchor.

When in motion the water would force the net up to- ward the surface, leaving the hull of the ship exposed.

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