Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/892

 A New Sea Camouflage Foils the Submarine

��A painted curtain is used to conceal the guns and make the vessel appear unarmed

���The U-boat approached to within twenty yards of her intended victim believing her to be unarmed. Then the false curtain was dropped from the after-poop deck, revealing the big stern gun. The submarine was destroyed by the gun's first shot, the whole crew perishing

��AT least one German submarine has AA already been sunk by the latest adap- tation of camouflage to sea warfare in the form of a painted curtain to hide the stern gun of a merchantman. The purpose of this new adaptation of the camouflage idea which is now so commonly employed in connection with armored cars and tanks is to get the submarine to approach the vessel under the impression that she is unarmed and then to put the gun into play so quickly that the U-boat cannot submerge in time to escape being hit.

While this kind of deception has been

��practiced in different forms, such as the dummy funnels and fake topsides of the German raiders Emden and Moewe and in the many grotesque futurist daubs of paint with which some of our own vessels are now blessed, this is the first time the ruse has been employed for the benefit of the sub- marine.

According to the officer of the British vessel which had the encounter referred to, the German submarine was first seen some distance away with her periscope showing. The ship's big gun was hidden behind a collapsible curtain screen which covered the

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