Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/202

 Supplying Submarines by Trailer

Carrying fuel and supplies in a tender, a submarine is made lighter and more mobile

��Armored electric cable

Periscope Oil tank

��.Storage compart- ment Winch

��AUTOMOBILES have trailers, motor r\ trucks have trailers — why not sub- marines? Apparently acting on such an idea, Philippo L. E. del Fungo- Giera, of New York city, has patented a tender or trailer which submarines may frisk over the high seas as unconcernedly as a farmer hauls his milk cans in a two- wheeled vehicle behind his Ford.

The tender, which is about thirty feet long, can be submerged a convenient distance from the field of opera- tion and thus concealed from the enemy. In it, fuel supplies, com- pressed Oxygen, oil and other stores are carried. When the

submarine runs out of such necessaries it can return to the tender and renew its store. The frequent long trips to and from a naval base are largely elimi- nated.

Of interest about an invention of this kind is the fact that while the Allies might use it, it is improbable that the Germans could. The North Sea is patrolled by several thousand subma- rine-chasers of various types for which reason it seems unlikely that the Germans could use the idea.

Upon approaching the scene of action the submarine vessel would attempt to reach shallow water if possible. There she would submerge and anchor the tender. For this purpose an armored cable connects the electrical machinery within the tender with the controlling mechanism inside a marking buoy above. The crew unbolt the cover of the buoy, insert an electric plug which is connected with the submarine's dynamos, and turn on the current. Four anchor cables are released instantly. Electric motors drive the four winches which partially wind up their respective cables again. The tender

��^Marking buoy

��Water-tight cable

Inlet

Compartment manhole

��Storage compartment

Electric motor

��Storage compart ment

��jg waU

���is thus made to sink to the desired depth, while the buoy cables automatically pay out a corresponding amount. After con- cealing the marking buoy with seaweed, observations are taken to determine its position, and the submarine proceeds upon its way.

Allied submarines which operate in the Baltic sea, perhaps a thousand miles from their naval bases, ordinarily have to spend a week's time in travel- ing to the scene of action and returning. Fuel and provisions are used up so rapidly that the submarines have little more than a week and a half in which to raid Germany's ships. However, advocates of the new invention be- lieve tenders are capa- ble of improving this situation. While pull- ing a trailer may slow up a submarine's prog- ress to and from bases somewhat, this is made up for by the longer time the store of sup- plies brought along permits the craft to stay at sea. It would clearly be out of the question to haul supply tanks through the North Sea, around the north of Scot- land, and to plant them in the Atlantic Ocean itself.

Obtaining supplies from the tender is accomplished by first manipulating the anchor cables in such a way that the craft may rise to the surface. "Then one of the crew opens and enters a manhole, after- ward taking out through this opening any package stores the submarine may desire. The stored oxygen, which is used for breathing when the submarine travels imder water, is discharged into the sub- marine by means of suitable hot^e con- nections. The oils are likewise pumped across through hose. A man may be loft permanently on the tender to lower it still farther if in danger.

��I Water-tight cable inlets |

Compressed ox- ygen tank

��Auxiliary anchor

��Bell suction anchors Cross-section of the tender, showing the storage compart- ments and apparatus used

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