CHAPTER VIII

THE ANTIDOTE TO SUBMARINES

Mr. John P. Holland, in an article which he contributed to the _North American Review_ for December, 1900, wrote as follows:—

“When the first submarine torpedo-boat goes into action she will bring us face to face with the most puzzling problem ever met in warfare. She will present the unique spectacle, when used in attack, of a weapon against which there is no defence. You can pit sword against sword, rifle against rifle, cannon against cannon, ironclad against ironclad; you can send torpedo-boat destroyers against torpedo-boats, and destroyers against destroyers, but you can send nothing against the submarine boat, not even itself. You cannot fight submarines with submarines. The fanciful descriptions of the submarine battle of the future have one fatal defect. You cannot see under water. Hence you cannot fight under water. Hence you cannot defend yourself against an attack under water except by running away. If you cannot run away you are doomed. Wharves, shipping at anchor, the buildings in seaport towns, cannot run away, therefore the sending of a submarine against them means their inevitable destruction. No; as nearly as the human mind can discern now, the submarine is indeed a ‘sea-devil’ against which no means that we possess at present can prevail. It is no use for the defence to mine, for the submarine would countermine, and torpedo nets would be of no use, for it would blow a hole through them, and any attempt to discover the position of the boat when below the surface is about as promising a pursuit as dredging with a butterfly-net for a half-dollar that had been thrown into New York Bay.”

In the present state of the science of submarine warfare it is certainly impossible to fight submarines with submarines, and it is recognised that the best chance of destroying an under-water vessel is when it comes to the surface to take a momentary glance at the position of its victim before launching its torpedo.

When a means of distinguishing objects beneath the waves has been evolved then it will be time enough to discuss the possibility of constructing a submarine boat destroyer which shall itself go beneath the surface and seek out the submarine to deal it its deathblow.

Every advance in military and naval science that tends to strengthen the attack has been met by some invention or device calculated to enable the defence to withstand it.

In the early days men went into battle wearing heavy armour, but nowadays, although bullet-proof cuirasses and bullet-proof shields have been suggested, the foot soldier carries no protection on his person, but relies instead upon entrenchments and fortifications.

It may be remembered that when the hostilities in South Africa commenced, certain experts declared that the new lyddite shells would annihilate the Boers in a very short space of time. The capabilities of the enemy for defending himself had been underestimated by these gentlemen, and the terrible slaughter which was predicted at Paardeberg did not occur owing to the wonderful entrenchments beneath which the Boers and their families sheltered.

Any system of entrenchment is of course impossible upon the high seas, and therefore men-of-war have to carry armour plate to protect their sides from the effects of shell and shot.

But no sooner had metallic armour been applied to the sides of war vessels than the manufacturers set to work to increase the size and destructive capacity of the shot, and for years past a duel has been in progress between the projectile and the plate; each improvement in the one has led to an improvement in the other, and all the resources of science have been requisitioned to render the projectile more deadly and the plate more impervious to its attack and lighter than before.

The advent of the torpedo as an effective weapon of attack brought about the “torpedo-boat,” which was met first by the “torpedo-catcher,” and then by the “torpedo-boat destroyer;” while as protection against the torpedo itself, nets and crinolines have been devised for the purpose of foiling the objects of the attack. A net-cutter on the bows of the torpedo has, however, made its appearance, and it is now considered unlikely that nets will be of much protection to a ship, even when stationary.

“The practice of “Submarine Mining” has led to “Counter-mining,” and the adoption of the searchlight on shipboard has caused the invention of a device whereby the rays of light are reflected away from the attacking vessel, thus enabling it to advance unobserved.”

The destructive effects of explosive shells have been met by the shipbuilders by the subdivision of the air space of a warship into watertight compartments, and the desire of the enemy’s gunners to inflict injury upon the boilers, the engines, or the propellers, has led numerous inventors to devise a type of warlike craft that shall be almost entirely destitute of armour, but constructed on such a principle-both as to hull and machinery—that she can be raked fore and aft and shot through in all directions without becoming either water-logged or deprived of her motive power.[6]

Footnote 6:

See “Twentieth Century Inventions,” by G. Sutherland, 1901.

So far as we are aware the only nation that has seriously taken up the question of an antidote to submarines is Great Britain. At present the submarine boat, owing to its slow speed and narrow radius of action, is more suited for defence than attack, though as it is year by year improving it may soon become a valuable attacking weapon. France has preferred to build torpedo-boats and Great Britain destroyers, and on January 15, 1901, France had 235 torpedo-boats and 9 destroyers, and Great Britain had 95 torpedo-boats and 89 destroyers, and in the same way while France is rapidly constructing a flotilla of submarines, Great Britain, although building a few submarines, is also devoting attention to the best method of meeting under-water attack.

The means of attack against submarines at present are:—

1. By quick-firing guns.

2. By firing shells full of high explosive, which bursting in the water near the boat, will beat it in.

3. By firing explosives at the end of a spar.

When running awash, the submarine presents a very small target; the hull is 3 to 5 feet below the surface, which would deflect all projectiles from machine guns, and the armoured conning tower, which is alone visible, would be a difficult object to hit.

After running awash for some distance the submarine will submerge herself, but in spite of periscope and optical tube she will most probably have to come to the surface once or twice to take a short sharp look round before firing her torpedo. This is the moment when the attack must be made upon the diving vessel, and the idea is to destroy her either by firing a shell from a gun, or an outrigger torpedo from a swiftly moving vessel. In so much as it is difficult to make a shell burst with certainty at the right instant, the second method is the one that seems most to commend itself to the authorities.

The Lords of the Admiralty in the course of their visit to Portsmouth in June, 1901, witnessed the working of a method of destroying submarines that had been devised by the _Vernon’s_ staff. The trials took place at a considerable distance from shore, and were confidential, and therefore no official account of what took place has appeared. Still from various sources it is possible to piece together a “story,” the moral of which (according to some writers) seems to be that a satisfactory method of destroying the enemy’s submarine boats has been found, and that henceforth the British fleet has nothing to fear from the attacks of these “marine devils.”

In the present state of the science, they say, a submarine attacking a ship is bound to come to the surface to take bearings or else to betray her presence by optic tube or periscope. With the new invention that has been evolved on the _Vernon_, the sighting of a submarine entails her almost certain destruction. Sighting is said to be now practically certain, though it is not to the public benefit that the means which will be employed should be stated, as the principle has other and varied uses.

The experiments were made with H.M. torpedo-boat destroyer _Starfish_. On the starboard side certain plates had been strengthened, and above there was a crutch upon which worked a spar or outrigger torpedo. A spar-torpedo is really a movable observation mine. In the present instance it consisted of a stout pole some 42 feet in length, at the end of which was an explosive charge of 32 lbs. of wet gun-cotton, explodable by an electric current by the crew in the boat. Normally this boom stows inboard and forward, but on going into action it is slung out well forward and immersed in the water in the proper moment. This immersion carries the boom end downward and aft, and it is exploded directly the submarine is past. The idea is that the speed of the destroyer will carry her past the centre of the explosion before the full effects reach her. Her strengthened plates add to her safety, and it is thought that in any case destroyers are too light and “cork-light” to be seriously affected. As for the submarine below the waves, the men of the _Vernon_ make out a pitiable case for her. She will experience the full force of the terrific concussion. Within from 50 feet to 100 feet or more of the centre of explosion, according to the charge employed, the sides of the submarine _should_ be compressed sufficiently to cause fatal leaks, while even at a greater distance stability _should_ be destroyed.

At the Portsmouth experiment the “dummy” submarine consisted of a barrel sunk some 10 feet below the surface of the water to represent a submerged boat. This was attacked and destroyed by the torpedo-boat destroyer _Starfish_ in the following way. When within striking distance of the barrel, the boom was dropped and the gun-cotton exploded by electrical contact. The officers who carried out the experiment are reported to have said that any submarine within an area of 60 feet of the outrigger boom when the explosion occurred must infallibly have been annihilated by the bursting of the charge, and that if a submarine came up to within a 1,000 yards of a boom-fitted destroyer, it would certainly be done for.

It was stated that the single experiment carried out at Portsmouth was not enough to indicate exactly the best position for the boom, and the first boats to be fitted will probably vary somewhat between having it in the quarter or right aft. The additional weight of the boom is slight; in the case of the _Starfish_, the destroyer experimentally fitted, the weight had been more than compensated for by fitting her with aluminium, instead of the usual torpedo tubes.

To say that if a submarine rises anywhere near a destroyer armed with a spar, her destruction is absolutely certain, is, we think, going too far. To blow up a stationary barrel is not a very difficult task, but it must not be forgotten that if the destroyer sights the submarine, the submarine will also sight the destroyer and will endeavour to launch a torpedo at the destroyer before the latter can explode its weapon. Besides this the submarine having sighted the destroyer can dive and make off in a direction which the latter cannot foretell, and there would seem to be a good chance of her escaping.

Submarines will probably act in conjunction with torpedo-boats and destroyers, and the object of these vessels will be to ward off the attacks of hostile torpedo-boats and destroyers.

It has been said that in action the moral effect of the submarine would probably outweigh its practical effect, and it is now urged that the moral influence of this new antidote to submarines will be very great.

“The risks of ordinary submarine work,” says a writer, are not so great as many people imagine; and they can in a great measure be overcome by practice. But the deadly spar will quite alter this. The men in the submarine cannot acquire familiarity with this in peace; not till war will it operate. Then, whenever they are rising, they will know that a destroyer _may_ be within reach, and that, if so, absolute annihilation is _certain_, and annihilation in a particularly horrible form.

“Excitement may sustain them; they may figure it out that their chances of life and death are on a par with those of the soldier in a frontal attack, but it is at least doubtful. It is difficult to make the analogy; and, moreover, there is the chill of the water to consider. Nerves and courage both suffer from cold, and the interior of a submarine has always the chill of a tomb. Inside it men sit, and may not move without endangering the craft’s stability. It will need a high courage thus to sit absolutely without means of knowing whether a painful annihilation is coming in a few minutes; it will certainly render it difficult to take careful observations—and careful observations are a vital necessity. And the Frenchman, of all races of men, seems least fitted to be calm under such circumstances. It must further be remembered that if a destroyer is within a thousand yards she will be easily able to steam up and destroy the boat, for a thousand yards a minute is now destroyer speed. The boat, on the other hand, cannot, save under favourable circumstances, see a distance of a thousand yards, certainly not in a hasty rise and plunge again. She might just distinguish a big ship, but that is about all. On the verge of a frightful death it will take a very cool man even to see that.”[7]

Footnote 7:

“Our preparations for attacking submarines with spar torpedoes fitted to torpedo-boats or destroyers are exciting the ridicule of those foreign nations which from experience know what submarines are like. We claim that our specially rigged spar-torpedo can reach a submarine at a depth of 10 feet below the surface, but why a submarine should run at 10 instead of 30 or 40 feet does not appear. The truth seems to be that if the submarine can be reached at all by the spar-torpedo she could, at least in the vast majority of cases, be reached much more expeditiously and certainly by means of the gun” (W. LAIRD CLOWES, at Institution of Naval Architects, 1902).

The French appear to have considered the possibility of some “antidote,” for the submersible _Narval_ has a double hull, and in the space between the two, sea water is allowed to circulate freely. Whether this device will enable the boat to resist the force of an explosion is a question which can only be satisfactorily decided in actual warfare. Meanwhile the bomb-proof hull will certainly receive attention.

So far the periscope and the optical tube have not done away with the necessity for the submarine to come to the surface to correct her course and take her bearings, but there are those who claim that even if the necessity were removed, the whereabouts of the submarine would be revealed by tell-tale foam and bubbles.

Many inventors have lately been devoting their attention to the steering of torpedoes without the need of connecting wires, and some consider that wireless torpedoes would be an efficient antidote to submarine boats. That such weapons can be produced there is little doubt, but that they will be sufficient to drive submarines from the seas, appears extremely doubtful—at any rate just at present.

The possibility of a battleship or a cruiser being able to inform herself of the advance of a submarine vessel must be considered. Water is an excellent conductor of sound, and a microphone or some similar apparatus could be arranged to give notice of the approach of an invisible ship, even when it was some way away. The ironclad could then surround herself with her torpedo nets, or steam away leaving the submarine powerless to overtake her.

The French are very naturally watching with intense interest the attitude of the British navy towards submarine boats, and the experiments that have lately been carried out by the officers of H. M. S. _Vernon_ with a view to discovering the most effective method of destroying under-water craft, have been carefully followed by our neighbours over the channel.

According to a recent article in _Le Yacht_ we are endeavouring to get submarines prohibited as unfair weapons, but being doubtful of such a “happy result,” have devised a torpedo that is fired the instant one is sighted. We have also perfected a “Röntgen ray device” whereby the British sailor will be enabled to scan the ocean depths and sight the submarine even if it lurk at a depth of 20 feet below the surface. _Le Yacht_, however, thinks this device would cut both ways, and would enable the submarine to find its prey without coming to the surface at all. No official information regarding the Röntgen ray device has up till now been vouchsafed, and it may after all exist nowhere else than in the heated imagination of French writers who hate perfidious Albion more than ever since she has considered the question of accomplishing the destruction of France’s submarine flotilla.

M. Lockroy, in a recent article in the _Matin_, suggested that it would only be possible to fight against submarines when the steering of balloons had been discovered, the black form of the vessel being very easily distinguished in the water from a certain height.