724 THE SUBMARINE BOAT. 



surface to recorrcct the course steered, as well as t(j ascertain whether 

 the object to be attacked has not chanj^ed her position. In boats of 

 the Holland tj'pe, the plan of furnishing a large number of deviation 

 tables, to cover all possible conditions within the craft, will certainl}- 

 lead to poor results in the excitement of action, even if the enemy is 

 unwise enoug^i to maintain a fixed station. 



It will not be the particular province of the battle ship to seek 

 destruction. On the contrar3^ she will take means to avoid such a 

 catastrophe. The submarine will then l)e compelled to seek her. It 

 will seldom be the case that the blockading battle ship is not kept under 

 way, and as her speed will l)e greater than the submerged boat, the 

 opportunity will be certainly remote when the submarine can discharge 

 her torpedo. 



TIME REQUIRED TO PREPARE THE HOLLAND BOAT FOR DIVING. 



One would presume from a cursory reading of the literature upon 

 submarines that boats of the diving type onh" require a few seconds 

 to go from the surface to the submerged condition. It wnll require 

 minutes rather than seconds to perform the evolution, and during this 

 period the submarine boat will be exposed to the fire of the magazine 

 and quick-firing guns of the blockading squadron. When the sub- 

 marine boat is running on the surface and using her gasoline engines, 

 it will require some minutes to unship ventilators, fill the compensat- 

 ing tanks, and exhaust the gasoline fumes from the hull compartment. 

 In fact, she will have to run in the awash condition for some time to 

 fully prepare her for submergence. 



The French Admiralty ought to have some pretty positive informa- 

 tion upon this question. In fact, one of the most serious objections 

 urged to the submergible type of submarines has been the length of 

 time necessary to eti'ect submergence. In the boats of the Xarval 

 class it took half an hour to perform the operation. Onl}^ two years 

 ago the JTanxd was considered the most efficient of all the French 

 submarines. In the Slrene class the time was reduced to a little over 

 ten minutes. The Slrene was authorized June 20, 1899. She has 

 been in commission about eight months. It is hoped that the time of 

 submergence will be reduced to five minutes in the boats that have 

 just been laid down in France. The knowledge of the experts of the 

 French Admiralty nuist be exceedingly limited if her experts are con- 

 tent to design a boat that will require five minutes for submergence, 

 while the Holland only requires five seconds {'.) to perform the same 

 evolution. 



As a matter of fact, the French experts measure the time from run- 

 ning on the surface to the time of disappearance. Some of our 

 experts are content to measure the period from the time when all prepa- 

 rations haNC been finished to the time when she goes under the water. 



It may only require a second to discharge a submarine mine. It 



