A Deadly Man-Steered Torpedo 



Would you pilot five hundred pounds of gun-cotton 

 toward a hostile battleship and brave gun-fire ? 



VVIrii the torpedu has bun icK.r.cd the weight of the conning tower section causes it to 

 keel over, thus forming a kuid of canoe in which the pilot paddles back to his vessel 



THE modern Whitehead automobile 

 torpedo is by far the most feared 

 weapon of modern naval warfare. 

 It is, in effect, a little automatic sub- 

 marine lioat, with engines and rudders 

 controlled by a mechanical brain. The 

 soul of the torpedo is the gyroscopi — a 

 flywheel spinning at se\eral thousand 

 re\'(jlutions per minute. Unfortunately, 

 this flywheel loses speed from the 

 moment of launching. Modern naval 

 bailies are fought at ranges of five to 

 ten miles. The Whitehead torpedo is 

 inaccurate at such distances, hitleed, 

 in the whole history of naval warfare 

 (he tor[)t'do has reached its target only 

 at short ranges. 



Among the plans which have been 

 suggested for increasing the effectiveness 

 of the tfjrpedo, jK-rhaps the most daring 



is that of providing it with a real brain 

 and a real controlling hand in the shape 

 of a man. Commander Davis of the 

 United States Na%^-, designed a little 

 vessel, some years ago, which was to 

 contain a huge explosive charge and 

 whi-h was to be guided by a super-bold 

 mariner against a battleship amid a 

 storm of bullets. That men will \i)lun- 

 teer for such hazardous work recent wars 

 have abundantly tlemonstrated. We 

 have only to remember how the Merri- 

 mac was sunk in the mouth of Santiago 

 harbor, during the Spanish-American 

 war, in the effort to imprison the 

 Spanish ships belie\-ed to lie within. 

 I)o/ens of men volunteered to block the 

 channel uiuier the fire of Sjianish- guns. 

 Hence, when Jacob S. Walch, of Walla 

 Walla, Washington, suggests a torindo 



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