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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 728 



marine torpedo-boat of the type already 

 described, whereby these evolutions could 

 be performed with nearly the facility with 

 which a duck can dive. 



Another invention is a torpedo-boat war- 

 head, carried by or forming a part of the 

 bow of the torpedo-boat itself instead of 

 forming a part of an automobile torpedo 

 to be launched by the torpedo-boat. 



I have shown how a torpedo-boat may 

 be made so that it may be safely run 

 through the zone of fire of a battleship to 

 launch its torpedoes at close range. I am, 

 however, of the opinion that a far better 

 way, and one which will be adopted in the 

 near future, will be to employ a torpedo- 

 boat which shall itself constitute an enor- 

 mous torpedo. It will be a species of ram ; 

 but instead of depending upon the steel 

 prow for punching a hole in a warship, it 

 will be armed with a ton of high explosive. 

 How about the crew? No, it will not be 

 necessary to sacrifice the crew. The boat 

 will be made, say three hundred feet in 

 length over all, and a hundred feet of the 

 prow portion of the boat will be wholly dis- 

 pensable and may be blown away without 

 injury to the boat proper, the boat proper 

 being but two hundred feet long. 



The warhead of the torpedo-boat will 

 strike the battleship below its armor belt 

 and the blast of the explosion will be in- 

 ward and upward through the warship, 

 while the reacting blast of the explosive 

 charge will not be very severe upon the 

 occupants of the torpedo-boat. They will 

 be hurled back by an enormous wave of 

 water, but it will not be a quick, sharp 

 destructive blow, dangerous to the occu- 

 pants of the boat or to the boat itself. 



After torpedoing a warship, the torpedo- 

 boat, with its dispensable bow blown off, 

 will still be in perfect trim to retreat and 

 escape. The crew of the battleship at this 

 juncture will be busy with their prayers. 



Of course, this torpedo-boat will not sup- 

 plant the automobile torpedo, for that will 

 be employed in other evolutions; but for 

 the direct run in upon a warship, this form 

 of torpedo-boat with a ton of high explosive 

 in the warhead will be the main arm of 

 naval service, for nothing under heaven 

 could prevent one of these torpedo-boats 

 from selecting any battleship in any fleet 

 and sinking it without a chance in a hun- 

 dred of being prevented. 



In June, 1897, I delivered a lecture be- 

 fore the Royal United Service Institution 

 of Great Britain, wherein I recommended 

 a gun for throwing aerial torpedoes, that 

 is to say, high explosive projectiles of large 

 dimensions, which would be capable of 

 penetrating the deck of any war vessel or 

 of blowing up any war vessel when striking 

 in the water beside it. 



I proposed a gun of twenty-four-inch 

 caliber, which need not necessarily be any 

 heavier than the regular twelve-inch service 

 rifle. I showed that this gun would be 

 capable of throwing a projectile weighing 

 a ton and a half and carrying half a ton 

 of high explosive to a distance up to nine 

 ' miles, according to the elevation. Our war 

 department has now decided to build some 

 g-uns of greatly increased caliber for the 

 purpose of throwing heavier projectiles 

 carrying much larger bursting charges of 

 high explosive. 



Although the initial velocity of these 

 projectiles will not be as great as those now 

 thrown from our high-power twelve-inch 

 guns, still there will be a far less relative 

 energy lost during flight, and they will 

 have proportionately far greater residual 

 energy, so that the range will still not only 

 be maintained but actually increased, al- 

 though the trajectory will not be quite as 

 flat as at present. 



There is also another enormous advan- 

 tage of this type of gun, and it is that the 



