-95 
!88o.] torpedo War. 
to employ men capable of handling a boat well, and possessed 
of dash and pluck, to ensure an attack by such means being 
generally successful. 
(g.) “ Whitehead torpedoes will be employed by preference 
when the night is comparatively clear, the sea very calm, 
the current slight, and when one may suppose the enemy’s 
ship to be provided with obstacles.” The fish torpedo fired 
from a boat in close proximity to the attacked vessel, in 
smooth water and unmolested, would sink a vessel, which 
under the same circumstances, owing to her being protected 
by booms, might prove impregnable to a spar torpedo attack, 
but such favourable conditions will not often occur in war- 
time. . , • r 
(h.) “ Against a vessel under weigh the two species ot 
torpedoes will both respectively find their value according to 
circumstances. It would appear, then, to be best to combine 
in a flotilla intended for the defence of harbours and road- 
steads both spar and Whitehead torpedo-boats. Finally, in 
certain circumstances, a ship under weigh may defend her- 
self advantageously against torpedo-boats by booms and 
nets.” Such are a few of the principles deduced by Lieut. 
Arnault from the published accounts of the employment of 
torpedo-boats against ships, which summed up would seem 
to give the odds in favour of the attack, but if we examine 
more closely we shall see that there is something to be said 
on the other side ; for instance, in all the examples, the 
attack of boats on large ships has been met in all cases by 
merely passive resistance : in future this will never be the 
case. It will be a case of “ Greek meeting Greek,” for 
every large ship of war will now have its own attendant 
flotilla of guard-boats, themselves torpedo-vessels,* and an 
element which we have never yet seen discussed really now 
enters upon the scene, and must be taken into account— 
i.e., the manoeuvring of torpedo-boat versus torpedo-boat. 
One exciting tournament of this description has already been 
rehearsed, although the incident did not form part of the 
programme, the other day, or rather night, at Spithead. It 
is thus described “ An accident, which very nearly termi- 
nated in the destruction of a couple of torpedo-boats, oc- 
curred between 7 und 8 o’clock on the night of the 5th inst., 
at Spithead. Four second-class Thorneycroft torpedo-boats, 
attached to the Hecla, torpedo store ship, Capt. Morgan 
Singer, now lying at Spithead, were despatched from the 
* On the 27th February, 1880, the Peruvian monitor Mancocapa came out o 
Arica and engaged the famous Chilian Huascar at close quarters: the Hu as car 
feared to ram her antagonist, “ on account of her having a torpedo-boat m 
tow ” / The further details will be interesting. 
