Читать книгу Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era - James P. Boyd - Страница 27

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For two thousand years the ram—the razor-edged “beak” of the swift galley—was the chief naval weapon. With the advent of sail-power and the employment of gunpowder, it vanished from the seas; but to reappear when the coming of steam gave again controllable propulsion. In 1859 there was built into the French frigate Magenta a sharp spur,—the first modern ram. British construction of the modern era, from the Warrior down, has also recognized this weapon, and it is to-day a factor, although a minor one, in the design of all vessels of high speed.

The ram has, however, but a scant record of service in action, while in accidental collision it has wrought more than once appalling disaster. The ironclad Merrimac rammed and sank in Hampton Roads, in March, 1862, the United States sailing sloop-of-war Cumberland, which, under the gallant Morris, went down with guns thundering and ensign flying. On July 20, 1866, during the action off the island of Lissa, in the Adriatic, the Austrian flagship Ferdinand Maximilian rammed the Italian armorclad Re d’ Italia, which, with many of her 800 men, sank with a swiftness that chilled the blood of those who watched. Like this, in its sudden tragedy, was the destruction of the British battleship Victoria by her consort, the Camperdown, off Tripoli, Syria, in the summer sunlight of a June day in 1893. The ram of the latter vessel cut a deep and fatal gash in the Victoria, which within ten minutes turned bottom upward and went down, bow first, bearing with her 321 officers and men, whose unfaltering discipline gave a heroic splendor to their end. Despite these occasional instances of its deadly power, the ram holds a secondary place among naval weapons. To strike a modern vessel at high speed will require more than the skill of the swordsman.

The torpedo, like the ironclad, was an American invention, whose neglect by the United States government brought retribution when this deadly engine of war in 1861–65 destroyed not a few war-vessels flying our flag. Bushnell of Connecticut during the Revolution appears to have invented both the submarine boat and the marine torpedo, the latter being fired by clock-work. Fulton also met success in similar work during the period extending from 1801 to 1812. All of the elements of modern torpedo warfare, excepting the use of steam, compressed air, or electricity as a motive power, had been thus conceived by the early dawn of this century. The torpedoes of our day are practically of but two classes: the “mine,” or stationary (either “buoyant” or “ground,” as its position in the water determines), and the automobile, or “fish” torpedo. The former type is fired either by closing an electric circuit in a station on shore, or by the ship herself in contact, or in electric closure. During the Civil War nearly thirty vessels were sunk by mines, usually wooden barrels filled with gunpowder and fired by hauling lines or slow-burning fuses. It was a mine-field over which Farragut charged at Mobile Bay, when he uttered his famous oath and went “full speed ahead,” with the cases of the fortunately impotent torpedoes striking the Hartford’s bottom; it was a mine which, it is claimed, sunk the Maine; and it was a mine-field which kept Sampson’s battleships from entering the harbor of Santiago de Cuba. The stationary torpedo is now charged with gun cotton or other high explosive.

The origin of the most prominent of the automobile torpedoes is due to Captain Lupuis of the Austrian navy, and its development from 1864 onward to Whitehead, an Englishman. It is a cigar-shaped submarine vessel from 14 to 19 inches maximum diameter and from 14 to 19 feet long, which is blown from a torpedo-tube or gun within the ship by compressed air or an impulse charge of gunpowder. Twin-screw engines contained within its hull, and driven by compressed air stored in a reservoir therein, drive it at about thirty knots speed through an effective range of 600 yards. In its nose or “war-head” there is carried a large charge of gun cotton or other high explosive, which is fired by contact with the enemy’s hull. It is provided with both horizontal and vertical rudders, the depth of immersion being regulated by intricate machinery contained in the “balance-chamber.” The Whitehead has a somewhat formidable rival in the United States in the torpedo invented by Rear Admiral Howell, U.S.N. The automobile torpedo has never yet scored in battle against ships in motion. Its position in the naval warfare of the future is yet unfixed. The one certainty is, that its blow when struck home is almost surely fatal to ship and crew. The development of the submarine torpedo-boat, whose weapon is the Whitehead, has in recent years received much attention through the labors of the American Holland and others. France, in the Gustavus Zede, of 260 tons, has a diving boat of this character, for which much is claimed.