A. Frederick Collins

“ Again, in a gasoline engine the fuel mixture explodes—that is, it burns very rapidly, like the powder charge in a cartridge—whereas in a Diesel engine the fuel mixture expands when it is ignited, very much as steam expands in the cylinder of a steam engine. ”

“ We say dangerous because wireless messages flashed forth and back would betray its presence to an enemy ship, and we say impossible in virtue of the fact that the craft often has to run under water for as long a time as she can stay down.
When cruising on the surface the sharpest lookout must be kept every moment of the time for an enemy ship, which may be torpedoed if it is a merchant vessel, or the submarine must dive and get away from it, if it should be a chaser or other kind of armed and armored boat that is looking to sink her. ”

“ How a Torpedo Is Shot at a Ship.—And now comes the most exciting moment of all, and that is when a torpedo is shot from a submarine at an enemy ship.
The latest type of submarine usually has eight torpedo tubes, four of them fore, and four aft. These tubes are shaped as shown in Fig. 43, and are built right into the hull of the craft.
Now, when we say that a torpedo is shot from a [108] submarine we do not mean that it is fired from it, for it does not explode until it hits the ship it is aimed at, but we simply mean that it is forced out of, or driven from, the tube of the boat. ”

“ THE MARVELOUS TONGUE AND EARS OF THE SUBMARINE
Since a submarine has an eye to see with, it is both proper and fitting that it should have a tongue so that it may speak and ears so that it may hear. In fact, an undersea boat is almost human. ”

“ Compressed air is as good to run an engine with as steam, for both of them have tremendous powers of expansion. As soon as the air is released from the supply tank—which keeps it compressed in a space that is many times smaller than it would take up when it is free—and has passed into the cylinders of the engine, it begins to expand, or to spread out in every direction, exactly as steam does. ”

“ As the construction of the submarine moved on apace and it grew in size, and as new inventions and improvements were made to supply pure air and enough of it, all the discomforts vanished, until a berth on an undersea craft is as agreeable, nearly, as it is on a man-o’-war. ”

“ The reason it takes time for a submarine to get ready to dive is because the wireless masts have to be folded in, the machine guns disappeared, and the hatches fastened down. Finally, it must not be forgotten that a submarine can dive only when she is pushing ahead under power. If she is at rest and the captain wants her to sink he must either start her engines or else be content to simply submerge her on an even keel. ”

“ Where a boat chaser cannot see a submarine at all when she is submerged, an airplane can fly directly over her, follow her every movement, and see her when she is at a considerable depth. (See Fig. 68.)
As the airplane is much more steady in the air than a submarine is on the water and as the former is much quicker and speedier than the latter, a battle between these two very different kinds of craft is an unequal one with the odds greatly in favor of the warplane. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy cannot, however, be used when the submarine is under water, for water absorbs the electric waves in exactly the same way that it absorbs light waves. But taken all in all, wireless is by far the most important of all the signaling systems yet invented, and it is the only one by which messages can be sent and received by either day or night, over long distances and in any kind of weather. ”

“ As you can tell by its name a contact mine is one that is exploded by the hull of a ship coming in contact with it—that is, by running against it. This is the kind of mine that is most often laid by the submarine.
An electrically controlled mine is one that is exploded by electricity. For this purpose a pair of wires are connected to it and these lead along the bottom of the harbor to two observation stations on the shore; when the enemy ship gets directly over the mine the observers close the electric circuit and the mine is exploded. ”

“ These officers are also thoroughly competent navigators, and should anything happen to their superior officer, any one of them could take command of the submarine and give a good account of himself.
The rest of the crew is made up of engineers and oilers, torpedo-men and gunners, wireless and signalmen, cooks and able-bodied seamen. The engineers not only must know how to run the engines to get the most power with the least fuel, but they must be machinists of the highest class in order to make repairs of every kind should the boat be damaged by shell fire. ”

“ The Parts of a Submarine.—To begin with, a submarine is formed of: (1) the hull; (2) the superstructure, which is built on the hull; (3) the steering apparatus, which includes the submerging and diving devices; (4) the power plant, which consists of the engines, the dynamo-motors, and the storage batteries, all of which drive the submarine when it is on the surface and under the water-line. ”

“ In the years of peace and prosperity that passed between the end of the Russo-Japanese War and the beginning of the great world war of the nations that is now going on, the submarine was experimented with and improved upon until it has thrown all the other types of naval craft, from the dreadnaughts on down into the shade where there isn’t any shade. ”

“ The conditions on board a submarine are quite different in war time from those when the nations are at peace. In the first place, when submarine chasers and aircraft are scouting the seas in search of underwater boats it is not only dangerous but often impossible for a submarine to keep in touch with the base-ship by wireless. ”

“ What the submarine does do is to play the peaceful rôle of planting the mines—not with the idea of making two grow where only one grew before but of making one ship less where there was one ship more, and this is done by blowing up the enemy ships which may chance to pass over them.
Arming the Submarine with Guns.—From what has been said above, you will see that by the use of rapid-fire guns poor prizes can be easily and cheaply sunk; further, a small craft always makes a bad target for a torpedo and thus the odds of making a miss and losing a torpedo are very considerable. ”

“ How Men Are Trained for Submarine Duty.—The base-ship is also used as a training ship for rookies—that is green hands—and on it they are let into the secrets and mysteries of the working, sailing, and fighting machinery of the submarine.
The rookies are taken in hand by the officers and the more highly skilled sailors of the submarine and drilled in whatever they are to do until it becomes second nature to them, for a fluke of any kind might spell disaster for the whole crew and craft. ”

“ When running partly submerged the tube of the periscope sticks up and out of the water about 10 feet, when the distance range of vision is then cut down to about two miles, for the curvature of the earth’s surface meets the line of sight and everything that is at a greater distance than this from the submarine is below the horizon and hence invisible. ”

“ As soon, therefore, as the submarine had been developed to a point where it was clear that it was the coming weapon of modern naval warfare, inventors began to rack their brains for some scheme which would do away with the danger and uncertainty of the old-fashioned bomb, and to make the submarine safer for its crew and deadlier for the enemy. ”

“ If she were built like an ordinary ship and simply fitted with ballast tanks, she would sink when these are filled with water and never come up again, for her natural buoyancy would be destroyed. As it is, a submarine has tanks filled with air which keeps her buoyant, and these will bring her to the surface the moment the ballast tanks are empty. ”

“ Further, the submarine cannot use her torpedoes on the chaser, for the latter craft is so short and has such a shallow draft that her hull does not offer much of a target for a torpedo, even though she were standing still, and much less when she is bearing down on the submarine at full speed.
Every once in a while a chaser is able to surprise a submarine when she has come to the surface for a breather and to recharge her storage batteries. ”

“ After this first and very successful attempt at submarine building it was not long until others began to make improvements and to build underwater boats which would outdo the spectacular performance of Van Drebel’s submarine. It ought to send a thrill of pleasure through you to know that most of these inventors were Americans, but in your feeling of pride don’t forget that the oversea workers along submarine lines followed closely on the heels of our own in ingenuity, building, and operative ability. ”

“ Further, it is quite impossible to store a fuel like gasoline, and to use it for firing an engine in such a confined space as there is on a submarine, without the air becoming charged with the vapor, which is injurious to those who breathe it, and which, should it be accidentally ignited, would explode with such force that it would wreck and sink the submarine. ”

“ Since then the size, speed, and cruising radius of each succeeding type of submarine has grown greater and ever greater, until from a craft hardly larger than a power pleasure boat there has been evolved a truly wonderful undersea vessel of magnificent proportions. ”

“ When the fuel inlet valve opens, the heavy fuel is forced into the cylinder by means of compressed air which presses on the fuel in the supply tank. The instant the fuel strikes the hot air in the cylinder it ignites and burns, and as it burns it expands just as the gases of burning powder in a cartridge expand. This forces the piston down and makes the power stroke as shown in B, Fig. 32.
Here, then, is another great advantage of the Diesel engine over the ordinary gasoline engine: it does not need an electric spark or any other kind of flame to fire it. ”

“ Any kind of machine which develops its power at first hand is a prime mover, as, for instance, the water wheel, steam engine, and gas engine. An electric motor energized by a storage battery, or a compressed air motor are only subsidiary movers.
[21] A dynamo is an electric machine, which generates a direct current of electricity, like a battery. ”

“ Of course if you are playing a naval war game and you are shooting at some enemy ship, it will give her [97] a good hard bump, and this counts ten points in your favor.
How a Real Torpedo Is Made.—A torpedo, as you can plainly see, is nothing more nor less than a miniature submarine boat that moves under its own power and that is self-controlled. And now that you have built and experimented with a little model it will be easy for you to understand how a real one is made and works. ”

“ One of the gravest faults the pilots of the first submarines had to contend with was that they were not able to see where their craft was going.
But like everything else that is needed for the welfare or warfare of the human race, inventors got busy and began to scheme and to experiment, with the big idea of making an instrument which would do for the submarine what the eye does for the brain, and that is to look around with. ”

“ When on blockade duty, then, the captain of a submarine is in very truth, the commander of his craft and it is strictly up to him to determine what her tactics shall be.
As long as he does his work well, which means that he sinks a fair number of all the ships that enter his zone, his superior officer, wherever he is, will have no quarrel with him as to when or how he does the work. ”

“ Since those early days of underwater navigation wonderful advances have been made, not only in submarine construction, but in the crew that mans her as well, for not only are there many men in the crew of a submarine of to-day, but each man is highly trained for the work he has to do. ”