Show wn I PROVE destructive tiva giuli qua gan designed to drop bbous inn aids ld a vort fort or an enemy K eidys exl experiments are now being tried with a view of combi combining ning torpedo boats and aerial machines in hostile operations against ships or forts A boat has been designed to dive under water and fire a torpedo torp lido into a battleship battle ship hull the proposed aerial gun will send a shell of explosives through the air and drop it on an dock or j nto into a fort if the combination of these two machines should prove successful the craft will be the most wonderful engine of destruction in modern warfare the aerial gun la is to be placed in the bow and to be operated as follows the boat for instance is moving along the surface at al a fifteen knot speed at the word of command her petroleum fires are put out the electric engine started the smokestack and air shaft drawn inside the vessel and covered over she la Is made to sink oink by admitting water to her tanks at the same moment two horizontal rudders at the stern stem and inclined upward cause the eighty five foot steel cigar shaped craft to dive like a porpoise she runs ordinarily either three or thirty feet under the surface but she is built to stand the pressure of a depth of seventy feet sue has a constant tendency to rise but is kept below by the horizontal rudders on her stern should she accidentally ci el sink there are automatic arrangements governed by the outside water pressure that empty the water tanks lanka and compel the vessel to rise rl se to the surface the effect of the fire of this machine in the more appalling because it can be delivered without giving the slightest sign to the enemy when approaching an enemy the vessel rises to within three feet of the surface and a revolving lookingglass looking glass class is raised above the water this reflects down into the boat through a tube all the surroundings when the range of a hostile fort is obtained the bow of the boat is allowed to come on a level with the surface of the water barely exposing the mouth of the aerial gun the body of the gun Is inside the boat the pneumatic pressure sends a load of destruction into the air and down dowa dow a into the fort the boat drops back into the depths of the sea awl and the enemy cannot tell whence the shot cornea comes there is no smoke nothing in sight but a few ripples on the water pittsburg dispatch |