OCR Text |
Show U-BOAT IS THE BIG THING. More than once have we said that the submarine problem seems to be unsolved un-solved and evidence accumulates that the U.-boats are alarming the English and French war masters. Nets will not end the submarine menace, because they cannot entirely ward off the attacks. What must bo obtained Is an automatic defense j against the torpedo. j One of the members of the Stand-' ard staff has suggested that a vessel j can be protected by a screen of small ' Insulated electric wires suspended at a distance of 40 feet by arms extending extend-ing from the ship, each support marking mark-ing a section, say ten feet apart When a torpedo breaks any one of the wires, the suspended cigar-shaped bomb In that section is automatically exploded, explod-ed, driving in the head of the torpedo tor-pedo or throwing the speeding tube off its course. Now this may not prove to be a complete shield, but some similar method must be devised. The thin lines of wires, with bombs, may bo too great an impediment to the speed of the ship and a means may have to be devised to overcome the same. American Am-erican Inventive genius should be able to work out this problem. Another Standard man claims the firing pin in the head of a torpedo must meet with firm resistance to be driven in and he suggests a false, thin coating for a ship, covering tumbling cups, which could not be squarely hit and which would trap the pin and prevent pre-vent It being driven home. If the American mind will begin to work on this, a solution may be found. nn |