Omaha daily bee., 1898-06-05
NEW NAVAL EXPERIMENTS
Modern Application of 0ld-Timo Ideas in
Naval Construction.
SEVERAL FREAKS AWAITING A TRIAL
Probabilities of Dynamite Guns, Sub
marine D%cstroyers and Rams
Restoring the Venerable
Monitors to Duty.

4
There was only one really important naval
experiment made during the ciyii war, says
a writer in the Independent, and that was
the trial of the Monitor. The result revoiu-
tionized the construction of war ships. Up
to that time they were simply vessels OF
the ordinary type, either built Of iron or
more or less heavily plated with iron on
their sides. Since then the Monitor cheese
box turret, like Banquo's ghost. will not
down" 1t has been detached from It's
raft and by various nations put on all
sorts of vessels, sometimes openly in evil
dence, sometimes obscured by the proximity
of superstructurcs. 1t has been made sta
tionary instead of rotary. The Russians put
it on a circular bowl and revolved the latter
by numerous screw propellers. 1t has been
put back on the raft" again and the latter
metamorphosed into a protective deck" and
buried out of sight in the battleship's struc-
ture. Great Leviathans with four masts
have been built by the English without a
suggestion Of cheesebox about them, and,
after that, we ourselves went back for a
time to craft which reminded one much
more Of the Merrimac than of its victorious
antagonist. But while all these ships were
being produced at the cost of millions the
monitors which had done yeoman service
for us lay moored at League island and
became naval antiques and their honorable
battered plates curiosities for the sight
seers. The Leviathans have long since gone
to the scrap heap and the reproduced Mer-
rimacs are little thought of, but the other
day the old heroes of Charleston and
Mobile hove up their old anchors and turned
over their old engines and hoisted
the old flag, and they are now
sI a.14 hN ~ of
New York and Boston, or rejuyenated
in the Puritan and Terror, taking their place
in the line Of battle beside the Iowa and the
Indiana. In the very last appropriation bill
provision Is made to build four new ones,
and the senior admiral of the navy, at tho
end of the century, asserts that they are
1.-The best fighting machines aloat,' So
much for that experiment and the renown
of John Ericsson.
Home Made Novelties.
Now for the present. There is the battle
ship" which is going to show whether or
not the most complicated machine ever de-
vised by man is an effective war weapon,
and the torpedo boat, which has yet to
prove whether it can send home its deadly
fish under the terrible hail of the quick
fire guns and with the eye of the search
light fixed upon it. All navies are prepared
to make trials of these. We, however, have
three war ships of our own invention which
are unlike anything else atoat, and each
of which is an experiment pure and simple.
The Vesnvius hurls big torpedoes through
the air. The Katahdin is an enormous
swordfsh and destroys its enemy swordfsh-
fashion. The Plunger, If successful, the
most deadly of them all, moves wholly
under water and shoots its prey from be-
low, or else. suddenly rising to the surface,
throws a dynamite shell at him at Close
range.
The Vesuvius was built about nine years
ago. 1t is practically a floating gun carriage
252 feet long and drawing about ten fee
OF water, so that it can steam over shoals
where heavier ships cannot follow 1T. Il
can catch anything but the fastest cruisers
and the torpedo boats. 1t has three Is
inch guns, which are not guns, but mere
tubes set in it's hull and projecting above
it's forecastle' at a fixed angle. Out of these
1t throws shells seven feet long, each con
tanning about 600 pounds of high explosive.
The propelling force is air compressed to
about 1000 pounds per square inch as ad-
mitted to the tube, and this hurls the pro-
~jectiles for a distance of two miles, or, with
accuracy, over a range of one mile. One
such shell will probably utterly wreck q
battleship If it hits it. Even if it does moi
actually strike it's explosion fifty feet hori
zontally distant from the hull may so racF
the ship as to destroy its maneuverine
power and render it a helpless target. More
than that, so great a conclusion in CLOSE
proximity may detonate the high explosives
on board the vessel itself through sym.
pathy," or play Wholesale havoc with 1t:
crew. Eighteen hundred pounds of nitro
glycerine can be thrown by this terrible
weapon every two minutes, or, If the guns
be discharged singly, a Compound shell car
be fired every fifty seconds.
The Dynamite Cruiser.
The tests which were made some years
ago of the powers of the Vesuvius were no
conclusive-mainly owing to the difficulty il
arranging a fuse which would insure tn,
proper explosion of the projectilcs. Thu
naval authorities were not favorably i'm.
pressed with it's capabilities and not Ions
ago it was even proposed to abandon all 1T
dynamite armament and make it into
prosaic %gunboat. Fortunately these counseli
did not prevail-although the vessel hat
since been put to no more distinguished us,
than as a chaser Of ilibusters on the Floridi
coast. But the latest trials show the eff
cheney of its tubes and shells and it is nov
ready for its deadly ork-whether 1t be t.
annihilate battleships, unpeople fertilization
or to throw its flying mines into the fixet
mines of a harbor to blow them up and 81
make clear passage for our invading fleets.
The Katahdin carries one back to tn
prows of the Etruscans and the beaks OF tn
Greeks and Roman galleys. 1t is the modern
reproduction of the Long Serpent of Eril
the Red, with its banks of lusty rover
driving the iron stem fierce and hard int
the ribs of the adversary. 1t weighs 2,2O
tons. 1t can steam at the rate of seventeen
knots. It's steel hull is shaped, braced an
armored so as to stand a tremendous shoe
and at the end of 1t projects a steel ran
eleven feet long. The engines, which liter
ally dash that ram into the side OF tn
enemy, are of over 1000 horse power an
the blow they deliver, being concentrate
at the point of the ram, has a penetratin
power which may shatter armor platins
Whether human ingenuity has. been able I
frame a structure capable of withstandin
this Is doubtful. The probabilities are tina
whatever receives q SQUARE blOw from IN