The San Francisco call., 1898-02-18
THE POWER OF THE TORPEDO.
Wonderful Destructive Force of the Most Deadly Instrument of
 Modern Warfare

u4OSI OCoO4y 4ASL4 0UlCht O4
 Modern Warfare.
 The destructive power of the torpedo i is not a mere matter of conjecture, and when put to work in confined space 1 In the solid earth or directed under water against any floating or solid ob- 1 ject the damage 1t causes is simply | phenomenal. when the small quantity | of explosive material is considered. Torpedoes played an important part in our civil war. several vessels being de- stroyed by contact with submarine | mines or through the agency of spar | torpedoes, or a submarine boat provid- | ed with torpedo. One notable in- stance is that of the Housatonic sunk off Charleston February IT, 1864, by a rebel torpedo boat. The description of the diver subsequently sent down was that he found hole in the ships side between wind and water of about eight feet square.
 During the Russo-Turkish war the Russians were successful in several in- stances in destroying Turkish vesSels, but 1t was not until the revolution in Chile broke out in 1891 that the sink ing of the Blanco Encalada by a tor
  structiveness of this underwater pro- jectile.
 On April 23 1891, the Blanco Enca- lada. while lying at a buoy in Caldera Bay, was struck by Whitehead tor pedo fired from the gunboat Almirante Lynch. The latter was only 100 yards distant, and the torpedo struck the Blanco Encalada amidship sending the ship al the bottom in less than five min ufRS The attack Jo of night, and although the ships crew was up and serving the guns to repel | the attack, yet 120 lives were lost by the sinking of the ship. The Blanco | Encalada sank in forty-five feet of | water, and the divers sent down re- ported an irregular shaped hole in the | hull P feet in length by g to 12 feet in | width. The vessel was subsequently | raised and repaired.
 | A still later incident is that of the | Brazilian turret armorclad Aquidaban, | a smaller vessel, but similar in design 1 to the Riaemullo and the Maine. On April Is, 1894, the Aquidaban was at- 1 tackled by nine Government vessels off Santa Catharina Straits, coast of Bra l gil Several torpedocs were launched | against the rebel ship, but only one hit | her, fired at a distance of twenty yards. | The torpedo fired was of the Schwartz | kOpf type, containing a charge of 125 pounds of guncotton. It struck the vessel on the port side. twenty feet from the stern, and she at once settled down by the head In "A feet of water The watertight compartments aft of | where the damage was done fulfilled their intention and the officers and crew managed to escape. Shortly after the ship was raised, and after a tenn | porary overhauling was able to proceed under her own steam to Rio Janeiro, where she was docked and repaired.
 The accompanying illustration shows the part of the bow of the vessel and the extent of the damage to the hull. | The torpedo struck about twenty feet | from the bow and the injuries extend | ed thirty feet aft. The protective deck was uninjured, but all the plate frames | and longitudinals on the port side were | crushed inward and the forward | watertight bulkhead was carried | away, but the next bulkhead stood in- | tact and only two compartments were flooded. The extent of the hole in a perpendicular direction was about twelve feet. The ship being built of steel and sheathed with wood three | inches thick, 1t will be observed that the ragged and splintered ends of the planking make the hole appear much larger than 1t was in the hull proper, as the concussion ripped off and broke
 
 opening made in the hull was about sixteen feet in length and twelve feet in width. On the starboard bow, about two feet above the keel and on a line where the torpedo struck, was a hole two feet in diameter, leading to the reasonable assumption that the tor pedo had penetrated the hull and made it's exit.
 Assuming as an illustration that the sinking of the Maine was primarily due to torpedo it may be readily seen how such a missile directed against that part of the ship containing the magazines, shell rooms and gun cotton storeroom would affect the contents of all these compartments. An explosion would naturally result from such a di- rect concussion which would shatter the bottom and demolish all transverse and longitudinal bulkheads forward of the forward boiler compartment and cause the ship to sink at once. In the cases of the Blanco Encalda and the Aquidaban the blow from the torpedo was not struck near the magazine and shell rooms, and as a consequence the ships though disabled and sunk were not destroyed beyond repairs, and the narrowing sequence in the Maine catastrophe did not happen to these ships It Is curious to note that these three explosions and sinking of ships took place at night.
 The work of the torpedo in the Japan China war Is a repetition and demonstration of its frightful effective ness. Its mission is not to penetrate a ships hull but to explode it's charge l when brought in direct contact with the objective body, and it's work of de- struction far exceeds that of an eigh- teen-inch hole, its own diameter.
 STEPS TO GUARD
 THE SPANISH CRUISER.