Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-07-20
TO DESTROY
SUBMARINES
Lewis Nixon lnVentS Latest Sea
Warfare Vessel to Shoot
TOrpedOeS Downward.

Lewis Nixon, whose shipyard in
this city is now a hive of industry,
has invented a destroyer of submar-
ines. or course, the essentials of the
submarine destroyer are kept a sec
ret as yet, because of the valuable
patent rights that must be preserved.
Papers have already been drawn up
by a patent solicitor and will shortly
be forwarded to Washington.
simultaneously patents will be
asked in all the countries of the
world where patents may be had.
The boat will be small enough to
be carried by batteships and large
cruisers, have a speed of twenty-one
knots an hour and be as seaworthy
and self-contained as a destroyer.
The arrangements for the destruc-
ton of submarines are not now di-
vulged, but they have been proven
out and will be efficient.
The destroyer of submarines, as
planned now, is hardly larger than a
first-class submarine. However, 1t
will be much lighter, for the reason
that it must be capable of being hoist
ed up on davits aboard a warship
1t will be built wholly of steel of
the thinnest possible plates compat-
ible with strength and securely
braced with light frames. Within
and safely protected will be a mod
ern motor, run by gasolene, capable
of creating great speed for short dis
tances. In a word the new submar-
inc destroyer will be a speedy, high
powered motor-boat armed with a
vertical torpedo tube which can shoot
a torpedo straight down through the
water at its mark-the slow-moving
but death-dealing submarine.
The submarine vessel has got to
keep within twelve or fourteen feet
of the surface to be of any damage
to the enemy. And with a destroyer
right overhead what chance would
the poor devils locked within the
submarine have for their lives then?
Yet this new destroyer car hit the
mark $50 feet below the surface
depth to which no submarine could
possibly sink and live. Forty OIL fifty
feet is as deep as safety will permit.
Even then the pressure of the water
is SO great that it is forced through
the seams and bolt holes.
This destroyer of submarines will
be the latest link in the chain of m
Elements and boats for naval war
fare.
First there were the wooden ships,
armed with cutlass bearers and fusll-
GERS: then the cannon that could
crash it's round shot through the oak
en- timbers of the ship and lay low
her devoted men. Next the ironclad,
against whose impenetrable sides the
solid shot fell harmlessly off into the
water like a handful of peas rafting
against a barn door; then the rlfed
gun with it's bursting shell that
crashed through the heavy iron as II
it were cheese.
On it's heels the Harveyized steel
armor that seemed to be mans last
word in the work of resisting de-
struction; but then the armor-pierc-
ing, explosive steel ~projectile that
could bore it's way through anything
built of steel If only it could hit fair
and true.
Again. the agile, speedy %tropedo
boat with it's tubeful of death and de-
struction,' ready to strike the steel
armored ship in its very vitals; then
the torpedo boat destroyer that could
SVEN the seas clean of these little
hornets, terrors of the b~attleship.
At last the submarine, afraid OF
misunderstanding OIL torpedo boats
or torpedo-boat destroyers-laughlng
to scorn all rifed guns or r~apid-hre
rifles or torpedoes or mines, the UNI
seen scourge of the under e
But now something that is the
master of them all
The destroyer of submarines.
This is the very last cry in naval
warfare, the warfare between the
means of offense and defense; be-
tween gun and armor or torpedo n
battleship; between the swift 20
that needs but n lucky shot to de-
stroy something a thousand times It's
tonnage and feet enough to get away
after the deed, and the boat that is
Just as swift or swifter that can chase
and catch the offender and send II 10
Davy Jones's locker with its rapid
fire Colts and Maxims.
"Never trouble trouble till troupe
troubles you'-and then take the
sting out of 1t with a want ad.