The Romance of War Inventions Part 15

First of all a rough mould is fashioned by hand in modelling clay and into this is poured melted wax, the result being a very rough model of the ship. This is then placed in the model-making machine.

Those of my readers who are familiar with an engineer's shop will know what a planing machine is like, and from that they can form an idea of the general structure of this remarkable tool. There is, first of all, a travelling table which, as the machine works, travels to and fro.

Spanning this table is a beam which carries on its under side two revolving cutters, so that as the table pa.s.ses beneath them the cutters can operate upon anything placed upon the table.

Another part of the machine is a board upon which is placed the drawing showing the external shape of the proposed ship, and working over this board is a pointer connected by a system of rods and levers to the cutters just mentioned. The rough block of wax, then, having been placed upon the table and the to and fro motion set going, the attendant guides the pointer along the lines of the drawing, and as he does so the cutters so move as to carve away the soft wax into the precise shape of the model.

A little smoothing by hand is all that is necessary to complete the conversion of the rough piece of wax into a perfect model. It is then placed in the water and ballasted with little bags of shot until it floats at just the correct depth, and finally a light wooden frame is fitted to it for the purpose of making the connection to the lever by which it is pulled along.

Thus, after much thought and experiment, the designs for a new ship are completed. Tracings are then made of them on semi-transparent paper or cloth, which tracings are then used as "negatives," from which a number of photographic prints are made, just as the amateur photographer makes prints from his negatives. At least that is how they used to be done, in a huge printing frame, but nowadays a machine is more often employed which pa.s.ses the tracing or negative with a piece of photographic paper behind it slowly past an electric light, thus doing the work more quickly and more conveniently, for the drawings of ships are often very long and would either require an enormous frame or else would have to be made in pieces and joined together.

The prints are finally pa.s.sed out to the works to be translated in terms of iron, steel and wood.

Perhaps the most important part of a shipyard is the mould loft, a large apartment on the floor of which the ship is drawn out full size. Then from these full-size drawings moulds or templets are made of wood or soft metal, showing the exact size and shape of the various parts. The moulds or templets go thence to the workshops, where the bars and plates of steel are cut to the right shape and perforated with holes, and some of the pieces are there joined together with rivets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TRIPOD MAST.

Here we see one leg of the tripod mast of a warship. These masts have greater stability and freedom from vibration than others. They are used for observation and range-finding, and have a fighting-top on which guns of small calibre are mounted. Here is shown a sailor carrying a wounded comrade.]

From the workshops the various pieces or parts go to the yard where the slip is on which the vessel is being built. This slip is by the water's edge, conveniently placed with a view to the fact that later on the great structure, weighing possibly thousands of tons, has got to slide down into the water.

Where the keel of the ship is to go a row of timber blocks is placed a few feet apart, and upon these blocks the plates of steel which form the lowest part of the ship are laid. Upon them are laid other parts, and upon them others, the joints being made by riveting. Thus the great ship grows from the keel upwards. As she gets bigger and bigger there comes the danger of her tipping over, and that is provided against by the use of props or sh.o.r.es along both sides.

By the time the hull is ready for launching it is often of great weight, all of which is borne upon the wooden blocks underneath the keel.

Consequently, if the ground be not good, piles have to be driven in or concrete foundations laid to enable the huge ma.s.s of the ship to be supported. For this reason a large vessel cannot be built anywhere but only on a properly prepared "slip," and it is the possession of a large number of such places which enables Great Britain to build so many ships at once.

Along each side of the slip there is usually a row of tall masts with a beam projecting out sideways near the top of each, forming cranes by which the heavier parts can be hoisted into position.

In other yards, again, there is a tall iron structure called a gantry along each side of the slip, while travelling cranes span across from one to the other over where the growing ship lies. These travelling cranes, worked by electricity, permit heavy weights to be handled with ease and safety. Other subsidiary cranes, meanwhile, carry the heavy hydraulic riveting machines by which riveting is done.

Much riveting is done by hand, men working together in squads of four.

Of these one, often quite a boy, heats the rivets in a small furnace, after which he throws them one by one to man number two, who inserts each as he receives it in its proper hole and holds it there with a big heavy hammer or else a tool called a "dolly." Number two is called the "holder-up," since he holds the rivet up in its place while the remaining two hammer it over with alternate blows of their hammers.

In many cases, however, the two last described men give place to one, who is armed with a tool in shape much like a pistol and operated by compressed air obtained through a flexible tube. When he presses a trigger a little hammer inside the "pistol" gives a rapid series of blows to the rivet, completing the job more quickly than the two men can do with hand hammers.

A third way of doing this operation so important in the building of a ship is by the hydraulic machine suspended from the cranes. To the casual onlooker this has the notable feature of being silent, whereas riveting by hand and still more by a pistol hammer is terribly noisy.

The reason for this is that the hydraulic riveter does not hammer at all, but, like a huge mechanical hand, it takes the rivet between finger and thumb and just squeezes it down.

One strange result of all this hammering in of rivets is that every ship by the time it leaves the slip has become a huge magnet, with somewhat disconcerting effects upon its own compa.s.ses, but of that more later on.

Thus the great ship grows, being made piece by piece in the workshops to the shapes indicated from the mould loft and put together and riveted on the slip, until finally in due time it is ready to take its first journey.

The launching of a big ship always strikes me as about the boldest and most daring thing which is ever done in the course of industry. For the huge structure, naturally top-heavy, weighing hundreds or thousands of tons, is just allowed to slide at its own sweet will. From the moment it starts until it is well in the water it is in charge of itself, so to speak, and if anything were to go wrong no power on earth could stop it once it had got a start.

That nothing ever does go wrong, or scarcely ever at all events, is due to the care with which all preparations are made before that critical moment when the ship is let loose and to the skill and experience of those in charge.

As the hull reaches that degree of completion when it can safely be put in the water, strong wooden structures termed launching ways are constructed one on each side of her. These really act like huge rails upon which in due course there will slide a gigantic toboggan.

Tremendously solid and strong they have to be, as they have each to carry half the total weight of the ship.

Under each side of the ship and upon the launching ways there is built a timber framework capable of raising the ship bodily off the blocks upon which until now it has reposed. These two frames, being connected together by chains pa.s.sing beneath the keel, const.i.tute what is called the cradle, the "toboggan" which is to slide down the ways, bearing the ship upon it.

It is easy to see that being top-heavy something must be done to give the ship support before the sh.o.r.es on either side can be taken away, and it is equally clear that these latter must be removed before she can slide down to the water. Neither would it do to let the vessel slide upon her own plates, so we see that the cradle fulfils a twofold purpose, first enabling the ship to reach the water without ripping holes in her own plates, and secondly giving it the necessary side support to prevent it from toppling over on the way.

When all is ready, but a short time before the hour appointed for the launch, a curious operation is performed. Between the main part of the cradle and the part which actually slides upon the ways wedges are inserted, hundreds of them, and they are all driven in simultaneously.

Their purpose is to make the cradle slightly higher and so to lift the ship off the blocks upon which it was built. If they were driven in one at a time each would only dig its way into the timber and nothing else would happen, but being driven all together a most powerful lifting action is produced which actually raises the mighty ship. So hundreds of men stand, each with his hammer ready to strike a wedge, while the foreman stands by with a gong. At a stroke on the gong the hundreds of hammers strike as one, and so the ship is raised off the blocks, which can then be removed, to facilitate which they too are built of wedge-shaped pieces which can easily be knocked apart. The sh.o.r.es, too, have ceased to serve any useful purpose and can be taken away until at last all sh.o.r.es and all blocks are gone and the vessel rests upon the cradle only. Meanwhile tons of grease have been put on the ways, and the ship, urged by its own weight, is straining to get down the greasy slope into the element for which all along it has been intended. At this stage the only thing which restrains it is a kind of trigger arrangement on either side which locks the cradle in its place. In some yards elaborate mechanical catches controlled by electricity are used for this, but in many the old device of "dog sh.o.r.es" is still used. These are simply two stout wood props which fit between a projection on the ways and one on the cradle, there being one dog sh.o.r.e on either side. Just over each dog sh.o.r.e there hangs a weight.

The person who performs the ceremony cuts the cord which holds the weights, the weights fall, the dog sh.o.r.es are knocked away, and the ship is free. Slowly at first, but gathering speed every moment, she moves majestically downwards into the water, being ultimately brought to rest by means of chains.

Whether done by the simple dodge of cutting a cord or by the more refined method of pressing an electric push, the launching is generally preceded by the breaking of a bottle of wine against the bows and the p.r.o.nouncement of the vessel's name.

Once safely afloat, the vessel is towed away and berthed alongside a wharf whereon are cranes and other machines which lightly drop on board of her the ma.s.sive turbines and boilers which in time will propel her, and the guns with which she will fight. All the mult.i.tudinous little finishing touches are here put into her until at last she sallies forth on her trial trips to show what she is capable of, after which follow trials of her guns, and then she takes her place in the fleet.

Thus, briefly sketched, we see the history of the warship from her inception in the minds of her designers till she is ready to meet the foe.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TORPEDO

In parts of South America there lives a little fish, which, if you touch its nose, gives you a severe electric shock. The natives call it the "torpedo." When an artificial fish came to be invented, capable of giving a very nasty shock to anyone touching its snout, that name was bestowed upon it too.

Even more than the submarine, the torpedo resembles a fish with its graceful outlines and its fins and tail, the chief difference being that the tail of the torpedo carries a couple of little rotating propellers.

Looked at another way we may say that the torpedo is an automatic submarine. As a matter of fact, we all know it best as the weapon of the submarine.

It was originally invented by an Austrian who took it to a Mr.

Whitehead, an Englishman who then had an engineering works at Fiume.

This gentleman took up the idea and developed it into the Whitehead torpedo, which is to-day used by half the navies in the world, the rest using something very similar. It is curious to note that the German variety is called the Schwartzkopf, the meaning of which is "blackhead."

The smooth, steel, fish-like body consists of two separate parts, which can be detached from each other. The front part called the "head" is made in two kinds, the war-head and the peace-head. The former contains a large quant.i.ty of explosive and the mechanism for firing it on coming into contact with any hard body. It is only used in actual warfare. The peace-head is precisely the same shape and weight as the other but is quite harmless, so that when it is fitted to the torpedo the latter can be handled with perfect safety, a valuable feature during the frequent exercises through which our sailors go in their efforts to attain perfection in the use and handling of these valuable weapons.

So much for the head. The body of the torpedo contains a beautiful little engine precisely similar to a steam-engine but on a small scale, which is driven by compressed air, a store of which is carried in a compartment provided for the purpose.

Then there is an automatic steering apparatus controlled by a gyroscope, the purpose of which is to keep the torpedo steered in precisely that direction in which it is started. If any outside force, such as current or tide, deflects it from its path the gyroscope, acting through a rudder at the tail, brings it back again.

Like the submarine, moreover, it has rudders which can steer it upwards or downwards and these again are controlled automatically so that having been set to travel at a certain depth the torpedo can be launched into the water with the practical certainty that it will descend to that depth and then maintain it.

This remarkable result is attained by the use of two devices acting in combination, namely, a hydrostatic valve and a pendulum. Either of these alone would set the thing going by leaps and bounds, at one time above the required depth and at another equally below it, and so on alternately. The hydrostatic valve consists of a flexible diaphragm, one side of which is in contact with the water outside, so that since the pressure increases with increasing depth, it is bent inwards more or less as the depth varies. This deflection is made to control the horizontal rudders. Suppose that things are adjusted for the rudders to steer the torpedo horizontally when at a depth of ten feet: if it descends to twelve feet the increased deflection of the diaphragm will so change the rudders that they will tend to steer slightly upwards: if, on the other hand, it rises to eight feet the contrary will happen, with the result that it will descend. As has been said already, this alone would result in a continually undulating course, so the pendulum is introduced to check the too decided changes in direction and so produce a practically straight course.

There is an interesting feature, too, about the propeller. It is "twin"

but not, as in ships, two screws side by side. Instead, they are both set upon one shaft or rather upon two concentric shafts, like the two hands of a clock. The hour-hand of a clock is on one shaft, a solid one, which itself turns inside the shaft of the minute hand, which is hollow. The propellers of the torpedo are likewise, one on a tubular shaft and the other on a solid shaft inside it. These two shafts turn in opposite directions, but since the two propellers are made opposite "hands" they both equally push the torpedo along. The reason for this arrangement is that without it the action of a single propeller would tend to turn the torpedo over and over. Instead of the torpedo turning the propeller the propeller would to some extent turn the torpedo.

The range of the torpedo depends, clearly, upon the quant.i.ty of compressed air which it is able to carry and that is limited by certain practical considerations. One of these is the s.p.a.ce required to store it, and a very ingenious method has been invented whereby the limited supply is eked out so that in effect its quant.i.ty is increased. As the air is used up the pressure in the air-chamber naturally falls and when that has gone on to a certain extent chemicals come into action which generate heat, whereby the remaining air is raised in temperature. This, of course, increases the volume of air and the result is just the same as if a greater quant.i.ty were carried to commence with.

The explosion is brought about by the pressing in of a pin which normally projects from the nose or point of the torpedo, and it would be very easy to knock this accidentally, causing a premature explosion, were not precautions taken to prevent it. These take the form of a little fan which is turned by the water as the torpedo proceeds through it. The firing-pin is locked by means of a screw so that it cannot be operated until it has been released by the withdrawal of the screw and that can only be done by the fan. Thus, while on the submarine or whatever ship carries it, the torpedo cannot be fired: it only becomes capable of explosion after it has pa.s.sed through the water for a certain distance, far enough, that is, for the fan to have undone the screw.

Thus the maximum of safety is combined with the maximum of sensitiveness when the object aimed at is struck.