Chapter XII: Notes on Oil and Oil Engines

_How War and Peaceful Commerce will be Revolutionised by the Oil Engine._

On September 17th, 1912, at 3 a.m., I invited two very eminent experts, Sir Trevor Dawson and his coadjutor McKechnie, to leave their beds and come into my room to see an outline of the Fast Ship of the Future, both for War and Commerce, carrying sufficient fuel to go round the Earth with and with an increased capacity of 30 per cent. as compared with similar vessels of the same displacement using steam. At length a special Government Research Department has been set up to develop the Oil Engine, and a sum prohibitive in peace time has been cheerfully accorded by War reasoning to set up this establishment on a big basis. I reiterate what is said elsewhere, that the Oil Engine will revolutionise both War and Commerce when once it is perfected--through the enormous gain it affords in space and smaller crews through riddance of stokeholds and firemen, and facility of re-fuelling and cleanliness and absence of funnels, etc., etc.

Here is a descriptive outline of H.M.S. “Incomparable,” as set forth in the early morning of September 17th, 1912:

Really a Gem! She can be riddled and gutted outside the Central Diamond-shaped Armoured Citadel because nothing vital outside that Citadel! So lightly built she’ll weigh so little as to go Fast, with a hundred and fifty thousand horse power! She’ll shake to pieces in about 10 years! What’s the good of a warship lasting longer? The d--d things get obsolete in about a year!

Ten 16-inch guns to begin with (afterwards 20-inch guns) for main armament.

Eight broadside Torpedo Tubes (21-inch Torpedo).

32 knots speed at least.

16-inch armour on citadel and belt amidships, thinning towards the end.

850 feet long--to be afterwards 1,000 feet; 86 feet wide.

Four Torpedo Tubes each side to be well before the Citadel (submerged Tubes) so as not to interfere with machinery space.

Quadruple screws.

Anti-Submarine guns in small single turrets.

A Turtle-backed armoured hull, with light steel uninflammable structure before and abaft the armoured Diamond-shaped Citadel.

Two Conning Towers.

Hydraulic crane each side (very low in height) for lifting boats.

The light central steel hollow mast only for wireless and for ventilation, made of steel ribbon to wind up and down at will.

Jam up the Citadel all that is possible right in centre of Hull, and squeeze the last inch in space so as to lessen amount of 16-inch armour.

Curved thick armour deck.

Ammunition service by Hydraulic power.

Oil right fore and aft the whole ship. Enough to go round the earth!

Very high double bottom--honeycombed.

Coffer dams everywhere stuffed with cork.

This, then, is the Fast Battle Cruiser “Incomparable” of 32 knots speed and 20-inch guns and no funnels, and phenomenal light draught of water, because so very long and built so flimsy that she won’t last 10 years, but that’s long enough for the War!

I have just found copy of a letter I sent Mr. Winston Churchill dated two months later, when those two very eminent men, having cogitated over the matter, very kindly informed me that the Visionary was justified. I omit the details they kindly gave me, as I don’t wish to deprive them of any trade advantage in the furtherance of their great commercial intentions with regard to the oil engine, for it is just now the commercial aspect of the internal combustion engine which enthrals us. A ship now exists that has a dead weight capacity of 9,500 tons with a speed of eleven knots (which is quite fast enough for all cargo-carrying purposes) and she burns only a little over ten tons of oil an hour. Having worked out the matter, I conclude she would save roughly a thousand pounds in fuel alone over a similar sized steamship in a voyage of about 3,000 miles (say crossing the Atlantic); and, of course, as compared with coal, she could carry much additional cargo, probably about 600 tons more. Then the getting rid of boilers and coal bunkers gives another immense additional space to the oil engine ship for cargo, as the oil fuel would be carried in the double-bottom. A Swiss firm has put on board an ocean-going motor-driven ship a Diesel engine which develops 2,500 indicated Horse Power in one cylinder, so that a quadruple-screw motor ship could have 80,000 Horse Power with sixteen of these cylinders cranked on each shaft. I don’t see why one shouldn’t have a sextuple-screw motor ship with a hundred thousand Horse Power. So it is ludicrous to say that the internal combustion engine is not suited to big ships. For some reason I cannot discover, “Tramp” owners are hostile to the internal combustion engine. I hope they will not discover their error too late. I sent two marvellous pictures of a Motor Battleship to Mr. Winston Churchill on November 17th, 1912, saying to him:--

“These pictures will make your mouth water!”

However, this type of ship is obsolete for war before she has been begun, as we have got to turn her into a submersible--not that there is any difficulty in that--it has already been described that in August, 1916, a submersible vessel with a 12-inch gun was proposed and after extreme hesitation and long delays in construction was built, but she was completed too late to take part in the war. She might have sunk a goodly number of the German Fleet at the Battle of Jutland. But our motto in the war was “Too Late.”[10]

The whole pith and marrow of the Internal Combustion Engine lies in the science of metallurgy. We are lamentably behind every foreign nation, without exception, in our application of the Internal Combustion Engine to commercial purposes, because its reliability depends on Metallurgy, in which science we are wanting, and we are also wanting in scientific research on the scale of 12 inches to a foot. We have no scale at all!

_We are going to be left behind!_

The Board of Invention and Research, of which I was President, after much persistence obtained the loan of a small Laboratory at South Kensington, greatly aided by Professor Dalby, F.R.S., for research purposes as regards the Internal Combustion Engine; but its capabilities were quite inadequate. Then the President of the Council (Earl Curzon) was to undertake the whole question of Research on a great and worthy scale, and I got a most kind letter from him. It ended with the letter!

In this connection I have had wonderful support from Sir Marcus Samuel, who staked his all on Oil and the Oil Engine. Where should we have been in this War but for this Prime Mover? I’ve no doubt he is an oil millionaire now, but that’s not the point. Oil is one of the things that won us the War. And when he was Lord Mayor of London he was about the only man who publicly supported me when it was extremely unfashionable to do so.

* * * * *

Oil is the very soul of future Sea Fighting. Hence my interest in it, and though not intending to work again, yet my consuming passion for oil and the oil engine made me accept the Chairmanship of a Royal Commission on Oil and the Oil Engine when Mr. Churchill and Mr. Asquith found me at Naples in May, 1912.

I have come to the conclusion that about the best thing I ever did was the following exuberant outburst over Oil and the Oil Engine. I observe it was printed in November 1912, written “currente calamo,” and now on reading it over I would not alter a word. I am only aghast at the astounding stupidity of the British Shipbuilder and the British Engineer in being behind every country in the development of motor ships.

OIL AND THE OIL ENGINE (1912).

I.--With two similar Dreadnoughts oil gives 3 knots more
speed--that is if ships are designed to burn oil only
instead of oil and coal--_and speed is everything_.

II.--The use of oil fuel increases the strength of the British
Navy 33 per cent., because it can re-fuel at sea off the
enemy’s Harbours. Coal necessitates about one-third of
the Fleet being absent re-fuelling at a base (in case
of war with Germany) some three or four hundred miles
off!--_i.e._, some six or eight hundred miles unnecessary
expenditure of fuel and wear and tear of machinery and men.

III.--Oil for steam-raising reduces the present engine and
boiler room personnel some 25 per cent., and for Internal
Combustion Engines would perhaps reduce the personnel over
60 per cent. This powerfully affects both economy and
discipline.

IV.--Oil tankers are in profusion on every sea and as England
commands the Ocean (_she must command the Ocean to live!!_)
she has peripatetic re-fuelling stations on every sea and
every oil tanker’s position known every day to a yard!
Before very long there will be a million tons of oil on
the various oceans in hundreds of oil tankers. The bulk of
these would be at our disposal in time of war. Few or none
could reach Germany.

V.--The Internal Combustion Engine with _one_ ton of oil does
what it takes _four_ tons of coal to do![11] And having
no funnels or smoke is an _indescribable fighting asset_!
(Always a chance of smoke in an oil steam-raising vessel
where of course the funnels which disclose a ship such an
immense distance off are obligatory. Each enemy’s ship
spells her name to you by her funnels as they appear on the
horizon, while you are unseen!)

VI.--The armament of the Internal Combustion Ship is not hampered
by funnels, so can give all-round fire, an inestimable
advantage because the armament can all be placed in the
central portion of the Hull with all-round fire, and giving
the ship better seaworthy qualities by not having great
weights in the extremities, as obligatory where you have
funnels and boilers.

VII.--But please imagine the blow to British prestige if a
German warship with Internal Combustion Propulsion is at
sea before us and capable of going round the World without
re-fuelling! What an _Alabama_!!! What an upset to the
tremblers on the brink who are hesitating to make the
plunge for Motor Battleships!

According to a reliable foreign correspondent, the keel of a
big Oil-Engine Warship for the German Navy is to be laid
shortly. Krupp has a design for a single cylinder of 4,000
H.P.! He has had a six-cylinder engine of 2,000 H.P., each
cylinder successfully running for over a year.

VIII.--Anyhow, it must be admitted that the burning of oil to
raise steam is a roundabout way of getting power! The motor
car and the aeroplane take little drops of oil and explode
them in cylinders and get all the power required without
being bothered with furnaces or boilers or steam engines,
so we say to the marine engineer, “Go and do thou likewise!”

The sailor’s life on the 70,000 H.P. coal using _Lion_ is
worse than in any ship in the service owing to the constant
coalings.

It’s an economic waste of good material to keep men grilling
in a baking fire hole at unnecessary labour and use 300 men
when a dozen or so would suffice!

Certainly oil at present is not a cheap fuel! but it _is_
cheap when the advantages are taken into consideration. In
an Internal Combustion Engine, according to figures given by
Lord Cowdray, his Mexican oil would work out in England,
when freights are normal, as equivalent to coal at twelve
to fifteen shillings a ton!

Oil does not deteriorate by keeping. Coal does. You can store
millions of tons of oil without fear of waste or loss of
power, and England has got to store those millions of tons,
though this reserve may be gradually built up. The initial
cost would be substantial but the investment is gilt-edged!
We must and can face it. _Si vis pacem para bellum!_

You can re-fuel a ship with oil in minutes as compared with
hours with coal!

At any moment during re-fuelling the oil-engine ship can
fight--the coal-driven ship can’t--she is disorganized--the
whole crew are black as niggers and worn out with intense
physical exertion! In the oil-driven ship one man turns a
tap!

_It’s criminal folly to allow another pound of coal on board a
fighting ship!_--or even in a cargo-ship either!--Krupp has
a design for a cargo-ship with Internal Combustion Engines
to go 40,000 (forty thousand) miles without re-fuelling!
It’s vital for the British Fleet and vital for no other
Fleet, to have the oil engine. That’s the strange thing!
And if only the Germans knew, they’d shoot their Dr. Diesel
like a dog!

Sir Charles Parsons and others prefer small units. It is
realised in regard to the multiplication of small units (as
the Lilliputians tied up Gulliver) that though there is
no important reason why cylinders shall not be multiplied
on the same shaft yet the space required will be very
large--the engines thus spreading themselves in the fore
and aft direction--but here comes in the ingenuity of the
Naval Constructor and the Marine Engineer in arranging a
complete fresh adaptation of the hull space and forthwith
immense fighting advantages will accrue! Far from being
an insuperable objection it’s a blessing in disguise, for
with a multiplicity of internal combustion engines there
undoubtedly follows increased safety from serious or total
breakdown, provided that suitable means are provided for
disconnecting any damaged unit and also for preventing in
case of such failure any damage to the rest of the system.
The storage of oil fuel lends itself to a remarkable new
disposition of the whole hull space. Thus a battleship
could carry some five or six thousand tons of oil in her
double bottoms--sufficient to go round the earth without
r-fuelling. The “Non-Pareil” (being the French for the
“Incomparable”) will carry over 6,000 tons of oil in her
double bottoms, with an extra double bottom below those
carrying the oil. This is equal to 24,000 tons of coal!

This new arrangement of the hull space permits some dozen
motor boats being carried in a central armoured pit (where
the funnels used to be). These 60-feet motor boats would
carry 21-inch Torpedoes and have a speed of 40 knots.
Imagine these hornets being let loose in a sea fight! The
21-inch Torpedo which they carry goes 5 miles! And the
silhouette of an Internal Combustion Battleship is over 30
per cent. less than any living or projected Battleship in
the target offered to the enemy’s fire.

IX.--Finally:

_To be first in the race is everything!_

Just consider our immense gains in having been first with the
water-tube boiler! First with the turbine! First with the
13½-inch gun! Just take this last as an illustration! We
shall have 16 ships armed with the 13½-inch gun before the
Germans have a single ship with anything bigger than the
12-inch, and the 13½-inch is as superior to the 12-inch as
the 12-inch is to a peashooter.

And yet we hesitate to plunge with a Motor Battleship! Why
boggle at this plunge when we have plunged before, every
time with success?

People say Internal Combustion Propulsion in a hundred
thousand horse-power _Dreadnought_ is similarly impossible!
“Wait and see!”--The “Non-Pareil” is coming along!

The rapid development of the oil engine is best illustrated
by the fact that a highly influential and rich German
syndicate have arranged for six passenger steamers for the
Atlantic and Pacific Trade, of 22 knots speed and 36,000
H.P. with nine of Krupp’s cylinders of 4,000 H.P. each on
three shafts.[12]

There need be no fear of an oil famine because of the immense
sure oil areas recently brought to notice in Canada,
Persia, Mesopotamia and elsewhere. The British oil area in
Trinidad alone will be able to more than supply all the
requirements of the British Navy. Assuming the present coal
requirements of the Navy at 1½ million tons annually, then
less than half a million tons of oil would suffice when
the whole British Navy is oil engined, and, as recently
remarked by the greatest oil magnate, this amount would be
a bagatelle compared with the total output of oil, which he
expects before many years to reach an output of a hundred
million tons a year in consequence of the great demand for
developing its output and the discovery of new oil areas
and the working of shale deposits.

We turned coal-burning Battleships that were building in November, 1914, into oilers, with great increase of efficiency and speed.

* * * * *

I have chanced upon a Memorandum on “Oil and its Fighting Attributes,” which I drew up on March 3rd, 1913, for the First Lord of the Admiralty. It shows what a Great Personality can effect. I was told by an enemy of Mr. Deterding (of whom I am speaking) that when he came in as Manager of the Great Shell Oil Combine, the Concern could have been bought for £40,000. When I wrote my Memorandum, it was valued by a hostile Oil Magnate (who told me this himself) at forty millions sterling. Whether it is Oil, or Peace, or War, it’s the Man, and not the System that Wins. And Mr. Deterding is the man who shifted the centre of gravity of oil (together with an immense assemblage of clerks and chemists and all the paraphernalia of a huge financial web) from abroad to this country.

“The ideal accumulator which everybody has been after for
the last 50 years, is oil. There will never be found another
accumulator or source of power of such small volume as oil.

“Just fancy! Get a gallon of oil and a man can go to Brighton
and back again, carrying the weight of his bicycle and himself
by means of it....

“It’s a shame that anybody is allowed to put oil under a
boiler--for this reason, that when oil is used in an oil engine
it realises about five times greater effect....

“The moment the price of oil is £5 a ton it will not be used
anywhere under a boiler for steam raising, and the whole
world’s supply will be available for the Navy and the Diesel
Engine....

“I am going to raise every penny I can get and build storage,
and even when I have built five million tons of storage I
am still going on building it and filling it, even if it is
only for the pleasure of looking at it. It is always so much
condensed labour stored for the future....

“Oil fuel when stored, does not deteriorate as coal does.
The stocks would therefore constitute a national asset, the
intrinsic value of which would not diminish.”... (Mr. Deterding
before the Royal Commission on Oil and Oil Engines.)

My Memorandum was as follows:--

Mr. Deterding in his evidence before the Royal Commission,
confesses that he possesses in Roumania, in Russia, in
California, in the Dutch Indies, in Trinidad, and shortly in
Mexico, the controlling interest in oil. The Anglo-Persian
Company also say he is getting Mesopotamia and squeezing
Persia which are practically untouched areas of immense size
reeking with oil. Without doubt Mr. Deterding is Napoleonic in
his audacity and Cromwellian in his thoroughness. Sir Thomas
Browning in his evidence says that the Royal Dutch-Shell
Combination is more powerful and aggressive than ever was the
great Standard Oil Trust of America.

Let us therefore listen with deep attention to the words of a
man who has the sole executive control of the most powerful
organisation on earth for the production of a source of power
which almost doubles the power of our Navy whilst our potential
enemies remain normal in the strength of their fleets. _What
does he advise?_

He says: “Oil is the most extraordinary article in the
commercial world and the only thing that hampers its sale is
its production. There is no other article in the world where
you can get the consumption as long as you make the production.
In the case of oil make the production first as the consumption
will come. There is no need to look after the consumption, and
as a seller you need not make forward contracts as the oil
sells itself.” Only what you want is an enormously long purse
to be able to snap your fingers at everybody and if people
do not want to buy it to-day to be able to say to them: “All
right; I will spend a million sterling in making reservoirs
and then in the future you will have to pay so much more.”
“The great point for the Navy is to get oil from someone who
can draw supplies from many spots, because no one spot can be
absolutely relied on.” There is not anybody who can be certain
of his supply; oil fields in my own experience which at the
time yielded 18,000 barrels a day within five days went down to
3,000 barrels without the slightest warning.

_The British Empire “has the long purse”; build reservoirs and store oil. Keep on building reservoirs and buy oil at favourable rates when they offer._

_November 21st, 1917._

The report below of the Secretary of the United States Navy is interesting. I have just been looking up the record in 1886, when high officials said I was an “Oil Maniac.” I was at that time at the Admiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance, and was sent from that appointment to be Admiral Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, prior to being appointed Controller of the Navy, where I remained six years. At Portsmouth Dockyard, while I was Admiral Superintendent, we paved the way for rapid shipbuilding in the completion of the Battleship “Royal Sovereign” in two years. Afterwards, with the same superintendence but additional vigour, we completed the “Dreadnought” in one year and one day ready for Battle!

OIL BURNING BATTLESHIPS.

WASHINGTON.

Mr. Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, issues a report urging that Congress should authorise the construction of three Battleships, one Battle Cruiser, and nine Fleet Submarines. He favours oil-burning units, and says that the splendid work which has been accomplished by these vessels would not have been done by coal-burning ships. _The use of any other power but oil is not now in sight._