Chapter XX: Appendix: I

BRITISH SUBMARINES

“The tendency of the Admiralty is to follow and not to lead other
great nations. I hope that one of these days we shall not follow
just a little too late.”—W. E. ARNOLD FORSTER.

Probably the first occasion of recent years that mention was made of submarine boats in Parliament was subsequent to the trial of the _Nautilus_, a diving boat invented by Messrs. Campbell and Ash, during a trial of which several exalted personages nearly lost their lives. Lord George Hamilton described the incident to the House of Commons, and created some amusement by his relation, and there is no reason to believe that the submarine was looked upon by members other than as an erratic toy to whose mercy no wise man would entrust his person.

Mr. Nordenfelt built several submarine boats, one of which was bought by the Turkish and another by the Greek Government, but though in several quarters the advisability of the Admiralty purchasing one or more Nordenfelt boats was suggested, nothing came of it.

Mr. Edmund Robertson, K.C., dealing in the _Nineteenth Century_, of May, 1900, with the question of submarine boats remarked that five or six years ago he knew the opinion of the technical advisers of the Admiralty, and that they did not see their way to recommend the Admiralty or the Government to make any provision for submarine vessels of war.

Since that time, however, very few weeks passed but some writer took up the cudgels on behalf of the submarine and urged the Admiralty to consider the advisability of constructing boats.

The keen interest taken in France in under-water warfare was reflected to a certain extent in this country, and on the 9th of February, 1899, Mr. Charles McLaren addressed a question to the First Lord of the Admiralty in which he referred to the “extraordinary value” assigned by the French minister to the new vessels, and asked “whether the British Admiralty attached any importance to these experiments, or had any intention of adding any such vessels to the British Navy?” Viscount Goschen’s answer was: “It would be inexpedient at this stage for me to express the opinion of the Admiralty as to the reported performances of the new submarine boats. With reference to any action which the Board of Admiralty may take, I am not at present prepared to make any statement.”

The position of the Admiralty in the early part of 1900 may be ascertained from an answer given by Viscount Goschen to a question put by Captain Norton on the 6th of April. “Close attention has been given by the Admiralty to the subject of submarine boats. The submarine boat, even if the practical difficulties attending its use can be overcome, would seem so far as the immediate future is concerned to be eventually a weapon for maritime Powers on the defensive, and it is natural that those nations which anticipate holding that position should endeavour to develop it. The question of the best way of meeting its attack is receiving much consideration, and it is in this direction that practical suggestions should be valuable. It seems certain that the reply to this weapon must be looked for in other directions than in building submarine boats ourselves, for it is clear that one submarine boat cannot fight another.” In the debate on the Ship-building vote the First Lord made a further statement. “The importance of submarine boats had been pointed out, and it had been said that it was their duty to make experiments. The nations which were likely to have the greatest use for these boats might gain from their experiment more than others. He did not propose to make publicly any declaration as to these boats. Of course he did not wish to encourage or discourage other nations, but he must ask the Committee to excuse him going into the question.”

In the same debate Mr. Arnold Forster, who a few months later was appointed Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, made some remarks on this “somewhat cryptic utterance,” as Mr. Robertson called it. “If in the matter of submarine boats the First Lord of the Admiralty had said that in the opinion of the engineering advisers of the Admiralty to design and work a submarine boat, was so remote of accomplishment that there was no reasonable probability of being able to work it, he would have been slow to contradict him; but that was not the line taken by him. The First Lord said that the Admiralty had not designed a submarine boat, and did not propose to design one, because such a boat would be the weapon of an inferior power. But if it could be produced as a working article, the Power which possessed such an article would no longer be an inferior but a superior Power. We, above all nations, were exposed to the attacks of this engine. He submitted that it was not a satisfactory thing to stand by and allow others to carry out this problem without making some attempt to solve it for ourselves. He admitted the tendency of the Admiralty to follow and not to lead other great nations. He hoped that one of these days we should not follow just a little too late. If we had been compelled to learn our lesson with regard to ironclads, breechloaders, and armoured cruisers in the face of an active enemy we should have experienced the same lessons which the Austrian army underwent in 1866 when they were compelled to learn the merits of the breechloader by studying it on the field of battle. There was room for improvement in the attitude we had taken up in regard to submarine navigation.”

During the short session of December, 1900, after the General Election, the Admiralty was again questioned, and the reply was that the “attention of the Admiralty had been called to the additional provision for submarine boats in the French naval programme, and a statement will be made when the estimates are laid before the House.” Between this date and the introduction of the Navy Estimates endless rumours regarding the position the Admiralty would take as to the submarine boat question found their way into the daily press. While, on the one hand, it was “confidently asserted” that, the Government were making secret trials with all kinds of wonderful craft, on the other hand it was stated “on the highest authority” that the Lords of the Admiralty had no intention of altering their minds as to the advisability of taking any action whatever in the matter.

The statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty explanatory of the Navy Estimates for 1901–2, published on the 1st of March, 1901, contained the following item:—

“Five submarine vessels of the type invented by Mr. Holland have been ordered, the first of which should be delivered next autumn. What the future value of these boats may be in naval warfare can only be a matter of conjecture. The experiments with these boats will assist the Admiralty in assessing their true value. The question of their employment must be studied, and all developments in their mechanism carefully watched by this country.”

In the discussion on the Navy (Supplementary) Estimates on March 4, 1901, Mr. Flynn asked whether the policy of the Admiralty in constructing battleships “as to the strength of which they knew nothing,” when other nations were turning their attention to submarine vessels, was quite wise. This same notion as to the advisability of going in for small submarines instead of big battleships is to be found in a speech by Mr. O’Shee on March 23rd, who said that if these boats were able to do half what was claimed for them, then the present gigantic expenditure for naval construction was entirely uncalled for. A submarine boat could be built for £25,000, and manned by ten men, and if it were true they were able to combat the big ships which the Government were building, those ships would be absolutely useless except for carrying the submarine boats to places where they were to work. If submarines were all that was claimed for them it would render unnecessary the £9,000,000 which was then being expended on new battleships.

Mr. Arnold Forster in the House on March 18, 1901, said:—

“I will not say much about submarine vessels, but I will say that I am glad that the Admiralty, under the advice of Lord Goschen, took the view that it was wise not to be found unprepared in regard to this matter. We have a great amount of information about these boats, but we do not attach an exaggerated value to it. But we believe that an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory, and that when we get officers and men to see these boats, they will learn more from them than from many reports which come from foreign countries. One thing stands between the submarine boat and efficiency, and that is the motor by which it is propelled. But there is no disguising the fact that if you can add speed to the other qualities of the submarine boat, it might in certain circumstances become a very formidable vessel. We are comforted by the judgment of the United States and Germany, which is hostile to these inventions, which I confess I desire shall never prosper.—(Commander Young, M.P., said that if the Admiralty built any submarine boats, all he would ask would be that he might not be ordered to serve on one.)—But we cannot regard our position as the same as that of other nations. The United States to-morrow, if a perfect submarine were invented, would not only have more secure protection for their harbours. In Germany the harbours are no doubt carefully protected now. But we live in the narrow waters of the Channel, and our problem is not precisely that of any other nation, and I am glad that Lord Goschen did give this instruction to the Board which has now borne fruit in the determination to put this experiment into execution, and we shall see the result of it during the next financial year.”

Mr. Edmund Robertson, K.C., in the debate on the Navy Estimates on March 21, 1901, remarked that as the building of the submarine boats was only a matter of experiment, he thought it might have been introduced upon a somewhat smaller scale. If its value was purely conjectural, he should have said that one boat would have been enough to experiment with. Two should have been quite enough, but we generally did things on a large scale, and after having refused to say one word for many years about submarine boats, we now found the Admiralty launching out into quite a little fleet of them. “What,” asked Mr. Robertson, “had become of the control of the House of Commons? What had become of that control when the Admiralty of the day, having refused to tell them their policy, come forward shortly afterwards and say they will build five of these boats?” He could not help protesting against this, for a new departure of this nature ought not to have been made except with the sanction of the House, and at the very least it ought not to have been done without being divulged to the House.

It may be noted that Mr. Arnold Forster, speaking in the House of Commons in January, 1902, explained that when the decision to construct submarine boats was arrived at, only one type was available for purchase, that the right to build boats of this type was in the hands of one firm, and that it was therefore necessary to entrust the work to that firm.

_The first British Submarines._—The first five British submarines are almost identically the same as the six Holland boats ordered by the U.S. Congress on June 7, 1900.

They are cigar-shaped vessels 63 feet 4 inches long; beam, 11 feet 9 inches; and displacement submerged, 120 tons. The plating and frames are of steel and of sufficient size and thickness to withstand the pressure of depths not exceeding 100 feet. The bulkheads are located to provide safety in event of collision, and to stiffen the hull as a whole; decks are provided throughout the whole length of the interior of the vessel, combined with beams and floors to carry the weight of machinery; the tanks are of steel, and they are braced, stiffened, rivetted, and caulked absolutely tight, and man-holes are located to allow access to the interior of all tanks.

When the vessel is in light condition for surface running, an above-water deck, 31 feet long, is available, and there are means of stowing anchor and lines and of affording mooring facilities to the vessel. Rudders of steel plates are provided, and they are supported by skegs at the stern of the vessel. The conning tower is of armoured steel; its outside diameter is 32 inches, and its minimum thickness 4 inches; it is provided with ports for observation by the steersman. In the construction of the vessel care has been taken that all portions of the exterior of the hull shall be free from projections of a kind that might be entangled by ropes or other obstacles when submerged, and the lines of the vessels have been designed so that there shall be a minimum of resistance when it is running at the surface.

_Propulsion._—On the surface the vessel is propelled by a 160 h.p., single screw, four-cylinder, Otto gasoline engine, capable of giving a speed of 8 knots, while when submerged it is driven through the water by a 70 h.p. electric waterproof motor giving a speed of 7 knots. The radius of action at the surface is about 400 knots, while the storage batteries have sufficient capacity for a speed of 7 knots on a four hours’ submerged run. Gearing is provided for the charging of the batteries by using the motor as a dynamo, and running it from the gasoline engine when at the surface, and from connecting the propeller either to the engine or the motor; these operations are effected through clutches. Switchboards and switches are provided for the safe and efficient distribution of the electric current throughout the vessel. The lighting system consists of portable incandescent electric lamps, together with several ports and openings in the hull to admit the outside light. The hull is circular, in cross sections, and is divided by the watertight bulkheads into three separate compartments. There is also a thorough subdivision of the bottom and every precaution is taken to localise any injury to the hull which might threaten the buoyancy.

In the forward compartment is one torpedo expulsion tube, located at the extreme forward end of the vessel, opening outward two feet below the light water-line. The tube is placed with its muzzle in the nose of the craft and its axis inclined somewhat to the longitudinal axis of the vessel. The muzzle of the tube is closed by a watertight door, and this can be lifted from within for the discharge of the five Whitehead torpedoes, each 11 feet 8 inches long, which are carried in the interior. One torpedo is placed in the tube, and the other four are placed side by side above the storage batteries. When the first torpedo is fired a sufficient amount of water to compensate for the loss of weight is automatically and almost instantaneously admitted into the tube, causing only a slight change of time for a few seconds. Such compensation is necessary, as the submarine boat is lighter than the amount of water it displaces and any alteration in its weight tends to send it up to the surface or down towards the bottom. When the second torpedo is placed in the tube the water is run into a special torpedo compensating tank; of these tanks there are four, and they are filled as each torpedo is fired. When the last torpedo has been ejected the expulsion tube is filled with water and is kept thus until the end of the run.

Besides the torpedo tube there is in the forward compartment a series of air flasks, a gasoline tank of 850 gallons capacity, and a trimming tank.

The central compartment contains in its double bottom the main ballast tanks and a circular compensating tank placed between the two sets of batteries. Above the double bottom and below the axis of the vessel are located the storage batteries, and above these are carried the four torpedoes, which are 45 centimetres in diameter and 11 feet 8 inches in length. In the same compartment are a series of air flasks in which air at 2,000 lbs. to the square inch pressure is stored for the purpose of keeping pure the living spaces of the crew.[9]

Footnote 9:

Also for firing the torpedoes and for blowing the water out of the
ballast tanks when it is desired to navigate as a surface boat.

In the rear compartment is the four-cylinder gasoline engine, which is rated at from 160 to 190 actual horse-power, and at from 320 to 390 revolutions per minute. Its net weight is 1,300 lbs., its length over all is 9 feet 7 inches, and its total height above the crank-shaft centre is 5 feet 6 inches. In these engines, which gave satisfaction in the first Holland boat, the distribution of the cranks and the timing of the valves and igniters are so arranged that the operations in the four-cylinders alternate, so that while one is at the expansion stroke the other three are at the suction, compression, and exhaust strokes respectively. By this arrangement the engine is perfectly balanced and vibration is reduced to a minimum.

_Submersion._—The first operation to be performed when it is desired to submerge the vessel is the admission of water into her ballast tanks. When these are full she runs “awash” with her conning tower alone above the waves.

In order to completely submerge the boat she is steered below the surface by means of her pair of horizontal rudders at the stern. When at the required depth (normally from 20 to 30 feet) she is brought up on an even keel by the inclination of the horizontal rudders, which may be controlled automatically (by some such arrangement as is found in the Whitehead torpedo) or by hand. All modern submarine craft go under at an angle, and are steered below the waves by rudders: the principle of submersion on an even keel by down-haul propellers, advocated by Mr. Nordenfelt, has been abandoned by all latter-day designers, as has also the submersion of the drawing in of cylinders adopted in the Campbell-Ash boat.

When running submerged the submarine is lighter than her displacement, and is only kept under by her horizontal rudders, which, of course, only act when she is moving.

The great drawback to all under-water craft has been their lack of longitudinal stability, for they have a tendency to rise or sink at the slightest provocation. In our account of the Nordenfelt boats this disagreeable quality is illustrated. In order to keep the vessel at a regular depth recourse must be had to the horizontal rudders and to the two trimming tanks and the one circular compensating tank carried.

In a general way it will probably be found possible to keep the boat on an even keel by means of her rudders, but if she shows any decided tendency either to dive to the bottom or to rise to the surface or to heel over to one side water may be admitted into the above-mentioned tanks, and the admission may be effected either automatically or by hand. A hydrostatic valve will prevent the vessel passing the safe limit of depth.

_Air Supply and Ventilation._—Compressed air is stored aboard the vessel with means of allowing a supply of air into the interior of the vessel. Ventilators are provided for the circulation of outside air throughout the vessel; the gasoline vapours from the engines and all noxious gases are carefully excluded by suitable devices, while safety valves are provided to prevent the pressure to the vessel from exceeding that of the atmosphere.

_Pumps and Pumping._—All tanks and compartments are connected with the pumps, the valves are located to allow of quick manipulation, and pumps with independent means of operation are furnished in duplicate. The tanks can also be emptied by flowing out.

_Navigating Apparatus._—In communication with the interior of the vessel there are bells and speaking tubes, while there are provided gauges, indices, and clinometers for indicating pressure, depth, positions, quantities, and weights.

Two compasses are carried, each compensated and adjusted. It is said that the first of the British submarines exhibited certain defects in its compasses, which it was thought were due to the steel conning tower. This was replaced by a brass construction, and on being tested the compasses acted more satisfactorily. After a few trials a new steering-wheel was fixed in the boat close to the conning tower, which could be worked from above and below alike.

The first British submarine was launched on November 2, 1901, at Barrow without any ceremony, although representatives of the Admiralty were present. The trials were placed under the direction of Captain R. H. S. Bacon, D.S.O.

Before launching “No. 1” was by means of a floating dock placed on the gridiron. A crew of six men were put on board, and she was then hermetically sealed for three hours, air being supplied by compressed air cylinders. The trial was quite successful, and the men suffered no inconvenience. On her first “sea trial” “No. 1” started from the floating dock and proceeded along the Devonshire and Buccleuch docks and back to her moorings. On subsequent trials she attained a surface speed of 10 knots.

The first submersion trials of “No. 1” were carried out on February 5, 1902. She went under water with some officers of the _Hazard_ t.g.b., the mother ship to the submarines (Captain R. H. S. Bacon, D.S.O.) on board, and most satisfactory results were obtained. Her appliances for the purification of the air were used to maintain atmospheric conditions without any need of her cylinders of compressed air being requisitioned. The first deep sea trials of “No. 1” took place at the beginning of April last in the Irish Sea. The submerging was accomplished in less than six seconds. From the “awash” conditions she suddenly disappeared and then came again into sight some yards’ distant with great rapidity and ease, and the diving was continued at intervals for several hours at a time without any perceptible hitch.[10]

Footnote 10:

Mr. Arnold Foster, in the House of Commons on May 29, 1902, said that
the submarines had been a pronounced success, performing all that
could be expected from them in the way of evolution and manœuvring.

Submarine “No. 2” was launched on February 21, 1902. Certain alterations were made in her construction, rendered advisable by defects which had been discovered during the testing of “No. 1.” “No. 3” took the water on May 9th, and “No. 4” on May 23 last.

During April last No. 42 t.b. was commissioned at Portsmouth as tender to the _Hazard_ t.g.b., and was sent to Barrow for a series of experiments with the submarines.

The Navy Estimates for 1902–1903 provided for four further submarines, which Mr. Arnold Forster said would be an improvement on those already constructed at Barrow. The Admiralty, he added, proposed to continue the process of adding submarines to our fleet. Details of the new boats are not obtainable.