A Modern Destroyer.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 1, Issue 51, 2 November 1870, Page 6

A Modern Destroyer.

The following is from the Broad Arrow: — “With reference to the announcement in our last week's impression of a new method of attack invented by Captain Ericsson, of the United States, we hear that a far more powerful system of attack, the invention of an Engineer officer of ‘he Royal Navy, is now under the considerai .on of the English War Office authorities. Without entering into detail, it may be briefly stated that this system of attack consists in the uae of an elongated shell-shaped self-propelling torpedo, containing a bursting charge of from 400 to 10,000 pounds of gunpowder, gun-cotton, or other explosive. It travels at, or 20 feet below, the surface of the water, as may be re iuirad, with a velocity of 140 to 500 or more feet per second, and will range in aqua from 700 to 1800 yards ; and, paradoxical as it may appear, the striking velocity at extreme range may bo double the initial velocity. Thus, this “destroyer” maybe so constructed as to have an initial of, say, 300 feet per second, the speed may then fall to 100 feet or 200 feet per second, at which it may remain uniform for 10 or 20 seconds ; it may then increase in velocity to 500 nr more feet per second, should such increase be found to be desirable. The great advantage of this invention is that it can bo as effectively used by the slowest as by the fastest vessels, or oven by fixed forts and batteries facing the sea. The method of manufacture and mode of con-

stnier.ion am for the present kept secret. The j ifvat of,join,mu to this invention is that it is ! absolutely and irresistably destructive, as the j combined fleets of the whole world could be ; destroyed in an hour by Mr Reed’s ship j ‘ Dcvasiution, 1 now building at Portsmouth, if armed on the proposed system.*