U-BOAT TICKLER

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2723, 18 March 1916, Page 14

U-BOAT TICKLER

FANTASTIC WAB, INVENTIONS,

The war lias brought out a swarm of inventors, and it is probable that, if they would speak, the Munitions Invention Department could tell extraordinary stories of weird devices that enthusiasts lay before them for finishing off the Hun. The trout-tickler for TJ- 1 boat, says tho "Daily Mail," is an excellent idea. Simplicity itself is tho keynote of tho submarine tickler. Its working cost is a mere nothing. When once tne inventor has been paid his £100,000 cheque all that is wanted are a few dozen ships—any ordinary stock ships will do—and a small outlay on the simjile mechanism. A plate-glass window in the keel of the ship, a running noose of steel rope, and the hunt call begin. The ship patrols the sea, the watcher at the plate-glass window spots a U-boat in the depths. . He signals "Stop" to the ship's engines, the noosemen lower the noose, gently tickle with it the nose of the unsuspectiug U-boat, work it round her waist, .flion suddenly tighten it, and all that remains is for the boatswain to cry "Pull, my hearties, pull!"Snares for submarines, frights for Zeppelins, and traps for trench Huns comprise most of the inventions. The inventors are by. no means confined to people with mechanical knowledge. Some of the inventors, indeed, resent mechanical criticisms. One inventor who cheerfully ignored difficulties was the man in the train who produced to a fellow-passengers his devico for the "big pusli." A sufficient number of bis hopping motors and the enemy's line in the West would bo a thing of the past. Tho armoured hopping motor,_ bristling with Maxims and manned'with grenade throwers and picked riflemen, is run up under cover of darkness to the Allied advanced trenches in the usual motor way. At dawn the bugle calls, and tho line of hopping motors rushes forward, clears the groxind by aid of powerful spring legs, over our own trenches, over tho Hun front lino, and then the crews get to work. "Half a million is all I would ask for the idea," sajd the man in tho [ train. "Half a million to put an end to five millions a day 1"

To some of the inventors, particularly the unmeehanical ones, their inventions have' come in dreams. There is one professional man who actually saw his invention working beautifully in his dream. It was a Zeppelin strafer. Before his wife awoko him from the dream, and said that if he wanted to cheer like that he had better wait till Peaco Day, he had tho satisfaction of actually seeing three Zeppelins fall to earth.