THE BOTTLED-UP FLEET

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3126, 3 July 1917, Page 5

THE BOTTLED-UP FLEET

ALLIES SHOULD "GO IN" AFTER IT

WITH TORPEDO-PLANES

New York, July 1. Uteiir-Admir/il .Fisko declares that the Allies must "go in" alter the German Meet before the' hick of oil ties up the British Dreadnoughts. The Germans could be sivamped iii their own harbours and tho war won if a swarm of torpedoaeroplawes accompany the. Allied Meet. —Renter.

A German seaplane on the Suffolk"' coast the other day (says Mr. Richard Thirkell in tho "Daily Mail") introduced to u≤ a inethod of naval warfare which is a pure novelty to this great majority of tho people in this country—namely, the attack with tocpedoes from airorait. The. Admiralty have since told us that this mode of nttack was successfully employed by our own ainne'n in the Dardanelles nearly, two years ago, but I believe I am right in saying that the whole idea originated with Rear-Admiral Bradley A. iisko, of the United States Na\|y,, who in 1912 executed a pateDt "covering bobh a method and an apparatus for de-livering-submarine torpedoes from an airship." ' This new type of fighting craft, whose, possibilities can as-yet be only vaguely realised, will be known quito 'naturally as the torpedo-plane. Generally speaking, tho method of carrying and "firing" the torpedo is much the game,as that which was used in the small and early types of torpedo-boats, and which was put to such effective -use by the picketboats of the Triumph and Majestic when they torpedoed and destroyed the stranded E 15 in the Dardanelles in April, 1915, to prevent her from falling intact into tho hands of the enemy. Tho torpedo is slung in an .invertedi cradle, where it is held by tongs, and at the requisite moment the tongs are opened and the weapon/ its engines simultaneously set in motion.'drops into-the water and heads away for the target. In tho torpedo-plane the dropping gear would be suspended between the floats. The lifting power of ■modern aircraft- is such that it would be quite possible to curry two torpedoes, weighing up to 10001b. each, one. on either-side of the body. Aiming would be done in the ssime manner as with a fixed tnbe in a submarine—that is, the 'plane would have to be brought dead head-on to the targot. A captain, in the Italian Navy, experimenting with a torpedo-plane a year or two back, is said to have made nine hits in ten attempts at a range of 3000 yards. ' Operating between the lights—at dnslc or early dawn— -a 'flotilla of torpedoplanes would be an unpleasant adversary to moot at sea. Approaching at a great height, the aircraft would piano, steeply down to reach tho water at a distance of throe to five thousand yards from tjjeir objective. T1 igh-nnglo tiro would bo ineffective "against such ■ tactics,, and although !i destroyer screen would lie useful (assuming the aircraft to have, to alight on the water, which does not necessarily follow), the destroyers' inferiority in speed would be n great factor in favour of tho attack. In any rase, the loss of thirty torpedo-planes would not equal, either in men, money, or time to build, tho loss of a single destroyer. To be effective. the defence would have to meet tho attack in its own element—in other words, a fleet would need to be protected in the air by "torpedo-plane-destroyers," -is it is protected on the sui-face by torpedo-boat destroyers. . • . ~ There are some who will see in the torpedo-plane a possible means for effectively attacking fleets in harbours where they cannot otherwise be reached. Fleet bases nowadays are etronsrly boomed and netted and mined against submarines, and. generally speaking, aro not susceptible to attack from the water, whotliPi , <nr the sin-face or below. No boom oi' net would keep oul. a torpedoplane. Given the necessary conditions, it could discharge its weapons within tho defences; mid if l.he torpedoes were so adjusted as to move in circles instead of in straight lines, tho chance of doing considerable d.iniuge inside a harbour would bo greatly increased. A few weeks before the wnr Sir Percy Scott said: "With a flotilla of submarines cominamloil by <.lnf=l"insr young officers, of whom w« have plenty. 1 would undertake to got: through any lionm into nny harbour and sink or materially damage all the ships in that harbour." 'Phut offer does not "coin to have been taken advantage of, but it certainly suggests one of the most momentous possibilities of tho torpedo-plane.