U-BOAT TICKLER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 75, 28 March 1916, Page 3

U-BOAT TICKLER.

A DREAM WAR DEVICES. THE ZEPPELIN STRAFER. The war has brought out a swarm of inventors, and it is probable that, if they would speak, the Munitions Inventions Department could tell extraordinary stories of weird devices that enthusiasts lay before them for finishing off the Hun. The trout-tickler for U-boats is an excellent idea. Simplicity itself is the keynote of the submarine tickler. Its working cost is a mere nothing. When once the inventor has been paid his £IOO,OOO cheque all that is wanted are a few dozen ships—any ordinary stock ships will do—and a small outlay on the simple mechanism. A plate-glass window in the keel of the ship, a running nose of steel rope, and the hunt can begin. The ship patrols the sea, the watcher at the plate-glass window spots a Üboat in the depths. Ho signals ‘Stop’ to the ship’s engines, the- rioosemen lower the noose, gently tickle with if the nose of the unsuspecting U-bcnt. work it round her waist, then suddenly tighten it, and all that remains is for the boatswain to cry “Pull, my hearties, pull!” ARMOURED HOPPING MOTORS. 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 n fellow-passenger his device for the “bug push.” A sufficient number of his hopping motors and the enemy’s line in the west would be a thing of the past. The armoured hopping motor, bristling with Maxims and. manned with grerad" throwers and picked riflemen, is run up under cover of darkness to the Allied advanced trenches in the ns’mT. motor way. At dawn the bugle caß' 1 and the line of hopping motors msho c forward, clears the ground by aid ■powerful spring legs, over onr own trenches, over the Hun front line, and then the crows get to work. “Half a million is all I ask for the idea,” said the man in the train. “Half a million to put an end to five millions a day! ” To some of the inventors, r.arH"--larly the nnmechanical ones, their Inventions have come in dreams. There is one professional man who actually, saw his invention working beautifully in his dream. It is a Zeppelin-straU': Before his wife awoke him from the dream and said that if he wanted to cheer like that he bad better wait till Peace Day ho had satisfaction of am dually seeing three Zeppelins fall to the earth.