Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 135, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1914 — SOUND CONTROLLED TORPEDO NEWEST NAVAL WEAPON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SOUND CONTROLLED TORPEDO NEWEST NAVAL WEAPON

HEY call him the “Wizard of Knott End” — Knott Bind being in England, over the coaßt of the Irish sea. Such is the title by which rather staid John Gardner is known to his neighbors. He . has done things and still Is doing things which

smack bf the black art. Wireless is one of his particular hobbies, but Gardner’s wireless is not of the sort of which the world , has heard so much. John Gardner has:;, fame not only ip his home; he is much esteemed within the inner circles of'the British admiralty. Over in England they have what is termed the official secrets act, end prosecution and possibly prison walla are the penalties one may incur

by disclosing any particular about the nation’s defenses or experiments' pertaining thereto. Accordingly this modern wizard is not permitted'to talk and his work can be described only by inference. This is all by way of introduction to tests made, a short while back by the British naval authorities u£on. #ts of the old royal cruisers, Recording to the meager-accounts that the public H, M. 8. Terpsichore was towed out ij**p Btokes bay after a mysterious metal Tjox had been attached to her bottom-away, below the water line. Once there she was anchored and abandoned, by her temporary creg..^|When these had reached a safe distance something happened. There was a great geyser of water sent skyward Tight alongside the ship, and before she could'Recover from; her violent lurch down• upon deck fell the thundering Jtons of that upheaval. The mysterious box had functioned perfectly. in obedience to the silent §nd Invisible command of the battleship eight miles away. Jp great rent war torn in tire steel skin of the Terpsichore, and it was all the big wrecking pumps of the five dock yard tugs that rushed to her aid could do to arrest the inundation and keep the cififtt. gfloat until she cotald be towed to port and dry dockedSome years ago John Gardner bdtit

a Small submarine which he was able to guldp by means of submarine sound signals He built that boat after he bad made extensive laboratory experiments. Thes* were the achievements which won fbr him the name of the "Wlxandof Knott End." > In his workshop he had assembled mechanisms that represented the starting and stopping, the steering and the firing apparatus for a torpedo. They seemed to knbjv;their matter’s voice, because they Would dg what he bade either when he* whistled' or called his orders in a certain key. In other words, the mechanisms responded to a fixed tone or musical: pitjch, and would not act If tire call was In any cdher k«y. Since then John Gardnef has 1 gone steadily onlmproving hls system;, and he was prompted'to’do this becau& he believed Hertzian wave wireless had a number of weaknesses.. First, there was the fear Of. Interference on the part of ’ an enemy sending out purposely confusing ether vibrations; and, second, he realized'that the transmitting capacity of’the air varied day ana night and was particularly unreliable when thunderstorms wdre brewing or active. He wanted to get a •table medium through which to send his directive signals, and experience told him that water would answer his purpose best It Was logical that he

should choose sound waves instead of electrical waves for his controlling impulses, because sound will travel four times as well and four times as far through the water as it will through the atmosphere. ' (p Gardner showed that he could arrange the sensitive receiver on his submarine so that It would respond either to one chosen note or to a chord of them, and unless all of these were sounded simultaneously the submarine would be Indifferent to the tonal waves. Of course it was not long before the military critics picked this system to pieces. They declared that these sounds could be detected by a suitably arranged submarine signal receiver, and they asked: “What would prevent an enemy from producing the same tone or tones under water and thus neutralizing or completely upsetting the sounds intended to operate the little boat or a torpedo similarly equipped?” An ordinary man would perhaps have been-nonplussed by such a situation, because to the average mind the whole scheme depended upon the employment of audible signals, for how otherwise coul<j the desired pitch be chosen? You don’t know John Gardner, so .you can’t realize what It means when his lips Bet firmly and his square chin . takes' on an. added touch of angularity. Just the same, picture to yourself this outward show of determination on the part of a resourceful man. ■ In all of its essentials the Gardner receiver is a mechanical substitute for the human ear. It is far simpler than the ear, because In that there is a receiving apparatus which boasts something like . 3,000 extremely minute fibers constituting the terminals of the acoustic nerve. Each Of these fibers Is responsive only to a particular note and is deaf to all others. But ** the human ear has Its limit* tions There are sounds that it cannot hear, sounds whose vibrations are either too few or too many. Hb set about making his receiver still'mere sensitive so that It would be affected by inaudible Sounds. This was 'not so puzzling a* it may appear at first blush. He had only to find some souni| producer which he could control to a" nicety and which then would be capable Of creating vibrations higher than those that would be detected by the sharpest of human ears. Of course he had to have for this purpose a'resonator that he could control perfectly, and once more electricity came to hie aid. No, he did not use a submarine bell or a submarine horn of a complicated nature, but Instead he devißed a way to turn a ship ;lself into a source of sound. HC has made It possible to cause the hull’or skin'of a vessel to quiver so that it will send these Impulses speeding through the'water like rays radiating trom a source of light He uses an electro-magnet which he places pre- ' ferabl'y. down below water and in the very bow of the craft, and the poles or terminals of the core of this m&gflet are elope to but not in contact with the tnner' fehrface of the ship’s steel skin. An electro-magnet is active only when' current Aowb through the enveloping coll, and then streams of magnetism flow out of one end of the core and circle around the coil and return by the othpr end of the core. The speed,with which the magnet Is energized or de-energized win set up corresponding vibrations in the adJaMW plating,, If these vibrations are not too fast; pound will be produced which

the human ear can detect; otherwise they would be inaudible, but capable of spreading far through the sea and of affecting a properly tuned receiver. The advantage of this inaudible system is that an enemy would be just so much less likely to Buspect the approach of a torpedo directed in this manner, and even if he were on the alert 1b would take a good deal, of time and a peculiarly fashioned detector to pick up and to identify the guiding note.

The principal weakness of existing submarine boats lies In their comparatively low speed when running totally submerged. Modern strategists believe that a modified forih of submarine will be the ideal craft. Instead of using torpedoes of the usual type the proposal is to employ a weapon which will, in fact, be a combination of submarine and torpedo, only the submarine will be of a crewless order. The moment you get rid of the human element in a submarine It Is possible to change greatly its character and also to employ a propulsive power which cannot now be utilized. The naval architect has done pretty well in subdividing and honeycombing the under-water body of fighting ships so that the ordinary torpedo cannot sink a dreadnaught outright, although it may wound a battleship more or less grievously. But this same expert cannot provide against the subaqueous attack of a ton of explosive unlesß the heavy ship of the battle line Is completely remodelled. This is not such a simple matter —in fact, would completely revolutionize existing practises and the arrangements of the powers of attack and defense on the part of the ship. Either this revolution is coming or a complete change will take place in' the getup of the so-called capital ships. At least this is so if Mr. Gardner’s scheme be worked out to its logical climax. What he would do Is nothing short of- building a semi-submerged battery of high speed which would be the mobile base from which he could direct his torpedo attack. This vessel could withstand the heaviest of blows from an enemy’s guns, and its powers of offense would be principally centered in exceptionally large torpedoes or small submarines —call them what you will. Each of these giant weapons would be a dirigible, and not self-con-trolled after the manner of the existing Automobile torpedoes. To direct these torpedo submarines each would be equipped with the Gardner inaudible sound-control apparatus, and each of these in turn would have Its own keynote. The observer in the conning tower would have these weapons released or launched from the parent craft, and with this done he could guide them upon their journeys at will. It would not be a case of starting them upon their errands and leaving a hit to chance, bat they would swerve and alter their courses to meet the changing maneuvers of an enemy's squadron. . '' i ;" s *. -

Undoubtedly John Gardner’s neighbors have now more reason than ever to dub him the “Wizard of Knott End.” What he thus adds to the potential terror of war paradoxically makes him deserving of a more complimentary title, because he is probably making actual strife just so much less likely. In this way dreadnaughts may become back numbers. The more destructive war becomes the less apt are nations to go to battle.