“NORDENFELT II.” AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
“NORDENFELT II.” AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
“NORDENFELT II.” AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
During her trialsNordenfelt I.hardly did herself justice, but nevertheless in the beginning of 1886, she was bought by the Greek Government, and in April, 1886, trials took place in the Bay of Salamis, when Mr. Nordenfelt’s agent carried out the various conditions imposed.
Shortly after the first boat had been bought by Greece, Turkey ordered two submarine boats (Nordenfelt II.andIII.) from the inventor. Both boats were sent to Turkey in sections, but onlyone was assembled and tested. In 1887 it underwent trials at Constantinople, which were witnessed by the Sultan himself, who expressed himself highly satisfied with the performance of the boat.
Nordenfelt IV.
Mr. Nordenfelt’s fourth vessel was built by the Barrow Ship Building Company, the machinery being supplied by Messrs. Plenty & Sons, Newbury.
The principal dimensions were: Length, 125 feet; diameter, 12 feet; displacement fully immersed, 245 tons; in light surface condition, 160 tons. The engines turning the main propeller were especially designed for using steam at varying pressures, and indicated 1,000 h.p. when working with steam at a pressure of 150 lbs. At that power her estimated speed was 15 knots. Submerged, her speed was 5 knots. Fourteen auxiliary engines were carried for driving air circulating and feed pumps for steering and sinking. In the middle was the entrance to the stokehole through a scuttle 4 feet in diameter. Fore and aft of this scuttle were two funnels, and about 30 feet from the stem and stern of the boat were the conning towers, 2 feet high and of the same diameter. They were of 1–inch steel and were considered perfectly impervious to any shot which in warfare would ever be directed against them. In the forward tower were placed at the hands of a commander means of controlling every motion of the vessel. The boat was divided into five compartments: (1) The torpedo chamber containing two tubes; (2) Quarters for four officers; (3) The boiler room; (4) The engine room; (5) The men’s quarters, cooking galley, stoves, &c. The crew consisted of nine men all told; 35 tons of cold water were carried in the tanks; and 27 tons of hot water in the boilers. These latter were expected to store sufficient heat for a run of 20 knots under water. The coal bunkers held stores of coal which, at a speed of 8–9 knots,could drive the boat a distance of 1,000 miles. Should it be necessary to transport her to a greater distance, her water tanks could be filled with coal, enabling her to steam 2,500 miles. Two vertical propellers, one forward and one aft, kept the vessel submerged and overcame the retained force of buoyancy (500 lbs.). The boat was lighted by candles; without any special provision of air it contained enough for a crew of nine men for about six hours.
Nordenfelt IV.made her passage from Barrow-in-Furness to Southampton through some heavy seas, and during the voyage she was tested by her commander in every wind and every condition of wave and sea, and she proved that she was capable of being manœuvred in any weather, however bad.
On the 26th of May, 1887, she underwent her first examination before a body of critics, composed for the most part of skilled, experienced scientific officers of both branches of the Service. She was first run with nothing above water save the two conning towers and a few inches of her back, at the rate of about six miles an hour. The time occupied by the trial in the awash condition was 1½ hours, and at the end of the time a sufficiency of steam was stored up in the boilers to drive her a distance of about 24 miles. On the pumps being put in motion, some 20 tons of water were pumped out in eight minutes. The funnels were then fixed, the fires relighted, and theNordenfeltwas soon making 15 knots on the surface.
On December 19, 1887, a semi-official trial of theNordenfelttook place, when she manœuvred successfully both on the surface and submerged, but no attempt was made to fire the torpedoes.
“The neutral tint she was painted,” wrote the special correspondent of theEngineer, “rendered her almost invisible at the distance of even a few hundred yards, while as a target she presented nothing to attack save the two conning towers and a few inches of her turtle back, and as these were of great strength and rendered still more invulnerable by their shape, it is all but certain that no gun carried on any other torpedo boat would ever do her the slightest injury, while she at the same time possesses the enormous advantage of being able to attack without smoke, or fire, or noise. Indeed, given these advantages of a minimum of target and a total absence of noise and smoke, we fail to see what more could be desired in any vessel of war.”
In a leading article in the issue of December 23, 1887, theEngineersaid: “We may—we hope we shall—have quite a little fleet ofNordenfeltswhen Christmas comes round again. When once Columbus had shown the way to America, the water was freely traversed.”
The correspondent of theArmy and Navy Gazettesaid that theNordenfelthad a great and assured future before it, that with a gun or two on her turtle back, and working as an above-water torpedo boat, she certainly possessed many advantages over the ordinary first-class torpedo boat, and thather powers of submersing should make her the more valuable craft, the cost being the same. “It is not likely or advisable that a number of such boats should be at once built, but the country which can give £100,000 for a Brennan torpedo would do well to further, in every possible manner, trials and experiments with a boat so simple, yet possessing such possibilities in the future.”
It will be very naturally wondered why, in spite of these favourable opinions, theNordenfeltwas so soon forgotten. The answer may be found in some recent issues of theEngineer. This journal published, during the years 1886–1888, all the information that was suffered to leak out concerning the experiments with the Nordenfelt boats. In 1901, by the courtesy of Mr. P. W. D’Alton (now Chief Engineer to the Central London Railway), who was associated with Mr. Garrett and Mr. Nordenfelt, it was enabled to state much more than had hitherto been made public.
Taking first the Turkish boat, it was easily proved that as a boat working near the surface, but not wholly submerged, she was fast, manageable, and a very dangerous foe because of the difficulty of finding her, and the very small mark which she offered.
As a submarine boat, she was entirely a failure.
“She had the fault of all submarine boats, viz., a total lack of longitudinal stability. All submarines are practically devoid of weight when under water. TheNordenfelt, for example,weighed by a couple of hundredweights less than nothing when submerged, and had to be kept down by screw-propellers provided for the purpose. The Turkish boat was submerged by admitting water to tanks aided by horizontal propellers, and raised by blowing the ballast out again and reversing the propellers. Nothing could be imagined more unstable than this Turkish boat. The moment she left the horizontal position the water in her boiler and the tanks surged forward and backwards and increased the angle of inclination. She was perpetually working up and down like a scale beam, and no human vigilance could keep her on an even keel for half a minute at a time. Once, and we believe only once, she fired a torpedo with the result that she as nearly as possible stood up vertically on her tail and proceeded to plunge to the bottom stern first. On another occasion all hands were nearly lost. Mr. Garrett was in the little conning tower. The boat was being slowly submerged—an operation of the utmost delicacy—before a committee of Ottoman officers, when a boat came alongside without warning. Her wash sent a considerable quantity of water down the conning tower, the lid of which was not closed, and the submarine boat instantly began to sink like a stone. Fortunately Mr. Garrett got the lid closed just in time, and Mr. Lawrie, the engineer, without waiting for orders, blew some water ballast out. It was an exceedingly narrow escape. In spite of these difficulties, the Ottoman officers were so impressed that the Turkish Government bought the boat. It goes without saying that it was only with the greatest difficulty the price was extracted from the Sultan’s treasury. But no use whatever has been made of her, and she lies rotting away in Constantinople, unless, indeed, she has found her way piecemeal to the marine-store dealers. A paramount difficulty in the way of utilising her was that no engineers could be got to serve in her. If men were appointed they promptly deserted. Indeed, it may be taken as certain that not one man in five hundred is fit to take charge of any submarine boat.”
TheEngineeris not less severe onNordenfelt IV.
“To all intents and purposes theNordenfeltwas a total failure as a submarine boat. She began badly. As soon as she was launched from the stocks at Barrow it was seen that a mistake had been made in calculating weight, as she was down by the stern, drawing 9 feet aft and about 4 feet 6 inches forward. This would have been partially rectified by her torpedoes, but she never had one on board. Extra ballast had to be put in forward, and it was always held, rightly or wrongly, that this made it all the more difficult to keep her on an even keel, when submerged. The extra weight carried militated greatly against her speed as a surface boat. Another mistake was that the water ballast tanks were too large, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that they were not sufficiently subdivided. When she was in just the proper condition to be manœuvred by her horizontal propellers the ballast tanks were only about three-quarters full, and the water being left free surges backwards and forwards in them. It must not be forgotten, however, that ample tank capacity was necessary because the quantity of ballast needed, depended on the number of tons of coal and stores on board. Subdivision would, however, have prevented the surging of the ballast water. If, for example, the boat was moving forward or on an even keel at, say, two knots, if a greaser walked forward a couple of feet in his engine room her head would go down a little. Then the water surged forward in the tanks, and she would proceed to plunge, unless checked, and in shallow water would touch the bottom, as she did on the Mother Bank in the Solent, or if in deep water she would run down until the pressure of water collapsed her hull. No one who has not been down in a submarine can realise their extraordinary crankness. TheNordenfeltwas always rising or falling, and required the greatest care in handling.”