Omission & Commission
Unfortunately the Sixth Pay Commission has not been able to address to the perennial problems of the services-inspite of giving some financial benefits which appear bloated on careful analysis. This has happened due to the absence of any member from the services which constitute 40% of the central government employees. Perhaps such a dispensation had been intentional to deny to the services their due as always?
Comparing the Comparables
Comparisons are odious & should not be made unless there is common denominator. Therefore equating service officers with others having civil interface is based on wrong premises as evident from long que for premature retirement only amongst defence officers & total absence on the other side. While most of the service personnel have to work post retirement to keep the wolf away-there is seldom even naib- tahsildars that any such have such need. Has this reality of modern India engaged the attention of the Pay Commission? This Why so has to considered as Factor Y into any new pay dispensation.
Should the salary of a pilot flying ancient single engine MiG -21 from desert airfields in the hot afternoons have some semblance with that of a commercial pilot cruising latest multi -engine Airbus with co-pilot, state of the art autopilot & latest navigational aids? Similarly the pay of captain of an old aircraft carrier with unfaithful Harriers now not onboard must have some correspondence with the Captain of maritime ship who earn upward of a few lacs a month. And what should be the salary of an Air Commodore commanding n airbase base with one fighter squadrons & two transport squadrons doing day & night flying –carrying out air supply missions to far flung border outposts on the roof of Himalaya- besides supporting civil air traffic-in addition to defending the air space over an entire region? By that count where should the Corps Commander of J&K fit in? There is no use equating a brigadier with a DIG or the Chief of Air Staff to the Cabinet Secretary. Comparing a fighter pilot with commercial pilot, an engineer in the armed forces with another manger in say L&T would seem more logical than equating a Lt Gen with a Secretary to the GOI?
Century for Pensioners
Defence pensioners have been left high & dry once again. One rank one pension or restoration of full pension after 12 years has been thrown out. Increasing pension at 80, 90 & 100 years is symbolism at its best or double century which never was. The number of centurion pensioners at best could be in two figures at All India level? What about lowering the age bar by 10 years at every stage -starting at 70 years with full restoration & 20% hike?
With faster promotion these days & upping at least by one rank due to abolition of the 2 Lt rank- the pension of old timers could have been fixed appropriately instead of unnecessary mathematical tabulation. An old timer Lt Col can be given pension applicable to the present day Colonel. Major Dhanapalan anomaly of mass scale deprivation of an entire class of service officers which really fixed them during the fourth CPC has been just carried over.
Interim Measure
Now that every one in defence is unhappy about the recommendations -best should be to ignore it & give reasonable interim relief say @ 50 % of the basic plus dearness pay or 20000/- for officers & 50% of pay & dearness pay or Rs 8,000/- for the soldiers –whichever be higher as on 01 Jan 2006. The interim relief can be half of this amount for pensioners.
Defence Commission
The way there has been chorus against the Sixth CPC & even the service chiefs are unhappy about it-the Govt would do well to constitute a new Commission with adequate members from armed forces –both serving & retired –to focus on the problems faced by the services in holistic manner. We need a person who can be Shri Krishna & guide the nation in how to bring up the sagging morale of the defence forces as manifest from unacceptable number of vacant berths in the services. Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh, DFC best fits the bill. May be the Five Star living legend of our times can do justice where Sixth CPC could not go beyond superfluous touches in the passing.
Areas of Concern
The Defence Commission could look into the following problems-
In depth Analysis. Candid study should be made why services has become the last choice of our young men these days. Apart from low pay, unsettled life and remote chances of going beyond Colonel’s rank – the services have lost the glory & pride it used to command once upon a time. The service people must get place in the present day money driven society. Barring few exceptions the wards of service personnel are shunning services. Therefore there must be something drastically wrong which needs to identified & remedied.
Pay & Perks. The pay should get multiplied by Factor X to take into account-Hard service conditions, being on duty 24 hours a day, risk involved, unsettled & separated life, need to have two establishments etc. Then there could be Factor Y multiplier as above. Apart from this there could incentives like Income & Municipal tax breaks. Like agricultural income, the services pay & pension can be taken out of IT net to salute the soldier?
Service Conditions. There is urgent need to improve service conditions like-accommodation, clothing, ration, transportation, number of postings, education facilities & opportunity for the spouse to work in the same station.
Younger Services . Human factors involved in retiring soldiers at an age when they are not young enough to pick up the threads of an entirely a new profession or old enough to idle at home on meager pension be studied & resolved. Soldiers can be given some land under ceiling in cities or along the borders to bolster security besides helping them out? If land could be given to multinationals –it could be as well those who are keeping us united in the face of so much adverse conditions?
Lateral Induction. The scope of lateral entry needs to be enlarged to include professionals like airmen from technical trades who can be issued Basic Aircraft Maintenance Engg License (BAMEL) by the service instead of going through the DGCA loop. It would be quite interesting to note that most of the instructors in Aircraft Maintenance Engineering schools training aspirants for BAMEL- have retired airmen as instructors. Those who have spent an entire lifetime in servicing military aircraft like AN-32, Gajraj, Boeings in VIP Squadron or the Mirage-2000 would require DGCA certificate even to put chocks or refuel an airliner! Similar arrangements also need to be made for the service pilots for issue of Commercial Pilot License by the services. The gaps in civil requirements can be filled up by in-house pre-release training by the services. To keep the services young there could be lateral induction in IAS/IPS also from the defence forces.
University Diplomas. There are lots of other trades in the three services which can be useful in civil sector provided there is recognized certification. The retiring soldiers can be issued proper degree or diploma certificates based on trade tests/ service courses by tie up with Universities of repute.
We owe it to them? Retired soldiers are great human resource asset of our nation & must be dovetailed into the economy for growth. They can also be brand ambassadors of the services more than futile ad campaigns –only if they are not forgotten as these days. The Sainik Boards can be put under dynamic senior retired generals- who can really look after the welfare of retired people. There could be surplus land allotment to the retiring soldiers & the state governments too can do their bit by earmarking plot for the serving & retired defence persons. It was long ago in the Sixties when S Partap Singh Kairon – showed such empathy for the service personnel.
Paradise Lost. Problems we all have been loath to discuss like restoration of lost glory & protocol apart from attractive pay package to attract bright young men to the profession of soldiering once again needs to be addressed by the proposed defence commission. The bottom line is that the armed forces are short of 25% officers & cradles of leadership both at National Defence Academy & Indian Military Academy are half empty.
Safeguarding Freedom
If we have to safeguard our independence- gained just six decades back after centuries of subjugation-even under slave dynasty, there in need to make services once again preferred career destination for intelligent young men of courage & conviction who can fire straight from the gun. The recent defence budget of merely 1.98 % of the GDP has already put us in the danger zone. In the present uncertain geo-political situations, unrest in Tibet & Chinese postures in Arunachal Pradesh, hostile neighbor hood, possible disruptions by various terror groups, naxalism & immature divides amongst people- the armed forces remain the only hope to keep us united. This hope must be kept alive at all costs.
Setting Example
Once upon a time, even the scions of royalty used to deem it a great honor to serve in the armed forces. To understand what it means to defend the nation our leaders must make it a matter of pride to have at least one of their sons or daughters in the armed forces to serve the nation instead of straightway making them members of the legislatures. They can take heart from Prince Harry of Britain who came back safe from the military stint in Afghanistan-undoubtedly one of the most dangerous place on earth,
Friday, May 2, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
A shattered army - Pay commission has ill-served the nation
THE Indian army, used here generically to include the navy and the air
force, has now reached the end of its tether, with the Sixth Pay
Commission's recommendations for the defence forces. The citizens of
our country have not really understood the magnitude of despair
amongst the rank and file of the army. There is great anger and a high
degree of frustration at every level, but particularly at the level of
the PBORs (personnel below officers' rank) and the junior and middle
level officers. Both constitute the 'cutting edge' of the defence
forces.
India has a hundred per cent volunteer army. Officers and men have
joined the army for a variety of reasons, the main ones being the
honour that comes by wearing the uniform; a desire to serve the nation
in the best way possible; family traditions; and of course, suitable
remunerations that are compatible with the highly turbulent conditions
of service.
Its ethos has been painfully nurtured by the hierarchy of the army for
the last 60 years, despite major provocations from many quarters,
especially the self-serving bureaucracy, which the country has to
unfortunately endure. The latter has consistently prevailed on the
political leadership and subtly instilled fear amongst them that the
army needs to be kept down, lest it also follow what militaries in the
immediate neighbourhood and in the extended region have done, in
usurping power by force.
This is despite the unflinching loyalty the army has displayed in even
the most difficult circumstances. It is surprising that our political
leadership, which is so astute in politicking, nurturing vote banks
and diffusing highly volatile situations of all types, has been unable
to see through this game of the bureaucrats. Or is it that they
deliberately do not want to understand it?
The institutions, structures, ethos and working environment built
painstakingly and prevailing in the army, ensures that all ranks fully
understand their duties, obligations and power-equations in a
democracy like ours. In simple terms, it means that the nation has
nothing to fear from the army. The earlier it is understood by the
political leadership and all other instruments of the state, the
better.
The defence forces came under the purview of pay commissions with the
Third Pay Commission and since then every pay commission, loaded as it
was by the bureaucracy, has worked very hard to ensure that there is a
gradual decline in the pay, emoluments and the status of all military
personnel.
All requests by the hierarchy of the defence forces to set up separate
pay commissions for the military have been studiously ignored and at
the behest of the bureaucracy, even a representative of the defence
forces has not been permitted to form part of any of the pay
commissions. This, when nearly 40 per cent of the government servants
under the purview of the pay commission are defence forces personnel!
That the defence forces have tolerated this skewed arrangement speaks
on one side of the perseverance, patience and discipline of the
defence forces and, on the other, the utter insensitivity of the
political leadership to the only institution that works effectively in
our country. The Sixth Pay Commission has of course taken the cake for
their utterly callous approach to the guardians of the nation.
There is no need to emphasise what has already been stated regarding
the highly adverse effect the recommendations of the pay commission
will have on the intake of officers in the defence forces, except to
state that every middle level serving officer I have talked to has
either already put in his papers or is planning to do so shortly.
The disastrous implications need not be amplified when it is well
known that our fighting units are already functioning at 50 per cent
strength of officers. The PBOR, unfortunately, do not have the option
of leaving the service, because they will end up with no jobs,
considering the present situation in the country of gross unemployment
and under-employment. However, in the long run, the impact of the
recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission on the PBOR is bound to be
a fall in standards of the recruits who will be willing to serve for
the peanuts thrown at them by the Commission.
The government's response to the large-scale resentment has been the
usual ploy of forming a committee! First, a committee of three
bureaucrats was formed, but it was the Railway Minister, at whose
behest an enlarged Review Committee has now been formed, while the
Minister of Defence only repeated homilies and soothing words, as he
had done in the past!
Even the Review Committee has no representative from the defence
forces, while the railways, the postal department and sundry others
not so well known, have found a place for themselves. So, we are back
to square one. This committee will repeat, ad nauseum, what the
Commission has stated, perhaps in more flowery language, except for
some minimal tinkering that will satisfy no one in the defence forces.
A continuation of such inadequate and delaying tactics will slowly
destroy a first rate army, which has served the nation with sacrifices
and élan and has saved the nation umpteen times in these last 60
years. The political leadership is either unable or unwilling to
ameliorate the genuine demands of the defence forces.
Under the circumstances, it may be best to disband the army and let
the bureaucracy become 'pseudo soldiers' and look after the security
of the nation. In the bargain, they will be able to further improve
their cadre too! If the reader discerns a sense of cynicism, déjà vu
and desperation, it is indeed intended. Sudden death would any day be
a more satisfactory arrangement. The noble "profession of arms" is
being turned into a "profession of alms"!
force, has now reached the end of its tether, with the Sixth Pay
Commission's recommendations for the defence forces. The citizens of
our country have not really understood the magnitude of despair
amongst the rank and file of the army. There is great anger and a high
degree of frustration at every level, but particularly at the level of
the PBORs (personnel below officers' rank) and the junior and middle
level officers. Both constitute the 'cutting edge' of the defence
forces.
India has a hundred per cent volunteer army. Officers and men have
joined the army for a variety of reasons, the main ones being the
honour that comes by wearing the uniform; a desire to serve the nation
in the best way possible; family traditions; and of course, suitable
remunerations that are compatible with the highly turbulent conditions
of service.
Its ethos has been painfully nurtured by the hierarchy of the army for
the last 60 years, despite major provocations from many quarters,
especially the self-serving bureaucracy, which the country has to
unfortunately endure. The latter has consistently prevailed on the
political leadership and subtly instilled fear amongst them that the
army needs to be kept down, lest it also follow what militaries in the
immediate neighbourhood and in the extended region have done, in
usurping power by force.
This is despite the unflinching loyalty the army has displayed in even
the most difficult circumstances. It is surprising that our political
leadership, which is so astute in politicking, nurturing vote banks
and diffusing highly volatile situations of all types, has been unable
to see through this game of the bureaucrats. Or is it that they
deliberately do not want to understand it?
The institutions, structures, ethos and working environment built
painstakingly and prevailing in the army, ensures that all ranks fully
understand their duties, obligations and power-equations in a
democracy like ours. In simple terms, it means that the nation has
nothing to fear from the army. The earlier it is understood by the
political leadership and all other instruments of the state, the
better.
The defence forces came under the purview of pay commissions with the
Third Pay Commission and since then every pay commission, loaded as it
was by the bureaucracy, has worked very hard to ensure that there is a
gradual decline in the pay, emoluments and the status of all military
personnel.
All requests by the hierarchy of the defence forces to set up separate
pay commissions for the military have been studiously ignored and at
the behest of the bureaucracy, even a representative of the defence
forces has not been permitted to form part of any of the pay
commissions. This, when nearly 40 per cent of the government servants
under the purview of the pay commission are defence forces personnel!
That the defence forces have tolerated this skewed arrangement speaks
on one side of the perseverance, patience and discipline of the
defence forces and, on the other, the utter insensitivity of the
political leadership to the only institution that works effectively in
our country. The Sixth Pay Commission has of course taken the cake for
their utterly callous approach to the guardians of the nation.
There is no need to emphasise what has already been stated regarding
the highly adverse effect the recommendations of the pay commission
will have on the intake of officers in the defence forces, except to
state that every middle level serving officer I have talked to has
either already put in his papers or is planning to do so shortly.
The disastrous implications need not be amplified when it is well
known that our fighting units are already functioning at 50 per cent
strength of officers. The PBOR, unfortunately, do not have the option
of leaving the service, because they will end up with no jobs,
considering the present situation in the country of gross unemployment
and under-employment. However, in the long run, the impact of the
recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission on the PBOR is bound to be
a fall in standards of the recruits who will be willing to serve for
the peanuts thrown at them by the Commission.
The government's response to the large-scale resentment has been the
usual ploy of forming a committee! First, a committee of three
bureaucrats was formed, but it was the Railway Minister, at whose
behest an enlarged Review Committee has now been formed, while the
Minister of Defence only repeated homilies and soothing words, as he
had done in the past!
Even the Review Committee has no representative from the defence
forces, while the railways, the postal department and sundry others
not so well known, have found a place for themselves. So, we are back
to square one. This committee will repeat, ad nauseum, what the
Commission has stated, perhaps in more flowery language, except for
some minimal tinkering that will satisfy no one in the defence forces.
A continuation of such inadequate and delaying tactics will slowly
destroy a first rate army, which has served the nation with sacrifices
and élan and has saved the nation umpteen times in these last 60
years. The political leadership is either unable or unwilling to
ameliorate the genuine demands of the defence forces.
Under the circumstances, it may be best to disband the army and let
the bureaucracy become 'pseudo soldiers' and look after the security
of the nation. In the bargain, they will be able to further improve
their cadre too! If the reader discerns a sense of cynicism, déjà vu
and desperation, it is indeed intended. Sudden death would any day be
a more satisfactory arrangement. The noble "profession of arms" is
being turned into a "profession of alms"!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
DDA eyeing Navy submarine for museum
So what if the Capital is thousands of miles away from the sea? If the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has its way, Delhiites will soon have an added attraction on their must-see list in the form of a submarine. The Indian Navy has offered DDA one of the two Russian-made Foxtrot submarines it plans to decommission soon. The idea is to use the mammoth seacraft - 92 metres in length - to create a submarine museum which will be an educational and tourist attraction in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Having decided in principle to accept the Navy's offer, DDA is now working on the modalities of who would bear the cost of transporting the submarine from its present base in Vishakhapatnam. A DDA team recently visited the southern port town where the country's first submarine museum was set up by the development authority there. The museum today is a major tourist attraction and boasts of a decommissioned submarine. The idea is that instead of letting decommissioned submarines rot as scrap, it is better to use them for educational purposes.
DDA's director public relations Neemo Dhar told TOI that in principle DDA has decided to opt for the offer. "But first we want to work out the modalities of bringing the submarine to Delhi and the cost involved. Also the location where the craft will be placed too has to be finalised," Dhar said.
According to senior officials, DDA has carried out inspections of various green spaces under its purview like the Millennium Park, the Swarn Jayanti Park in Rohini and another location in Dwarka but as of now a large open space near the Delhi-Noida-Delhi flyover has emerged as a plausible option for setting up the mega museum. The location has another plus to its credit as it falls along the route of the yet to be built elevated road over the Barapulla drain, connecting the Games Village to the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium. If the submarine is located in the open space along this route then it will be visible to players who will use the stretch during the 2010 Games.
In the proposed museum, visitors will be introduced to the internal mechanisms of a submarine and it is likely that officials from the Navy will themselves be stationed there to impart technical information.
The Indian Navy acquired eight Foxtrot submarines between 1964 and 1974. Six of them have already been decommissioned. As of now the Navy has two of these sea crafts - INS Vela and INS Vagli - which are functional. One of these is likely to be decommissioned soon and would be the one to be handed over to the DDA for the museum. These submarines cost around Rs 75 crore and require a crew of 75, led by eight Naval officials.
The Indian Navy has 16 submarines as of now. These include 10 kilo class Russian submarines, four HDW submarines from Germany and two Foxtrot submarines.
Having decided in principle to accept the Navy's offer, DDA is now working on the modalities of who would bear the cost of transporting the submarine from its present base in Vishakhapatnam. A DDA team recently visited the southern port town where the country's first submarine museum was set up by the development authority there. The museum today is a major tourist attraction and boasts of a decommissioned submarine. The idea is that instead of letting decommissioned submarines rot as scrap, it is better to use them for educational purposes.
DDA's director public relations Neemo Dhar told TOI that in principle DDA has decided to opt for the offer. "But first we want to work out the modalities of bringing the submarine to Delhi and the cost involved. Also the location where the craft will be placed too has to be finalised," Dhar said.
According to senior officials, DDA has carried out inspections of various green spaces under its purview like the Millennium Park, the Swarn Jayanti Park in Rohini and another location in Dwarka but as of now a large open space near the Delhi-Noida-Delhi flyover has emerged as a plausible option for setting up the mega museum. The location has another plus to its credit as it falls along the route of the yet to be built elevated road over the Barapulla drain, connecting the Games Village to the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium. If the submarine is located in the open space along this route then it will be visible to players who will use the stretch during the 2010 Games.
In the proposed museum, visitors will be introduced to the internal mechanisms of a submarine and it is likely that officials from the Navy will themselves be stationed there to impart technical information.
The Indian Navy acquired eight Foxtrot submarines between 1964 and 1974. Six of them have already been decommissioned. As of now the Navy has two of these sea crafts - INS Vela and INS Vagli - which are functional. One of these is likely to be decommissioned soon and would be the one to be handed over to the DDA for the museum. These submarines cost around Rs 75 crore and require a crew of 75, led by eight Naval officials.
The Indian Navy has 16 submarines as of now. These include 10 kilo class Russian submarines, four HDW submarines from Germany and two Foxtrot submarines.
Armed forces: Too little, too late
Huge hikes for greenhorns will make the forces attractive but not enough to retain the flock. Half the army’s officer corps is still unhappy.
The armed forces hoped the Sixth Pay Commission would improve their attractiveness, increase their retainability and reduce the deficiency in the officer corps. These are three of the biggest problems the world’s second largest armed forces are grappling with and yet the report has addressed only the first problem.
A hike of over 60 per cent for young officers has somewhat levelled the playing field in the hunt for young talent and in reducing a shortage of nearly 12,000 young officers. However, a modest hike for mid-level officers like lt-colonels, colonels and brigadiers—from where the exodus is taking place—means nearly half the army’s officer corps feels left out.
A paltry pay hike for soldiers (they will get a military service pay of only Rs 1,000) is a reflection of how there is no shortage of aspirants for persons below officer rank. The new running pay band means the service chiefs, now treated on par with the cabinet secretary, will get huge pay hikes amounting to Rs 90,000 per month.
The commission has recommended a military service pay of Rs 6,000 per month for officers and lateral absorption of retired personnel of armed forces into the paramilitary forces (the armed forces retire their personnel earlier). However, the proposed pay hike will create fresh inequalities.
A young lieutenant now earning Rs 8,250 will receive Rs 25,760 or a pay hike of over 60 per cent. However, his commanding officer, a colonel with 19 years of service, will take home only Rs 44,140. The running pay band has also triggered angst because most of the armed forces’ personnel will continue to draw lower pay through their career. Almost all civil servants will reach the rank of joint secretary in 16-17 years service and remain in the higher pay band for a period of another 20 years. On the other hand, approximately 87 per cent of armed forces’ officers will never rise to the equivalent rank of major general.
The commission has recommended a significant improvement in terminal benefits—gratuity has been raised from Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. The underlying message to the armed forces is “come join us if you have it in you. Serve for 20 years and then go fend for yourselves”, says Major General Surjit Singh (retired).
The commission is silent on short service commissions, something critical for ensuring the army can fill in vacant slots and has shot down the one-rank-one pension scheme which figured in the UPA’s election manifesto and was meant to redress the imbalance between retired personnel. The forecast is that after the initial euphoria, old problems will return to haunt the armed forces
The armed forces hoped the Sixth Pay Commission would improve their attractiveness, increase their retainability and reduce the deficiency in the officer corps. These are three of the biggest problems the world’s second largest armed forces are grappling with and yet the report has addressed only the first problem.
A hike of over 60 per cent for young officers has somewhat levelled the playing field in the hunt for young talent and in reducing a shortage of nearly 12,000 young officers. However, a modest hike for mid-level officers like lt-colonels, colonels and brigadiers—from where the exodus is taking place—means nearly half the army’s officer corps feels left out.
A paltry pay hike for soldiers (they will get a military service pay of only Rs 1,000) is a reflection of how there is no shortage of aspirants for persons below officer rank. The new running pay band means the service chiefs, now treated on par with the cabinet secretary, will get huge pay hikes amounting to Rs 90,000 per month.
The commission has recommended a military service pay of Rs 6,000 per month for officers and lateral absorption of retired personnel of armed forces into the paramilitary forces (the armed forces retire their personnel earlier). However, the proposed pay hike will create fresh inequalities.
A young lieutenant now earning Rs 8,250 will receive Rs 25,760 or a pay hike of over 60 per cent. However, his commanding officer, a colonel with 19 years of service, will take home only Rs 44,140. The running pay band has also triggered angst because most of the armed forces’ personnel will continue to draw lower pay through their career. Almost all civil servants will reach the rank of joint secretary in 16-17 years service and remain in the higher pay band for a period of another 20 years. On the other hand, approximately 87 per cent of armed forces’ officers will never rise to the equivalent rank of major general.
The commission has recommended a significant improvement in terminal benefits—gratuity has been raised from Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. The underlying message to the armed forces is “come join us if you have it in you. Serve for 20 years and then go fend for yourselves”, says Major General Surjit Singh (retired).
The commission is silent on short service commissions, something critical for ensuring the army can fill in vacant slots and has shot down the one-rank-one pension scheme which figured in the UPA’s election manifesto and was meant to redress the imbalance between retired personnel. The forecast is that after the initial euphoria, old problems will return to haunt the armed forces
Friday, April 11, 2008
to the editor
Dear Editor,
1. This in reference to the article carried in your newspaper, New Delhi
Edition, 30 Mar 2008 : Cost to Govt 4 Times the salary on paper. (Article
attached).
2. I think the article is totally misleading and will spread
misinformation amongst the masses! How has Ashish Sinha and XLRI Jamshedpur
arrived at the conclusion that Cost to Government (CTG) of Armed Forces
officers is 4.5 times of the salary is baffling. The conclusion is
scandalous, blasphemous and in poor taste! Ironically, these are the same
arguments which have been presented in the VI Pay Commission report while
fixing the salaries of defence Forces officers. Let me decimate these so
called 'intangibles' given by Ashish Sinha and possibly XLRI Jamshedpur in
support of this conclusion one by one.
3. Housing : Where are these 'sprawling bungalows' in which the defence
officers are supposedly living. Being an Army Wife of an officer who has
had an unblemished 31 years career in the Army so far and who has not done
so badly, I have never ever lived in any of these sprawling bungalows. We
have been always been allotted dilapidated flats, crumbling at the seams
and the houses and the colonies represent Bombay Chawls. Mostly even this
sub standard accommodation is not available and one has to make do with
temporary arrangements ranging from a single room in a crumbling British
era building, to a lower class of accommodation till one finally gets the
authorised accommodation (Mind you it is 1500 square feet and not 3500
square feet as stated by the VI pay commission in its report). If one gets
authorised scale of accommodation at all before one gets posted out. All
this in the same station involving two to three shiftings in a two years
tenure. The houses are poorly constructed to begin with and are maintained
by an organisation called MES (Has XLRI interacted with MES??). The icing
on the cake is provided by MES by simultaneously charging rent for all the
accommodations (once occupied by you in this shifting process). It is often
very late that one realises that one is supposedly occupying so many
accommodations simultaneously on paper and being charged for them!!! The
sorting out process which involves another such organisation as the MES,
gives one a real taste of the bureaucratic process!!! So much for the
sprawling bungalows!!!!
4. CSD : What is available in the CSD and how much of these items does
one buy monthly? The total items purchased per month do not cost more than
Rs 600/- to 700/- and the saving accrued is not more than Rs 200/- per
month i.e. if one discounts the effort involved to get to the CSD (i.e.
when it is open) provided the required item is available and finally the
quality is good and competitive brands and contemporary brands are
available. With the retail revolution now taking place in the country, most
of the times better stuff is available in the market at lesser or same
rates and then these can be bought at 11.00 p.m at night!! In my entire
life as an army wife (25 years), I do not think we have saved more than Rs
70,000/- by buying things from CSD. This includes purchase of a car!!! So
much for CSD contributing to 4.5 times CTG!!!
5. House Building Advance : Please tell XLRI Jamshedpur and Ashish Sinha
to publish factual details of total housing loans taken by Army Officers
from private banks (HDFC, ICICI) vis-à-vis the government loan. The
details will be eye opening!! Haat kangan ko arsi kya, parhe likhe ko
pharsi kya!!! Had these Govt loans been so easily available and so
lucrative, 90% loans would not be taken by officers from private banks!!!
6. 90 Days Leave : You need leave when you serve away from families. Let
Ashish Sinha do a stint in a field area and probably then he'll start
campaigning for even more leave for soldiers. Secondly, which soldier gets
full quota of leave? Lastly, do not private companies give all expenses
paid holidays to their employees? Any such parallel in a govt job?
7. Travel Passes : Need for travel arises only because one serves away
from home. Even then, the annual saving on account of subsidised travel by
any average army family (including travel not necessitated by service
conditions and for personal purposes alone) cannot exceed Rs 4-5 K
annually. Mind you, this figure too is on the higher side!!
8. I guess it has become rather fashionable to talk about the abnormal
privileges being enjoyed by defence services. Some other so called perks
have not been touched upon in your article hence I need not elaborate on
those and make efforts to decimate them too. But I assure you that they too
are all a fallacy and are easily torn to shreds.
9. Finally, I have one suggestion to make to the powers that be and to
those who are responsible for perpetrating this fallacy that an army
officer's CTG is 4.5 times his salary – please withdraw all such
intangibles {CSD, govt houses (ramshackles), free rations, form D and
warrants, 50% air travel concession (who travels and when??) orderlies etc
etc!!} and pay us 4.5 times of what has been proposed by the VI pay
commission!!! Acceptable? I am sure I am voicing the opinion of bulk of the
middle rung officers of the Army!
10. Please do publish our sheer disappointment with your esteemed
newspaper for carrying such blasphemous articles!!
11. JAI HIND!!
1. This in reference to the article carried in your newspaper, New Delhi
Edition, 30 Mar 2008 : Cost to Govt 4 Times the salary on paper. (Article
attached).
2. I think the article is totally misleading and will spread
misinformation amongst the masses! How has Ashish Sinha and XLRI Jamshedpur
arrived at the conclusion that Cost to Government (CTG) of Armed Forces
officers is 4.5 times of the salary is baffling. The conclusion is
scandalous, blasphemous and in poor taste! Ironically, these are the same
arguments which have been presented in the VI Pay Commission report while
fixing the salaries of defence Forces officers. Let me decimate these so
called 'intangibles' given by Ashish Sinha and possibly XLRI Jamshedpur in
support of this conclusion one by one.
3. Housing : Where are these 'sprawling bungalows' in which the defence
officers are supposedly living. Being an Army Wife of an officer who has
had an unblemished 31 years career in the Army so far and who has not done
so badly, I have never ever lived in any of these sprawling bungalows. We
have been always been allotted dilapidated flats, crumbling at the seams
and the houses and the colonies represent Bombay Chawls. Mostly even this
sub standard accommodation is not available and one has to make do with
temporary arrangements ranging from a single room in a crumbling British
era building, to a lower class of accommodation till one finally gets the
authorised accommodation (Mind you it is 1500 square feet and not 3500
square feet as stated by the VI pay commission in its report). If one gets
authorised scale of accommodation at all before one gets posted out. All
this in the same station involving two to three shiftings in a two years
tenure. The houses are poorly constructed to begin with and are maintained
by an organisation called MES (Has XLRI interacted with MES??). The icing
on the cake is provided by MES by simultaneously charging rent for all the
accommodations (once occupied by you in this shifting process). It is often
very late that one realises that one is supposedly occupying so many
accommodations simultaneously on paper and being charged for them!!! The
sorting out process which involves another such organisation as the MES,
gives one a real taste of the bureaucratic process!!! So much for the
sprawling bungalows!!!!
4. CSD : What is available in the CSD and how much of these items does
one buy monthly? The total items purchased per month do not cost more than
Rs 600/- to 700/- and the saving accrued is not more than Rs 200/- per
month i.e. if one discounts the effort involved to get to the CSD (i.e.
when it is open) provided the required item is available and finally the
quality is good and competitive brands and contemporary brands are
available. With the retail revolution now taking place in the country, most
of the times better stuff is available in the market at lesser or same
rates and then these can be bought at 11.00 p.m at night!! In my entire
life as an army wife (25 years), I do not think we have saved more than Rs
70,000/- by buying things from CSD. This includes purchase of a car!!! So
much for CSD contributing to 4.5 times CTG!!!
5. House Building Advance : Please tell XLRI Jamshedpur and Ashish Sinha
to publish factual details of total housing loans taken by Army Officers
from private banks (HDFC, ICICI) vis-à-vis the government loan. The
details will be eye opening!! Haat kangan ko arsi kya, parhe likhe ko
pharsi kya!!! Had these Govt loans been so easily available and so
lucrative, 90% loans would not be taken by officers from private banks!!!
6. 90 Days Leave : You need leave when you serve away from families. Let
Ashish Sinha do a stint in a field area and probably then he'll start
campaigning for even more leave for soldiers. Secondly, which soldier gets
full quota of leave? Lastly, do not private companies give all expenses
paid holidays to their employees? Any such parallel in a govt job?
7. Travel Passes : Need for travel arises only because one serves away
from home. Even then, the annual saving on account of subsidised travel by
any average army family (including travel not necessitated by service
conditions and for personal purposes alone) cannot exceed Rs 4-5 K
annually. Mind you, this figure too is on the higher side!!
8. I guess it has become rather fashionable to talk about the abnormal
privileges being enjoyed by defence services. Some other so called perks
have not been touched upon in your article hence I need not elaborate on
those and make efforts to decimate them too. But I assure you that they too
are all a fallacy and are easily torn to shreds.
9. Finally, I have one suggestion to make to the powers that be and to
those who are responsible for perpetrating this fallacy that an army
officer's CTG is 4.5 times his salary – please withdraw all such
intangibles {CSD, govt houses (ramshackles), free rations, form D and
warrants, 50% air travel concession (who travels and when??) orderlies etc
etc!!} and pay us 4.5 times of what has been proposed by the VI pay
commission!!! Acceptable? I am sure I am voicing the opinion of bulk of the
middle rung officers of the Army!
10. Please do publish our sheer disappointment with your esteemed
newspaper for carrying such blasphemous articles!!
11. JAI HIND!!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
RUN SILENT RUN DEEP
The Evolution of the Submarine
The submarine came into its own during World War I, it’s devastating lethality and near-invincibility reinforced during and after World War II, and its nuclear propulsion and teeth giving it virtually limitless range and calamitous destructive power during the post-World War II years. However, it made a fairly late entry into India's naval fleet, possibly because the submarine was earlier considered an 'offensive' weapon platform and hence could not have a place in the arsenal of a country that had pledged to abide by the principles of peace.
Since the capability to operate in the third element - me subsurface -has now been added to the Indian Navy's repertoire, it is essential that the evolution of the submarine from its tentative conceptual state in the 16tR: century to its present day status of being the prime dealer of destruction at sea, as well as the significant role it played in shaping the ends of the two World Wars, be studied in detail before apprising oneself of the process of establishment of the submarine arm in the Indian Navy. This chapter provides a brief resume of such developments around the globe.
While addressing the men of the Royal Navy's Submarine Service during World War II, Winston Churchill had said; 'Of all the branches of men in the Forces, there is none that shows more devotion and faces greater perils than the submariner . . . great deeds are done in the air and on the land, nevertheless nothing surpasses your exploits.' Indeed, nothing can transcend the tour de force that the submarine has displayed and the impact of the revolutionary changes in the concept; both strategic arid tactical, of the war at sea brought about by its invention. Besides, its use for opera-ions against a wide variety of targets during the last century have been far greater than that of the supersession of the oared galley by the sailing galleon, the sailing ship of the line by the steam ironclad, the battleship by the carrier-borne and shore-based maritime aircraft, and the diesel-electric propulsion systems of submarines, by the nuclear power plant.
Adoption of new techniques, technology, strategy or tactics, weaponry and weapon platforms generally require a fairly long lead time because their potential and advantages over the existing techniques, tactics, etc, have to be convincingly established before they are introduced in any Service. Oared galleys continued to be constructed for England's Navy for several years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada; even thirty years after the first battleship had been fitted with engines, steam ironclads continued to be equipped with sails, and when World War II was coming to an end in 1945, the British Admiralty was still working on a new design for a 16-inch gun turret. For similar reasons, despite the developments in submarine technology in Europe and America concurrently with those in Great Britain, the Royal Navy woke up to the danger posed by submarines only after the outbreak of World War I when the armored cruisers, Cressy, Hoque and Aboukir, were sunk by one small German U-boat as a result of which the Grand Fleet's method of cruising the sea had to be drastically altered. J& fact, until the time they learnt their lessons the hard way, the British had been doing their best to discourage the development of submarines because they still believed that they, with their huge surface navy, had nothing to gain and much to lose by their development. As a result of the adoption of this attitude, the design of the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be purchased from America for construction in Britain and, what is even more surprising, this class of submarines were built not to supplement the British war effort but only to enable the British designers to find an antidote to them! It is significant to note that until October 1, 1901, when the Royal Navy's Submarine Service came into being with the launching of Submarine No, 1(129 tons), the popular view in Britain, which has a seafaring history spanning several millennia, was that submarines were 'underhand, unfair and damned un-English'.
This is of course not surprising as there is no profession so wedded to tradition as the military. During World War I the machine gun had been scorned as the 'much-overrated weapon'; the tank was thought of as a 'toy'; Marshal Joffre had refused to have a telephone installed in his office; poison gas was reluctantly adopted by the British after its use by the Germans was classified as a mere 'accessory'; the trench mortar was projected twice by the British War Office and was finally accepted after a cabinet minister secured the funds for it from an Indian maharaja; British subalterns got 'their swords sharpened before crossing to France; and as late as 1918 ‘Pershing had cluttered up his supply lines with mountains of fodder for useless horses, still dreaming of Custer and Sheridan and the glint of Virginia moonlight on the shirting saddles of Stuart's cavalry.’
Early History
There are occasional references in ancient history to the attempts made by man to seek stealth and surprise by operating from submerged or semi- submerged vessels during wars at sea. The very early protagonists of the submarine were not so much inspired by the desire to descend below the surface of the sea to explore the depths of the sea as to devise a method of rendering a warship invisible to the enemy so that it could carry out surreptitious attacks and escape at will.
The earliest reference to attempts made at waging underwater warfare is found in the writings of Aristotle who recorded that Alexander the Great used diving bells to enable his men to descend below the surface of the sea during the siege of Tyre in 332 B.C. He also ordered his divers to impede or destroy the defensive barriers still in use and known as boom defenses) the city was likely to build to prevent the movement of submerged vessels. In fact, according to legend, Alexander himself made a descent into the sea in a device which kept its occupants dry and admitted light-However it is believed that nearly a century earlier than Alexander's experiments; the Athenians had used divers to clear the entrance to the Syracuse harbour during its siege from 415 to 413 B.C.
Over the following two millennia the potential and the tactical advantages of operating below the surface of the sea continued to be appreciated by many military thinkers and several attempts were made during this period to develop an underwater platform that could be used against enemy shipping and war vessels far more effectively than surface ships, both for offensive and defensive operations. In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, is said to have designed a vessel which could dive, remain submerged for some time and surface unaided end could surreptitiously plant bombs or mines on enemy vessels, but the design of this submarine was kept secret because da Vinci he felt that man would misuse it- 'He knew a method of remaining a long time underwater, but he refused to tell of it because of the "evil nature of man”.
The Submersible Takes Shape
Experiments in diving and moving underwater continued but the first recorded mention of a submarine design conforming to the basic principles of submersion is found in the writings of a British naval officer, William Bourne, who published a detailed design of a 'boat that may go under the water' in 1578. The vessel was a completely enclosed boat which could be submerged by reducing its volume by contracting the sides through the use of hand vices, which could bring the boat back to the surface by increasing the volume. This vessel could also move underwater by using watertight oars. This realistic design provided for both submersibility and propulsion underwater but was never built.
Twenty-seven years later, in 1605, using a design similar to Bourne's, Magnus Pegelius constructed a submersible boat but due to the viscosity and adhesive properties of underwater mud the craft never surfaced after diving.
In 1620, a Dutch physician, Cornelius van Drebel, built a submarine and successfully conducted trials in the Thames River, making the craft cruise repeatedly on the surface, dive, maneuver underwater and then surface for several hours at a stretch. He later built two more craft, embodying the same principles, but larger in size. Van Drebel’s craft had an outer hull made of greased leather stretched over a wooden framework. Propulsion was provided, both on the surface and while submerged, by oars which extended through the sides and which were sealed and rendered watertight with tight-fitting leather flaps which allowed free transverse movement while anchoring the oars to the hull. The underwater endurance of the submarine crew was sought to be enhanced by using compressed oxygen to 'restore to the troubled air such portion of vital parts as would make it again, for a good while, fit for respiration/After repeated trials in the Thames river had established the capabilities of the new 'boat' in travelling on the surface and maneuvering underwater at depths of 12 to 15 feet, King James I is reported to have taken a trip in one of the larger models to demonstrate its safety. But despite the conclusive proof of the designers having evolved a powerful two-dimension weapon platform, the novel features of the submarine failed to arouse the interest of the British Navy.
The wars in the 17th century in Europe, however, Jed to a proliferation of submarine designs some of which were the work of men from professions other than those associated with the navy or seafaring; in fact some of the designers were men of peace, i.e., priests and monks! One such designer was Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law, John Wilkins, Bishop of London. His device for jettisoning gash through an underwater lock while remaining submerged led to the development of underwater lavatories in the latter-day submarines which obviated the need for the submarine to surface repeatedly. He also wrote on future naval developments and centuries later many of his predictions turned out to be true; such as his prediction of journeys by submarines under the Polar ice-cap, an idea which was dismissed as science fantasy In the 17th century.
By the middle of the 17th century, many naval architects had conceptualized and experimented with possible submersible weapon platforms. In 1653, a Frenchman, de Son, designed and built a 72-foot submarine 'that doeth undertake in one day to sink 100 ships' but his submarine never sailed, as its prime mover, a clockwork device, was not powerful enough to propel it on the surface or underwater.
The earlier decades of the 18th century saw numerous 'underwater boats' built, the British designers alone having patented no fewer than fourteen types by 1727. The concept of using a ballast tank for submerging and diving was first visualized by an inventor who described his design in the Gentleman's Magazine ml747. The hull of his craft was equipped with a bank of goatskins which would be filled with water to make the vessel submerge and a 'twisting rod' would be used to force the water out of the goatskins which would provide positive buoyancy and bring the Vessel back to the surface. This craft, however, was never built. At this time the mechanical and physical principles involved in diving and surfacing were yet to be fully understood and hence many of the ideas put forward turned out to be impractical, fanciful or, in some cases, even grotesque. Besides the lack of understanding of the principles, the general impression at this time was that it would be impossible to navigate a craft underwater and even if it became possible, its tactical advantages in naval warfare would be minimal.
The First Submarine, Bushnell's Turtle
However, developments of a submersible craft with weapon delivery capability received a shot in the arm in 1776 when the first submarine that could dive, surface, cruise -both on the surface and underwater-and plant explosives on enemy vessels while remaining submerged, made a dramatic appearance during the American War of Independence. David Bushnell, an American farmer's son, had developed the technique of exploding gunpowder underwater and had followed it up with the invention of the first one-man submersible that was to be used as a weapon platform, the Turtle. Shaped like a wooden beer-barrel, it was powered by a hand-operated screw propeller which could move it at a speed of three knots. It could stay submerged for 30 minutes during which it had to approach its target underwater, plant an explosive on its hull and get away.
It was on September 6, 1776, 29 years before the Battle of Trafalgar, that Ezra Lee, a sergeant in the American Revolutionary Army and the first submariner to launch an underwater operation against enemy vessels, undertook to scuttle Eagle, the Flagship of the British Fleet which was blockading New York Harbour, by planting a powerful explosive on its hull. He set off on his historic mission all by himself on board the Turtle and, operating the handle of the screw-propeller hard for several hours, reached the Eagle and dived. The Turtle then got under the hull of the Flagship and Lee tried to bore a screw device into the Eagle's hull for securing the explosive device to it. Later, a pre-set clockwork mechanism would trigger the explosive device. Unfortunately for Lee, the wooden hull of the Flagship had a sheathing of copper for reinforcement and prevention of the formation of any marine growth. Despite repeated attempts, Lee failed to penetrate the hull. He persisted with his efforts to plant the device, but soon the effects of carbon dioxide poisoning overwhelmed him. He then withdrew, surfaced and set course for shore but was spotted and pursued by a British patrol-beat. Lee jettisoned the explosive cargo and it went off, almost blowing the patrol-boat out of the water.
The Commander of the British Fleet soon realised that his Flagship had had a narrow escape and ordered the blockading ships of his fleet to withdraw to the outer harbour, where they were comparatively safer, but the effectiveness of the blockade was considerably reduced. Thus while the first sub-surface attack in. the history of submarines had proved to be abortive, it brought home one lesson which holds good even today- that the mere presence of a submarine lurking below the surface can upset the plans of a tactical commander over a large area far more than the sinking of a ship. In other words, the fear of the unknown and the element of surprise area greater deterrent at sea than an actual attack. Submarine warfare thus became a reality, even though the first ever submarine attack had failed to cause any physical damage.
Fulton's Nautilus
Robert Fulton, the American inventor who was the first to propel a boat by steam in 1803, and the first to build a steam warship, the Fulton, in 1815, is better remembered for having constructed a three-man submarine boat, the Nautilus, in 1795. Incorporating nearly all the main features of a modem submarine and shaped like one, the Nautilus, which was built of steel and shaped like an elongated oval, was powered by sails on the surface and by a hand-driven screw-propeller under water. Since the periscope was yet to be invented, a primitive form or a conning tower, equipped with a watertight port hole was provided and was used for observation and maneuvering the craft underwater. It was also equipped with ballast tanks for diving and surfacing, as modern submarines are, and had a submerged endurance of three hours for four men to breathe and two candles to bum! Like the Turtle, it had a device which could attach explosives to the hull of a ship while remaining underwater. During its trials at Brest, the Nautilus had also proved its capabilities by sinking an old schooner.
Since the war was over, the American naval authorities showed little interest in Fulton's submarine design, compelling him to build the Nautilus at Paris. He offered it to the authorities to deploy it off the French coast against British warships but it failed to sink or damage any ship.
Disappointed, Fulton then approached the British authorities and demonstrated the capability of his submarine craft by sinking a ship in 1804. The Prime Minister, William Pitt, was so impressed by the submarines performance that he asked the Admiralty to acquire the craft. His request was, however, dismissed by the First Sea Lord (then Earl St. Vincent) with the rather intemperate remark, 'Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which those who command the sea do not want and, if successful, will deprive them of it/
For about 60 years after the disappearance of the Nautilus, inventors continued to test various designs of small, hand-propelled submersibles with a crew of six to eight men. None of these was, however, an improvement on Fulton's craft, and hence no progress towards further development of submersibles was discernible. However, during the American Civil War the next nautical milestone in submarine development was recorded, with the sinking of a warship by a submarine, when a Federal corvette, the Housatonic, which v/as blockading Charleston harbour, was scuttled by the Confederate submersible David (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the name of the submersible was Hartley) in 1864. An explosive pack, suspended ahead of the bow of the David from a bowsprit, accomplished the feat when the submersible rammed the corvette. However, when the Housatonic was salvaged, the mangled wreck of the David was found sandwiched between the corvette's hull and the seabed. Because of the submersible's proximity to the Housatonic, the explosive had proved to be as much of a danger to the attacker as to its target. The Housatonic thus had the dubious honour of being the first surface vessel to be sunk by a submarine (and the first surface vessel to have crushed a submarine in an unintended Kamikaze attack).
Progress in submarine development continued to be bedeviled by the absence of a suitable propulsion device to enable the submarine to operate underwater for long periods, and an explosive which, rather than being planted, could be launched or fired by the submarine from a safe distance.
Steam and Electric Propulsion
Steam engines, though bulky and messy, were tried for some time for the propulsion of submersibles and in 1880, George Garret, an English clergyman, built a submarine which was propelled by two propellers driven by steam from a coal-fired boiler, which featured a retractable smokestack for ventilation. About this time, a Swedish gun designer, Norden felt, also constructed a submarine powered by steam. This submarine was capable of submerging to a depth of 50 feet, had an underwater endurance of 20 miles and was the first submersible to be fitted with a practical torpedo tube. The novelty of the new weapon-launching device appealed to the Turks and Russians, who acquired some of these craft but, because of their limitations, could not achieve anything worthwhile.
Experiments with the still new form of energy, electricity, had in the mean time proved successful, and storage batteries with several hours of endurance had been developed for the propulsion of submarines with electric motors. In 1886 two Englishmen, Campbell and Ash, developed an all-electric submarine which was powered by two 50-horse-power motors operated from a 100-cell storage battery. It was capable of maintaining a surface speed of six knots but the storage capacity of its battery being very low, its effective range was limited to only 80 miles.
The endurance of the storage battery for submarines was considerably improved by a Frenchman, Claude Gombat who, between 1888 and 1890, built some small battery-powered submarines which were acquired and used by the French Navy for about 10 years. These submarines were about 160 feet long, had a maximum speed of 13.5 knots and an effective range of 200 miles.
The 'Holland Type' Submarine -Ballast Tanks and Hydroplanes
Meanwhile John P. Holland of New Jersey, an ex-Irish school teacher who had migrated to the USA and who was to virtually become the creator of the Royal Navy's submarine service, had launched his first submersible in 1875. In 1882 he constructed the Fenian Ram which was tested on the Hudson River, and which was propelled by gasoline engines en the surface and electric motors underwater. These submersibles had several features which had to be discarded later, but some of Holland's innovations, perfected during the following years, have been incorporated in the latter-day submarine design. Of these, the most important are the use of ballast tanks for submerging and surfacing, and horizontal rudders or hydroplanes for maneuvering the craft in the vertical plane for depth control.
For some years Holland and Nordenfelt were vying with each other for an order from the United States Government for building a submarine and it finally went to the former in 1895. The vessel that was designed, the Plunger, was to be powered by a coal-fired steam engine on the surface, and battery-operated twin motors under water. Numerous designing defects came to light during construction and the craft was eventually abandoned. A new model, Holland's ninth, was built in his shipyard and delivered to the United States Government in 1900 and was used as the basic design for all the submarines that were built subsequently. This submarine, which was launched in 1897 and which was tested for three years before delivery, was named the Holland.
A contemporary of Holland, Max Lanbeuf of France, also built a submarine, Nerval, which was similar in construction to Holland's submarines and it was also powered by a coal-fired steam engine but, instead of tanks, it used the space enclosed in its double hull for ballast.
Internal Combustion Engine
The submarines of Holland and Lanbeuf were the prototypes for submarines built for several decades thereafter and they had almost all the essential features of modern day conventional submarine -ballast tanks, internal combustion engines for surface propulsion at nine knots and for charging batteries whilst on the surface and electric motors for underwater propulsion at seven knots; Us effective operational range was an impressive 1,000 miles. However, the internal combustion engines used at that time were gasoline engines which were a fire hazard because they gave off highly noxious and inflammable gasoline fumes, and, later were replaced by diesel engines developed by the German engineer, Rudolph Diesel, during the last decade of the 19th century.
Another submarine designer, Simon Lake, had built a submarine, the Argonaut Junior, in 1894 which was primarily meant for use in such peacetime operations as the exploration and exploitation of the living and mineral wealth below the surface of the sea and under the seabed, and for commercial salvage operations. The submersible was made of two layers of yellow pine with a sheet of canvas between them to render it impervious to water. This submarine could move about on the seabed and had an air-lock device which permitted its crew, using diving helmets, to emerge from the submarine and explore the surroundings.
In 1897, Lake built his second submarine, the Argonaut, which was powered by a 30-horse-power gasoline engine, had a 36-foot cigar-shaped hull and could submerge to the bed of a river or the bottom of a lake and move along the bed on three wheels which could be retracted and housed in the keel when the submersible was navigated. A year later, i.e., in November 1898, the Argonaut had the honour of being the first submarine to cross the Atlantic when she sailed from Norfolk and, despite heavy storms encountered on the way, reached New York.
Another submarine, the Protector, was built by Lake in 1906 and sold to Russia. After it was tested and accepted in Russia, he built several more, submersibles for the Russian Government.
The French Submarine -The Gustav Zede
Claude Gombat, a Frenchman, built some small but effective submarines between 1888 and 1890. One of these, the Gustav Zede, which was in service with the French Navy for over ten years, had a hull 160 feet long, was powered by storage batteries and had a range of 200 miles at a cruising speed of six knots and a maximum speed of 13.5 knots.
In 1901, this submarine, while taking part in exercises, staged a mock attack on the French Mediterranean Fleet after travelling 160 miles under her own power. While remaining totally undetected, the submarine hit the battleship Charles Martel, the pride of the French Navy, with a dummy torpedo. The successful 'sinking' of a fully protected battleship by a tiny submarine which could approach its target, deliver a lethal blow and escape without being detected, was a watershed in the history of submarines and was an object lesson to the naval planners of all major countries, in the changes that were going to be wrought into the future shape of sea power.
By the end of the 19th century, only six navies in the world had acquired a total of 10 submarines and eleven more were being built. Leading the submarine-owning countries was France, which had a total of 14, built or building, followed way behind by the United States which had only two, one of these two being of the Holland-type which was at that time reckoned to be the best design in the world. The other countries which had acquired submarines were Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey which had one craft each. Britain, which had one of the mightiest navies at that time, was yet to acquire one because of active and continued discouragement from the British Admiralty.
The 1901 success of the French submarine, Gustav Zede, however, came as a rude shock and an eye-opener to the mandarins of the Admiralty, and so it overruled the policy of the First Sea Lord, Earl St. Vincent, and promptly ordered five submarines of the Holland type of the US Navy -not for using them against enemy warships or for coastal defense- but for intensive research into antisubmarine measures! The first submarine built for the Royal Navy, Submarine No. 1 (with only one torpedo cube) was thus launched on October 2, 1901 and the submarine service of the Royal Navy was born.
Submarines for the British Navy -Acute Submarine-Phobia
The policy of active discouragement against submarine development had prevailed in the British Admiralty for about a century. Hence there had been practically no research in submarine development in England during the 19th century. As a consequence the design for the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be acquired from the USA. In trying to perpetuate this bias, even as this submarine was being commissioned, the Admiralty had decided to curtail the formalities associated with the commissioning of the new vessel to the minimum. To quote an official notice reproduced in the journal Naval and Military Record of October 3, 1901, the day after the launching: It is understood that no ceremony will take place at the forthcoming launch of the first British submarine at Barrow-in-Furness. The Admiralty regard these boats as wholly in the nature of an experiment and, like all other experiments conducted from time to time, this one will be carried out with all privacy.
Despite the official stance against the development of the underwater craft, shipbuilders in Britain had actually started building submarines as early as in 1885 - full sixteen years before the construction of the first submarine for the Royal Navy. In that year work had commenced on me construction of an experimental submarine at the Barrow- in-Furness shipyard. This submarine, which had a 100-foot hull, had been built in sections by 1886, sold to the Turkish Government, shipped out to that country, and assembled there for the Turkish Navy. Soon, another submarine, 123 feet long, was built at Barrow and sold to the Imperial Russian Navy. It is interesting to note that 'underhand, unfair and un-English' warfare wasn't acceptable to Britain but others could indulge in it so long as it yielded lucre for her!
After building five Holland-type submarines, Britain built the first A-class submarine (with one torpedo tube) in 1902, B-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1905, C-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1906, D-class (with three torpedo tubes, one tube being in the stern, and a 12-pounder gun) in 1908, and E-class (with five torpedo tubes, and one six-pounder or four-inch gun) in 1913. The B-class was the first to be fitted with surface weapons, and the D-class was the first to be equipped with a diesel engine and stern torpedo tube -all earlier classes having used gasoline engines for propulsion, and being fitted with forward torpedo tubes.
The submarine-phobia and surface-vessel mania of the British Admiralty, even after submarines had begun to the built for the Royal Navy, is evident from what Captain Hugh Oliphant, who was the Commanding Officer of Dolphin, the Royal Navy's submarine training establishment, and Captain, First Submarine Squadron some years ago, said about the prevailing ambience at that time: 'One serving British Admiral was at that moment publicly demanding that submarine crews (captured) in war should be treated as pirates and hung; the Director of Naval Construction was warning non-expendable senior officers "never to go below water", and the Engineer-in-Chief considered that the running of a petrol engine in a confined space was so dangerous that the first submarine moorings in Portsmouth were among the remote quarantine and powder hulks’. The first submarine 'depot ship' and training school was thus given the not inappropriate name of Hazard’.
By now, even in the Royal Navy, some of the senior officers had realized the potential of the submarine and were quite vociferous in demanding a change in the naval policy. In 1904, Admiral Lord Jacky Fisher wrote prophetically:
It is astounding to me, perfectly astounding, how the very best amongst us absolutely fail to realize the vast impending revolution in naval warfare and naval strategy that the submarine will accomplish!'
Here, just to take a simple instance, with the battleship Empress of India, engaged in maneuvers and knowing the proximity of submarines, so self-confident of safety and so oblivious of the possibilities of modern warfare.. . and suddenly they see a Whitehead torpedo miss her stern by a few feet!
And how fired? From a submarine of the 'pre-Adamite' period; small, slow, badly fitted, with no periscope at all.
. . . . I have not disguised my opinion in season and out of season as to the essential, imperative, immediate, vital pressing, urgent (I can't think of any more adjectives) necessity for more submarines at once, at the very least 25 in addition to those now ordered and building and 100 more as soon as practical, or we shall be caught with our breeches down....
The turn of the century was thus a watershed in the history of submarines, for the fundamental principles of the construction and operation of submersibles had taken, concrete shape and been demonstrated to the world by this time. It continues to be valid even today. Internal combustion engines, both gasoline and diesel, had proved to be the most efficient and practical power plants; electric propulsion, as an alternative or in tandem with diesel or gasoline engines, had proved a success; the invention of the periscope had increased the feasibility of underwater navigation and improved the potential of the submarine for surveillance and for carrying out attacks while remaining submerged; and the torpedo, the primary weapon of the submarine, had been perfected and had proved its deadly capability. The manually propelled and operated one-man submersibles had been replaced by the larger and more versatile, long-range and long-endurance submarine. These would soon become a major component of naval strategy, both for offence and defense. Anew chapter had begun in the history of naval warfare.
Special Features of Submarines Developed
Some of the features peculiar to these submarines were the all-welded hull, the periscope, the schnorkel or the snort, the diesel-electric propulsion system and the revolutionary weapon - the torpedo.
Below the superstructure deck was the hull which had to withstand the tremendous pressure of sea water while submerged, and to maintain its watertight integrity under varying pressure conditions. The shape of the vessel had evolved from Bushnell's spherical Turtle to the cylindrical Holland genre over a period of 125 years, the latter being constructed on the basis of the fabrication of a series of watertight containers by means of watertight joints. In the double-hull type of submarines, the pressure hull was inside the outer hull and between these hulls were the water and fuel oil tanks.
The space between the non watertight superstructure deck and the pressure hull was used as locker space for stowing anchor gear, lines, ammunition for the submarine guns, boats and other equipment that did not get damaged by immersion in Water. Extending upwards through the superstructure amidships was a watertight tower known as the conning tower, the top of which was the bridge from where the vessel was controlled when on the surface. But when submerged, it was controlled from the conning tower or from a compartment directly below it, known as the control room. For making observations while totally submerged, periscopes extending above the bridge were operated from the conning tower.
Evolution of the Torpedo
The submarine is essentially a torpedo vessel, launching Its torpedoes while surfaced or submerged, and hence it has basically evolved over the years as a torpedo-launching platform, though today its weapon outfit includes missiles. The torpedo too has been developed into a highly complicated underwater projectile with a heavy explosive charge. It is detonated by an exploding mechanism when in contact with, or in proximity to, the hulls of target vessels. Today, high-power engines drive it at high speed and sophisticated instruments control its course. Torpedoes are fired by, or launched by, surface vessels, aircraft or submarines. Its capability of being launched, approaching the target and striking with little or no warning makes it particularly useful to submarines, which can frequently carry out an attack and escape without being detected.
The word torpedo is derived from the word Torpedinidae, the family name for the fish called electric rays. These fish and electric eels have been referred to as torpedoes. The term torpedo was first applied to an explosive device around 1800 and, in its various experimental forms, this name was used for the next 65 years or so for a type of floating mine.
The first to use an explosive device of this category was David Bushnell in 1776. His was a simple type of floating mine with a clockwork mechanism which was designed tc be secured to the bottom of an enemy vessel with the help of a screw driven into the latter's hull, and to go off after the pre-set interval. As described earlier, no damage was caused to the target, the British warship Eagle, as the submersible, Turtle failed to secure the explosive device to the ship's hull.
Robert Fulton, the American genius whose talents had been recognized not at home but in France and England, used 'a catamaran torpedo' developed by him in an attack on the French Fleet at Boulogne on October 2,1804. Twelve of these devices were turned loose against the French ships, creating great excitement but causing no damage as they exploded short of their intended targets.
During the American Civil War, various kinds of torpedoes were used by the Union and Confederate forces. Some of these were simple beer kegs filled with gunpowder whose use was responsible for the well-known outburst from Admiral David Farragut, 'Damn the torpedoes... Go ahead!' At the other extreme were the gigantic electric torpedoes carrying over 90 kilograms of explosives each, one of which was used to blow the Federal gunboat Commodore Jones to smithereens.
It was an English engineer, Robert Whitehead, who, in 1868, perfected the first practical self-propelled torpedo, the forerunner of the modern torpedo. The Whitehead torpedo used all the basic principles that are used even today, such as hydrostatic depth control lateral control, and an engine which powered two contra-rotating propellers; the source of power for the 'cold-running' torpedo was compressed air contained in a metal flask which produced a speed of seven knots over a range of 700 yards. During the last decade of the 19th century, the US Navy used this torpedo, its speed increased to 27 knots though its range had been extended only by 300 yards.
The first 'hot-running' version, the Bliss-Levitt torpedo, was designed by an American, E.W. Bliss, in 1904 and featured a combustion chamber burning alcohol, preheated from the flask in which the pressure was increased. The combination of higher pressure and preheating increased the range to 4,000 yards.
Meanwhile, the introduction of torpedoes had radically changed naval warfare. In 1877, a superior Turkish naval formation was forced to keep clear of the Russians off Odessa because the latter had equipped its ships with torpedoes. With their rabidly increasing speed, range and hitting power, torpedoes soon became a serious threat to capital ships, i.e. the larger ships of the fleet in later years. Since the torpedoes caused the greatest damage when they hit their targets underwater and since it was impractical to make extensive use of armor for the protection of the 'soft underbellies' of these ships, naval designers modified their hulls by providing double or triple bottoms and highly compartmentalized hulls. An excellent example of this is provided by the hull design of the German battleship Bismarck which, despite being repeatedly hit by torpedoes from destroyers and aircraft during a lengthy engagement in World War II in May 1941, remained afloat because of her excellent watertight integrity produced by her multi-bottom and multi-compartment design.
About the time of the Spanish-American War, the torpedo-boat came into being and was used to great effect against heavier ships. As a defense against these boats, larger torpedo-boat destroyers were developed, the latter finally evolving into the destroyer whose principal weapon for many years was the torpedo it had originally been designed to counter.
During this period all torpedoes were designed for underwater launching and until 1922 even battleships used torpedoes. A torpedo for being launched above the surface was first developed in 1910; it incorporated a horizontal type turbine instead of the earlier vertical type, had a 'hot-running' engine, a speed of 35 knots and a range of 2,000 yards. Later there was some improvement in torpedo operation but torpedo design virtually remained unchanged until the end of World War I.
During World War I, Germany sank 1,381 Allied merchant ships by using torpedoes alone, and during World War II, German naval designers developed the acoustic torpedo which virtually brought the Allies to the brink of defeat. It played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic but the downslide was stopped in the nick of time by developing a device that provided fairly effective defense against the acoustic aspect of these torpedoes.
After the target had been identified and its direction and range established, the acoustic torpedo was launched in the general direction of the target. After traversing some distance, the acoustic device of the torpedo would pick up the noise made by the target's propellers and would then 'home' on to the source of the noise. This torpedo posed the greatest danger to large conveys as it could be launched in the general direction of the target without having to solve what is known as the fire control problem and leave the rest to the torpedo itself. Another advantage of the acoustic torpedo was that it did not require high speed to intercept its target; so long as its speed was higher than that of the target, it homed on to it though it had to run for a little longer period. This led to the development of the torpedo which could zigzag, popularly referred to as the Wobbly Willie, or follow a spiral track, as did the Curley Charlie, during its course until it picked up the target and homed on to it.
The acoustic torpedo played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic. The only defense against this torpedo was a noisemaker which was developed during the war. Being louder than the target's propellers the noisemaker diverted the torpedoes to erratic tracks until they lost contact or ran down after exhausting their fuel.
Most of the torpedoes used until the 1950s came in two sizes - those fired by submarines and destroyers were 21-inches in. diameter and 21 feet long and those fired by torpedo planes and, during the later part of World War II, by patrol-torpedo boats (P.T. boats) were 225 inches in diameter and 13.5 feet in length. The cylindrical steel flask containing compressed air at a pressure of 3,000 pounds per square inch was fastened to a pointed nose-piece containing several kilograms of explosives. An exploder mechanism, which was set to detonate when it came into contact with any object, was inserted in the warhead before the torpedo was fired.
During actual operation, in order to prevent discovery by the enemy of an unsuccessful attempt, live torpedoes were designed to sink at the end of their run if they did not explode. Japanese torpedoes were, however, designed to explode at the end of their run if they failed to hit a target. A few years earlier, German torpedoes were designed to remain afloat at the end of the run so that they could be used as mines, i.e., there could be some chance of the torpedo being struck by another ship.
The electric torpedo, which was powered by batteries and was cheaper and easier to produce, was slower than the steam torpedo and of less range, but did not produce any air bubbles and hence did not produce any wake. While the steam torpedo had a speed of 45 knots and a range of 4,500 yards which increased to 15,000 yards if the speed was reduced to 30 knots, the electric torpedo had a range of 4,000 yards at 30 knots.
Until the early 1950s the mobile platforms used for launching torpedoes included destroyers, submarines, patrol-boats and aircraft. Destroyers and P.T. boats launched torpedoes by ejecting them from tubes mounted on their decks with a charge of powder, the latter also carrying aircraft torpedoes which were merely dropped over the side. These torpedoes were used by the P.T. boats to launch attacks on all types of vessels including battleships.
Torpedoes were launched by submarines from tubes fitted in their bows and sterns with a charge of compressed air. Cruisers were initially fitted with torpedo tubes but discontinued using them after 1936; battleships never used them mainly because their gun range far exceeded the torpedo range and at torpedo range they presented very large targets to the enemy vessels.
The greatest torpedo threat during World War II came from the torpedo planes because the attack could come from a number of directions at once and the warning was very short because of the high speed of the planes. Because of this advantage and better cost effectiveness of torpedo planes over destroyers, World War II saw increasing employment of aerial torpedo attacks.
During World War II submarine warfare was almost exclusively fought with torpedoes; and the effectiveness of the torpedo against surface vessels can be gauged from the fact that out of a total of 10,583,755 tons of Japanese naval and merchant shipping sunk by the Allied forces during World War II, 5,320, 094 tons, i.e., over 50 per cent was accounted for by torpedoes fired from United States' submarines alone.
Other Important Features
As is well-known, the eye of the submarine is the periscope which was invented and developed solely for the purpose of providing a means to view the surface or sky without detection by surface vessels or aircraft. The earlier designers of submarines didn't provide for any viewing device for submarines when they were in a submerged or semi-submerged state, as a result of which they had to grope their way blindly after diving. But the need for a suitable viewing device was soon realized and in 1854 a Frenchman, E.M. Marie-Davy, designed a submarine sight tube containing two mirrors, one above the other, held at the angle of 45 degree and facing in opposite directions. These did provide some degree of sight to the submerged vessels but were rather limited in performance and were hence substituted in 1872 with prisms. The credit for inventing the original periscope goes to Thomas H. Doughty, who developed the basic form during the American Civil War.
The first American submarine to use an internal combustion engine was fitted with 45 horse-power, two-cylinder, four-stroke gasoline engines while the British preferred gasoline engines fitted with 12 or 16 cylinders. The inherent hazards of these engines were soon realized, for stowage was a constant problem and handling of fuel was extremely dangerous. Also, internal explosions were frequent and many of the engines gave off considerable carbon monoxide fumes, creating a menace to personnel.
M.A.N. (Maschinenfabrik Augsberg-Nwinberg A.G.) of Germany had developed a four-stroke diesel engine, capable of producing 1,090 horse power but all these engines developed structural weaknesses in the crankcase. Until 1930 the engines used in most submarines of all the larger naval powers with the exception of Great Britain were four-stroke diesels.
With the development, however, of fleet type submarines, the need for more powerful engines became apparent and eventually a 16-cylinder single-acting engine was developed as well as a 9-cylinder double-acting engine. The fact that submarines are both surface and sub-surface vessels places definite restrictions on size, hull design and shape. The total weight of the submarine is also a factor having considerable bearing on underwater operations. In the first engine powered submarine, the engines were mechanically connected directly to the propeller shafting. It, however, became apparent after testing various types and designs, that the diesel-electric drive was the best. In this type, the engines were connected only to the generators, which in turn supplied power to the main motors driving the propeller shafting. Another function of the generators was charging the storage batteries.
Today's fleet type submarines are generally powered by four main propulsion diesel engines, each capable of driving a generator producing around 2,000 horse-power which in turn drives a slow-speed motor or charges a bank of batteries. An auxiliary engine is also available for driving the generators.
As is known, the conventional submarine does not use the diesels or generators while submerged, and power for the motors is supplied by two sets of storage batteries, which are charged by the auxiliary and main generators during surface operations. The two main storage batteries consist of two groups of over 100 cells each, each one of these cells weighing several quintals.
During the latter part of World War II, the Germans adopted a radical change in submarine design known as the 'schnorkel' -an invention made by the Dutch in 1936 for replenishing air supply of the crew of their submarines. The spelling was simplified by the Americans to 'snorkel' and further abbreviated by the British to 'snort'. The Germans were forced to develop the new device because of the rapid strides already made in the development of improved sonar (underwater sound-aided detecting and ranging equipment) and radar, used by the Allied aircraft and surface vessels against German vessels.
The schnorkel was originally a breathing tube which was raised while the submarine was at periscope depth. When it was raised in position, air for the crew was obtained from the surface. In 1944 the Germans equipped their submarines with double-tube schnorkels, one for Jetting in air for the submarine's diesel engines and crew and the other as an exhaust for diesel fumes, carbon dioxide and other pollutants. The intake tube projected by a foot or so above the sea surface while the exhaust gases were discharged into the sea. This considerably reduced the visible portion of the submarines and also consumption of electric power, since the submarine could cruise almost totally submerged on its engines and conserve its battery power for attacks and evasive measures.
The schnorkel had only one drawback. While by itself it was too small to be spotted from a distance or from the air ii left a distinct wake which could be visually picked up from an antisubmarine ship or aircraft in calm weather. It could also be detected by the radar fitted on ships or aircraft. Darkness or fog could not provide any camouflage any more.
The United States Navy developed an improved schnorkel and also the 'guppy' submarine at the end of World War II. The guppy (greater underwater propulsion power) had the same type of hull as that used for the fleet submarine of World War II fame, was 306 feet long and displaced about 1,800 tons. The only change in the hull was in the superstructure which was radically changed by reducing the surface and streamlining every protruding object. The life lines and all guns were removed, the bitts (posts) to which ropes were secured were made retractable and the periscope shears (supports) enclosed in a streamlined metal fairing. All topside armament and equipment were
RUN SILENT RUN DEEP
The Evolution of the Submarine
The submarine came into its own during World War I, it’s devastating lethality and near-invincibility reinforced during and after World War II, and its nuclear propulsion and teeth giving it virtually limitless range and calamitous destructive power during the post-World War II years. However, it made a fairly late entry into India's naval fleet, possibly because the submarine was earlier considered an 'offensive' weapon platform and hence could not have a place in the arsenal of a country that had pledged to abide by the principles of peace.
Since the capability to operate in the third element - me subsurface -has now been added to the Indian Navy's repertoire, it is essential that the evolution of the submarine from its tentative conceptual state in the 16tR: century to its present day status of being the prime dealer of destruction at sea, as well as the significant role it played in shaping the ends of the two World Wars, be studied in detail before apprising oneself of the process of establishment of the submarine arm in the Indian Navy. This chapter provides a brief resume of such developments around the globe.
While addressing the men of the Royal Navy's Submarine Service during World War II, Winston Churchill had said; 'Of all the branches of men in the Forces, there is none that shows more devotion and faces greater perils than the submariner . . . great deeds are done in the air and on the land, nevertheless nothing surpasses your exploits.' Indeed, nothing can transcend the tour de force that the submarine has displayed and the impact of the revolutionary changes in the concept; both strategic arid tactical, of the war at sea brought about by its invention. Besides, its use for opera-ions against a wide variety of targets during the last century have been far greater than that of the supersession of the oared galley by the sailing galleon, the sailing ship of the line by the steam ironclad, the battleship by the carrier-borne and shore-based maritime aircraft, and the diesel-electric propulsion systems of submarines, by the nuclear power plant.
Adoption of new techniques, technology, strategy or tactics, weaponry and weapon platforms generally require a fairly long lead time because their potential and advantages over the existing techniques, tactics, etc, have to be convincingly established before they are introduced in any Service. Oared galleys continued to be constructed for England's Navy for several years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada; even thirty years after the first battleship had been fitted with engines, steam ironclads continued to be equipped with sails, and when World War II was coming to an end in 1945, the British Admiralty was still working on a new design for a 16-inch gun turret. For similar reasons, despite the developments in submarine technology in Europe and America concurrently with those in Great Britain, the Royal Navy woke up to the danger posed by submarines only after the outbreak of World War I when the armored cruisers, Cressy, Hoque and Aboukir, were sunk by one small German U-boat as a result of which the Grand Fleet's method of cruising the sea had to be drastically altered. J& fact, until the time they learnt their lessons the hard way, the British had been doing their best to discourage the development of submarines because they still believed that they, with their huge surface navy, had nothing to gain and much to lose by their development. As a result of the adoption of this attitude, the design of the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be purchased from America for construction in Britain and, what is even more surprising, this class of submarines were built not to supplement the British war effort but only to enable the British designers to find an antidote to them! It is significant to note that until October 1, 1901, when the Royal Navy's Submarine Service came into being with the launching of Submarine No, 1(129 tons), the popular view in Britain, which has a seafaring history spanning several millennia, was that submarines were 'underhand, unfair and damned un-English'.
This is of course not surprising as there is no profession so wedded to tradition as the military. During World War I the machine gun had been scorned as the 'much-overrated weapon'; the tank was thought of as a 'toy'; Marshal Joffre had refused to have a telephone installed in his office; poison gas was reluctantly adopted by the British after its use by the Germans was classified as a mere 'accessory'; the trench mortar was projected twice by the British War Office and was finally accepted after a cabinet minister secured the funds for it from an Indian maharaja; British subalterns got 'their swords sharpened before crossing to France; and as late as 1918 ‘Pershing had cluttered up his supply lines with mountains of fodder for useless horses, still dreaming of Custer and Sheridan and the glint of Virginia moonlight on the shirting saddles of Stuart's cavalry.’
Early History
There are occasional references in ancient history to the attempts made by man to seek stealth and surprise by operating from submerged or semi- submerged vessels during wars at sea. The very early protagonists of the submarine were not so much inspired by the desire to descend below the surface of the sea to explore the depths of the sea as to devise a method of rendering a warship invisible to the enemy so that it could carry out surreptitious attacks and escape at will.
The earliest reference to attempts made at waging underwater warfare is found in the writings of Aristotle who recorded that Alexander the Great used diving bells to enable his men to descend below the surface of the sea during the siege of Tyre in 332 B.C. He also ordered his divers to impede or destroy the defensive barriers still in use and known as boom defenses) the city was likely to build to prevent the movement of submerged vessels. In fact, according to legend, Alexander himself made a descent into the sea in a device which kept its occupants dry and admitted light-However it is believed that nearly a century earlier than Alexander's experiments; the Athenians had used divers to clear the entrance to the Syracuse harbour during its siege from 415 to 413 B.C.
Over the following two millennia the potential and the tactical advantages of operating below the surface of the sea continued to be appreciated by many military thinkers and several attempts were made during this period to develop an underwater platform that could be used against enemy shipping and war vessels far more effectively than surface ships, both for offensive and defensive operations. In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, is said to have designed a vessel which could dive, remain submerged for some time and surface unaided end could surreptitiously plant bombs or mines on enemy vessels, but the design of this submarine was kept secret because da Vinci he felt that man would misuse it- 'He knew a method of remaining a long time underwater, but he refused to tell of it because of the "evil nature of man”.
The Submersible Takes Shape
Experiments in diving and moving underwater continued but the first recorded mention of a submarine design conforming to the basic principles of submersion is found in the writings of a British naval officer, William Bourne, who published a detailed design of a 'boat that may go under the water' in 1578. The vessel was a completely enclosed boat which could be submerged by reducing its volume by contracting the sides through the use of hand vices, which could bring the boat back to the surface by increasing the volume. This vessel could also move underwater by using watertight oars. This realistic design provided for both submersibility and propulsion underwater but was never built.
Twenty-seven years later, in 1605, using a design similar to Bourne's, Magnus Pegelius constructed a submersible boat but due to the viscosity and adhesive properties of underwater mud the craft never surfaced after diving.
In 1620, a Dutch physician, Cornelius van Drebel, built a submarine and successfully conducted trials in the Thames River, making the craft cruise repeatedly on the surface, dive, maneuver underwater and then surface for several hours at a stretch. He later built two more craft, embodying the same principles, but larger in size. Van Drebel’s craft had an outer hull made of greased leather stretched over a wooden framework. Propulsion was provided, both on the surface and while submerged, by oars which extended through the sides and which were sealed and rendered watertight with tight-fitting leather flaps which allowed free transverse movement while anchoring the oars to the hull. The underwater endurance of the submarine crew was sought to be enhanced by using compressed oxygen to 'restore to the troubled air such portion of vital parts as would make it again, for a good while, fit for respiration/After repeated trials in the Thames river had established the capabilities of the new 'boat' in travelling on the surface and maneuvering underwater at depths of 12 to 15 feet, King James I is reported to have taken a trip in one of the larger models to demonstrate its safety. But despite the conclusive proof of the designers having evolved a powerful two-dimension weapon platform, the novel features of the submarine failed to arouse the interest of the British Navy.
The wars in the 17th century in Europe, however, Jed to a proliferation of submarine designs some of which were the work of men from professions other than those associated with the navy or seafaring; in fact some of the designers were men of peace, i.e., priests and monks! One such designer was Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law, John Wilkins, Bishop of London. His device for jettisoning gash through an underwater lock while remaining submerged led to the development of underwater lavatories in the latter-day submarines which obviated the need for the submarine to surface repeatedly. He also wrote on future naval developments and centuries later many of his predictions turned out to be true; such as his prediction of journeys by submarines under the Polar ice-cap, an idea which was dismissed as science fantasy In the 17th century.
By the middle of the 17th century, many naval architects had conceptualized and experimented with possible submersible weapon platforms. In 1653, a Frenchman, de Son, designed and built a 72-foot submarine 'that doeth undertake in one day to sink 100 ships' but his submarine never sailed, as its prime mover, a clockwork device, was not powerful enough to propel it on the surface or underwater.
The earlier decades of the 18th century saw numerous 'underwater boats' built, the British designers alone having patented no fewer than fourteen types by 1727. The concept of using a ballast tank for submerging and diving was first visualized by an inventor who described his design in the Gentleman's Magazine ml747. The hull of his craft was equipped with a bank of goatskins which would be filled with water to make the vessel submerge and a 'twisting rod' would be used to force the water out of the goatskins which would provide positive buoyancy and bring the Vessel back to the surface. This craft, however, was never built. At this time the mechanical and physical principles involved in diving and surfacing were yet to be fully understood and hence many of the ideas put forward turned out to be impractical, fanciful or, in some cases, even grotesque. Besides the lack of understanding of the principles, the general impression at this time was that it would be impossible to navigate a craft underwater and even if it became possible, its tactical advantages in naval warfare would be minimal.
The First Submarine, Bushnell's Turtle
However, developments of a submersible craft with weapon delivery capability received a shot in the arm in 1776 when the first submarine that could dive, surface, cruise -both on the surface and underwater-and plant explosives on enemy vessels while remaining submerged, made a dramatic appearance during the American War of Independence. David Bushnell, an American farmer's son, had developed the technique of exploding gunpowder underwater and had followed it up with the invention of the first one-man submersible that was to be used as a weapon platform, the Turtle. Shaped like a wooden beer-barrel, it was powered by a hand-operated screw propeller which could move it at a speed of three knots. It could stay submerged for 30 minutes during which it had to approach its target underwater, plant an explosive on its hull and get away.
It was on September 6, 1776, 29 years before the Battle of Trafalgar, that Ezra Lee, a sergeant in the American Revolutionary Army and the first submariner to launch an underwater operation against enemy vessels, undertook to scuttle Eagle, the Flagship of the British Fleet which was blockading New York Harbour, by planting a powerful explosive on its hull. He set off on his historic mission all by himself on board the Turtle and, operating the handle of the screw-propeller hard for several hours, reached the Eagle and dived. The Turtle then got under the hull of the Flagship and Lee tried to bore a screw device into the Eagle's hull for securing the explosive device to it. Later, a pre-set clockwork mechanism would trigger the explosive device. Unfortunately for Lee, the wooden hull of the Flagship had a sheathing of copper for reinforcement and prevention of the formation of any marine growth. Despite repeated attempts, Lee failed to penetrate the hull. He persisted with his efforts to plant the device, but soon the effects of carbon dioxide poisoning overwhelmed him. He then withdrew, surfaced and set course for shore but was spotted and pursued by a British patrol-beat. Lee jettisoned the explosive cargo and it went off, almost blowing the patrol-boat out of the water.
The Commander of the British Fleet soon realised that his Flagship had had a narrow escape and ordered the blockading ships of his fleet to withdraw to the outer harbour, where they were comparatively safer, but the effectiveness of the blockade was considerably reduced. Thus while the first sub-surface attack in. the history of submarines had proved to be abortive, it brought home one lesson which holds good even today- that the mere presence of a submarine lurking below the surface can upset the plans of a tactical commander over a large area far more than the sinking of a ship. In other words, the fear of the unknown and the element of surprise area greater deterrent at sea than an actual attack. Submarine warfare thus became a reality, even though the first ever submarine attack had failed to cause any physical damage.
Fulton's Nautilus
Robert Fulton, the American inventor who was the first to propel a boat by steam in 1803, and the first to build a steam warship, the Fulton, in 1815, is better remembered for having constructed a three-man submarine boat, the Nautilus, in 1795. Incorporating nearly all the main features of a modem submarine and shaped like one, the Nautilus, which was built of steel and shaped like an elongated oval, was powered by sails on the surface and by a hand-driven screw-propeller under water. Since the periscope was yet to be invented, a primitive form or a conning tower, equipped with a watertight port hole was provided and was used for observation and maneuvering the craft underwater. It was also equipped with ballast tanks for diving and surfacing, as modern submarines are, and had a submerged endurance of three hours for four men to breathe and two candles to bum! Like the Turtle, it had a device which could attach explosives to the hull of a ship while remaining underwater. During its trials at Brest, the Nautilus had also proved its capabilities by sinking an old schooner.
Since the war was over, the American naval authorities showed little interest in Fulton's submarine design, compelling him to build the Nautilus at Paris. He offered it to the authorities to deploy it off the French coast against British warships but it failed to sink or damage any ship.
Disappointed, Fulton then approached the British authorities and demonstrated the capability of his submarine craft by sinking a ship in 1804. The Prime Minister, William Pitt, was so impressed by the submarines performance that he asked the Admiralty to acquire the craft. His request was, however, dismissed by the First Sea Lord (then Earl St. Vincent) with the rather intemperate remark, 'Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which those who command the sea do not want and, if successful, will deprive them of it/
For about 60 years after the disappearance of the Nautilus, inventors continued to test various designs of small, hand-propelled submersibles with a crew of six to eight men. None of these was, however, an improvement on Fulton's craft, and hence no progress towards further development of submersibles was discernible. However, during the American Civil War the next nautical milestone in submarine development was recorded, with the sinking of a warship by a submarine, when a Federal corvette, the Housatonic, which v/as blockading Charleston harbour, was scuttled by the Confederate submersible David (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the name of the submersible was Hartley) in 1864. An explosive pack, suspended ahead of the bow of the David from a bowsprit, accomplished the feat when the submersible rammed the corvette. However, when the Housatonic was salvaged, the mangled wreck of the David was found sandwiched between the corvette's hull and the seabed. Because of the submersible's proximity to the Housatonic, the explosive had proved to be as much of a danger to the attacker as to its target. The Housatonic thus had the dubious honour of being the first surface vessel to be sunk by a submarine (and the first surface vessel to have crushed a submarine in an unintended Kamikaze attack).
Progress in submarine development continued to be bedeviled by the absence of a suitable propulsion device to enable the submarine to operate underwater for long periods, and an explosive which, rather than being planted, could be launched or fired by the submarine from a safe distance.
Steam and Electric Propulsion
Steam engines, though bulky and messy, were tried for some time for the propulsion of submersibles and in 1880, George Garret, an English clergyman, built a submarine which was propelled by two propellers driven by steam from a coal-fired boiler, which featured a retractable smokestack for ventilation. About this time, a Swedish gun designer, Norden felt, also constructed a submarine powered by steam. This submarine was capable of submerging to a depth of 50 feet, had an underwater endurance of 20 miles and was the first submersible to be fitted with a practical torpedo tube. The novelty of the new weapon-launching device appealed to the Turks and Russians, who acquired some of these craft but, because of their limitations, could not achieve anything worthwhile.
Experiments with the still new form of energy, electricity, had in the mean time proved successful, and storage batteries with several hours of endurance had been developed for the propulsion of submarines with electric motors. In 1886 two Englishmen, Campbell and Ash, developed an all-electric submarine which was powered by two 50-horse-power motors operated from a 100-cell storage battery. It was capable of maintaining a surface speed of six knots but the storage capacity of its battery being very low, its effective range was limited to only 80 miles.
The endurance of the storage battery for submarines was considerably improved by a Frenchman, Claude Gombat who, between 1888 and 1890, built some small battery-powered submarines which were acquired and used by the French Navy for about 10 years. These submarines were about 160 feet long, had a maximum speed of 13.5 knots and an effective range of 200 miles.
The 'Holland Type' Submarine -Ballast Tanks and Hydroplanes
Meanwhile John P. Holland of New Jersey, an ex-Irish school teacher who had migrated to the USA and who was to virtually become the creator of the Royal Navy's submarine service, had launched his first submersible in 1875. In 1882 he constructed the Fenian Ram which was tested on the Hudson River, and which was propelled by gasoline engines en the surface and electric motors underwater. These submersibles had several features which had to be discarded later, but some of Holland's innovations, perfected during the following years, have been incorporated in the latter-day submarine design. Of these, the most important are the use of ballast tanks for submerging and surfacing, and horizontal rudders or hydroplanes for maneuvering the craft in the vertical plane for depth control.
For some years Holland and Nordenfelt were vying with each other for an order from the United States Government for building a submarine and it finally went to the former in 1895. The vessel that was designed, the Plunger, was to be powered by a coal-fired steam engine on the surface, and battery-operated twin motors under water. Numerous designing defects came to light during construction and the craft was eventually abandoned. A new model, Holland's ninth, was built in his shipyard and delivered to the United States Government in 1900 and was used as the basic design for all the submarines that were built subsequently. This submarine, which was launched in 1897 and which was tested for three years before delivery, was named the Holland.
A contemporary of Holland, Max Lanbeuf of France, also built a submarine, Nerval, which was similar in construction to Holland's submarines and it was also powered by a coal-fired steam engine but, instead of tanks, it used the space enclosed in its double hull for ballast.
Internal Combustion Engine
The submarines of Holland and Lanbeuf were the prototypes for submarines built for several decades thereafter and they had almost all the essential features of modern day conventional submarine -ballast tanks, internal combustion engines for surface propulsion at nine knots and for charging batteries whilst on the surface and electric motors for underwater propulsion at seven knots; Us effective operational range was an impressive 1,000 miles. However, the internal combustion engines used at that time were gasoline engines which were a fire hazard because they gave off highly noxious and inflammable gasoline fumes, and, later were replaced by diesel engines developed by the German engineer, Rudolph Diesel, during the last decade of the 19th century.
Another submarine designer, Simon Lake, had built a submarine, the Argonaut Junior, in 1894 which was primarily meant for use in such peacetime operations as the exploration and exploitation of the living and mineral wealth below the surface of the sea and under the seabed, and for commercial salvage operations. The submersible was made of two layers of yellow pine with a sheet of canvas between them to render it impervious to water. This submarine could move about on the seabed and had an air-lock device which permitted its crew, using diving helmets, to emerge from the submarine and explore the surroundings.
In 1897, Lake built his second submarine, the Argonaut, which was powered by a 30-horse-power gasoline engine, had a 36-foot cigar-shaped hull and could submerge to the bed of a river or the bottom of a lake and move along the bed on three wheels which could be retracted and housed in the keel when the submersible was navigated. A year later, i.e., in November 1898, the Argonaut had the honour of being the first submarine to cross the Atlantic when she sailed from Norfolk and, despite heavy storms encountered on the way, reached New York.
Another submarine, the Protector, was built by Lake in 1906 and sold to Russia. After it was tested and accepted in Russia, he built several more, submersibles for the Russian Government.
The French Submarine -The Gustav Zede
Claude Gombat, a Frenchman, built some small but effective submarines between 1888 and 1890. One of these, the Gustav Zede, which was in service with the French Navy for over ten years, had a hull 160 feet long, was powered by storage batteries and had a range of 200 miles at a cruising speed of six knots and a maximum speed of 13.5 knots.
In 1901, this submarine, while taking part in exercises, staged a mock attack on the French Mediterranean Fleet after travelling 160 miles under her own power. While remaining totally undetected, the submarine hit the battleship Charles Martel, the pride of the French Navy, with a dummy torpedo. The successful 'sinking' of a fully protected battleship by a tiny submarine which could approach its target, deliver a lethal blow and escape without being detected, was a watershed in the history of submarines and was an object lesson to the naval planners of all major countries, in the changes that were going to be wrought into the future shape of sea power.
By the end of the 19th century, only six navies in the world had acquired a total of 10 submarines and eleven more were being built. Leading the submarine-owning countries was France, which had a total of 14, built or building, followed way behind by the United States which had only two, one of these two being of the Holland-type which was at that time reckoned to be the best design in the world. The other countries which had acquired submarines were Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey which had one craft each. Britain, which had one of the mightiest navies at that time, was yet to acquire one because of active and continued discouragement from the British Admiralty.
The 1901 success of the French submarine, Gustav Zede, however, came as a rude shock and an eye-opener to the mandarins of the Admiralty, and so it overruled the policy of the First Sea Lord, Earl St. Vincent, and promptly ordered five submarines of the Holland type of the US Navy -not for using them against enemy warships or for coastal defense- but for intensive research into antisubmarine measures! The first submarine built for the Royal Navy, Submarine No. 1 (with only one torpedo cube) was thus launched on October 2, 1901 and the submarine service of the Royal Navy was born.
Submarines for the British Navy -Acute Submarine-Phobia
The policy of active discouragement against submarine development had prevailed in the British Admiralty for about a century. Hence there had been practically no research in submarine development in England during the 19th century. As a consequence the design for the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be acquired from the USA. In trying to perpetuate this bias, even as this submarine was being commissioned, the Admiralty had decided to curtail the formalities associated with the commissioning of the new vessel to the minimum. To quote an official notice reproduced in the journal Naval and Military Record of October 3, 1901, the day after the launching: It is understood that no ceremony will take place at the forthcoming launch of the first British submarine at Barrow-in-Furness. The Admiralty regard these boats as wholly in the nature of an experiment and, like all other experiments conducted from time to time, this one will be carried out with all privacy.
Despite the official stance against the development of the underwater craft, shipbuilders in Britain had actually started building submarines as early as in 1885 - full sixteen years before the construction of the first submarine for the Royal Navy. In that year work had commenced on me construction of an experimental submarine at the Barrow- in-Furness shipyard. This submarine, which had a 100-foot hull, had been built in sections by 1886, sold to the Turkish Government, shipped out to that country, and assembled there for the Turkish Navy. Soon, another submarine, 123 feet long, was built at Barrow and sold to the Imperial Russian Navy. It is interesting to note that 'underhand, unfair and un-English' warfare wasn't acceptable to Britain but others could indulge in it so long as it yielded lucre for her!
After building five Holland-type submarines, Britain built the first A-class submarine (with one torpedo tube) in 1902, B-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1905, C-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1906, D-class (with three torpedo tubes, one tube being in the stern, and a 12-pounder gun) in 1908, and E-class (with five torpedo tubes, and one six-pounder or four-inch gun) in 1913. The B-class was the first to be fitted with surface weapons, and the D-class was the first to be equipped with a diesel engine and stern torpedo tube -all earlier classes having used gasoline engines for propulsion, and being fitted with forward torpedo tubes.
The submarine-phobia and surface-vessel mania of the British Admiralty, even after submarines had begun to the built for the Royal Navy, is evident from what Captain Hugh Oliphant, who was the Commanding Officer of Dolphin, the Royal Navy's submarine training establishment, and Captain, First Submarine Squadron some years ago, said about the prevailing ambience at that time: 'One serving British Admiral was at that moment publicly demanding that submarine crews (captured) in war should be treated as pirates and hung; the Director of Naval Construction was warning non-expendable senior officers "never to go below water", and the Engineer-in-Chief considered that the running of a petrol engine in a confined space was so dangerous that the first submarine moorings in Portsmouth were among the remote quarantine and powder hulks’. The first submarine 'depot ship' and training school was thus given the not inappropriate name of Hazard’.
By now, even in the Royal Navy, some of the senior officers had realized the potential of the submarine and were quite vociferous in demanding a change in the naval policy. In 1904, Admiral Lord Jacky Fisher wrote prophetically:
It is astounding to me, perfectly astounding, how the very best amongst us absolutely fail to realize the vast impending revolution in naval warfare and naval strategy that the submarine will accomplish!'
Here, just to take a simple instance, with the battleship Empress of India, engaged in maneuvers and knowing the proximity of submarines, so self-confident of safety and so oblivious of the possibilities of modern warfare.. . and suddenly they see a Whitehead torpedo miss her stern by a few feet!
And how fired? From a submarine of the 'pre-Adamite' period; small, slow, badly fitted, with no periscope at all.
. . . . I have not disguised my opinion in season and out of season as to the essential, imperative, immediate, vital pressing, urgent (I can't think of any more adjectives) necessity for more submarines at once, at the very least 25 in addition to those now ordered and building and 100 more as soon as practical, or we shall be caught with our breeches down....
The turn of the century was thus a watershed in the history of submarines, for the fundamental principles of the construction and operation of submersibles had taken, concrete shape and been demonstrated to the world by this time. It continues to be valid even today. Internal combustion engines, both gasoline and diesel, had proved to be the most efficient and practical power plants; electric propulsion, as an alternative or in tandem with diesel or gasoline engines, had proved a success; the invention of the periscope had increased the feasibility of underwater navigation and improved the potential of the submarine for surveillance and for carrying out attacks while remaining submerged; and the torpedo, the primary weapon of the submarine, had been perfected and had proved its deadly capability. The manually propelled and operated one-man submersibles had been replaced by the larger and more versatile, long-range and long-endurance submarine. These would soon become a major component of naval strategy, both for offence and defense. Anew chapter had begun in the history of naval warfare.
Special Features of Submarines Developed
Some of the features peculiar to these submarines were the all-welded hull, the periscope, the schnorkel or the snort, the diesel-electric propulsion system and the revolutionary weapon - the torpedo.
Below the superstructure deck was the hull which had to withstand the tremendous pressure of sea water while submerged, and to maintain its watertight integrity under varying pressure conditions. The shape of the vessel had evolved from Bushnell's spherical Turtle to the cylindrical Holland genre over a period of 125 years, the latter being constructed on the basis of the fabrication of a series of watertight containers by means of watertight joints. In the double-hull type of submarines, the pressure hull was inside the outer hull and between these hulls were the water and fuel oil tanks.
The space between the non watertight superstructure deck and the pressure hull was used as locker space for stowing anchor gear, lines, ammunition for the submarine guns, boats and other equipment that did not get damaged by immersion in Water. Extending upwards through the superstructure amidships was a watertight tower known as the conning tower, the top of which was the bridge from where the vessel was controlled when on the surface. But when submerged, it was controlled from the conning tower or from a compartment directly below it, known as the control room. For making observations while totally submerged, periscopes extending above the bridge were operated from the conning tower.
Evolution of the Torpedo
The submarine is essentially a torpedo vessel, launching Its torpedoes while surfaced or submerged, and hence it has basically evolved over the years as a torpedo-launching platform, though today its weapon outfit includes missiles. The torpedo too has been developed into a highly complicated underwater projectile with a heavy explosive charge. It is detonated by an exploding mechanism when in contact with, or in proximity to, the hulls of target vessels. Today, high-power engines drive it at high speed and sophisticated instruments control its course. Torpedoes are fired by, or launched by, surface vessels, aircraft or submarines. Its capability of being launched, approaching the target and striking with little or no warning makes it particularly useful to submarines, which can frequently carry out an attack and escape without being detected.
The word torpedo is derived from the word Torpedinidae, the family name for the fish called electric rays. These fish and electric eels have been referred to as torpedoes. The term torpedo was first applied to an explosive device around 1800 and, in its various experimental forms, this name was used for the next 65 years or so for a type of floating mine.
The first to use an explosive device of this category was David Bushnell in 1776. His was a simple type of floating mine with a clockwork mechanism which was designed tc be secured to the bottom of an enemy vessel with the help of a screw driven into the latter's hull, and to go off after the pre-set interval. As described earlier, no damage was caused to the target, the British warship Eagle, as the submersible, Turtle failed to secure the explosive device to the ship's hull.
Robert Fulton, the American genius whose talents had been recognized not at home but in France and England, used 'a catamaran torpedo' developed by him in an attack on the French Fleet at Boulogne on October 2,1804. Twelve of these devices were turned loose against the French ships, creating great excitement but causing no damage as they exploded short of their intended targets.
During the American Civil War, various kinds of torpedoes were used by the Union and Confederate forces. Some of these were simple beer kegs filled with gunpowder whose use was responsible for the well-known outburst from Admiral David Farragut, 'Damn the torpedoes... Go ahead!' At the other extreme were the gigantic electric torpedoes carrying over 90 kilograms of explosives each, one of which was used to blow the Federal gunboat Commodore Jones to smithereens.
It was an English engineer, Robert Whitehead, who, in 1868, perfected the first practical self-propelled torpedo, the forerunner of the modern torpedo. The Whitehead torpedo used all the basic principles that are used even today, such as hydrostatic depth control lateral control, and an engine which powered two contra-rotating propellers; the source of power for the 'cold-running' torpedo was compressed air contained in a metal flask which produced a speed of seven knots over a range of 700 yards. During the last decade of the 19th century, the US Navy used this torpedo, its speed increased to 27 knots though its range had been extended only by 300 yards.
The first 'hot-running' version, the Bliss-Levitt torpedo, was designed by an American, E.W. Bliss, in 1904 and featured a combustion chamber burning alcohol, preheated from the flask in which the pressure was increased. The combination of higher pressure and preheating increased the range to 4,000 yards.
Meanwhile, the introduction of torpedoes had radically changed naval warfare. In 1877, a superior Turkish naval formation was forced to keep clear of the Russians off Odessa because the latter had equipped its ships with torpedoes. With their rabidly increasing speed, range and hitting power, torpedoes soon became a serious threat to capital ships, i.e. the larger ships of the fleet in later years. Since the torpedoes caused the greatest damage when they hit their targets underwater and since it was impractical to make extensive use of armor for the protection of the 'soft underbellies' of these ships, naval designers modified their hulls by providing double or triple bottoms and highly compartmentalized hulls. An excellent example of this is provided by the hull design of the German battleship Bismarck which, despite being repeatedly hit by torpedoes from destroyers and aircraft during a lengthy engagement in World War II in May 1941, remained afloat because of her excellent watertight integrity produced by her multi-bottom and multi-compartment design.
About the time of the Spanish-American War, the torpedo-boat came into being and was used to great effect against heavier ships. As a defense against these boats, larger torpedo-boat destroyers were developed, the latter finally evolving into the destroyer whose principal weapon for many years was the torpedo it had originally been designed to counter.
During this period all torpedoes were designed for underwater launching and until 1922 even battleships used torpedoes. A torpedo for being launched above the surface was first developed in 1910; it incorporated a horizontal type turbine instead of the earlier vertical type, had a 'hot-running' engine, a speed of 35 knots and a range of 2,000 yards. Later there was some improvement in torpedo operation but torpedo design virtually remained unchanged until the end of World War I.
During World War I, Germany sank 1,381 Allied merchant ships by using torpedoes alone, and during World War II, German naval designers developed the acoustic torpedo which virtually brought the Allies to the brink of defeat. It played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic but the downslide was stopped in the nick of time by developing a device that provided fairly effective defense against the acoustic aspect of these torpedoes.
After the target had been identified and its direction and range established, the acoustic torpedo was launched in the general direction of the target. After traversing some distance, the acoustic device of the torpedo would pick up the noise made by the target's propellers and would then 'home' on to the source of the noise. This torpedo posed the greatest danger to large conveys as it could be launched in the general direction of the target without having to solve what is known as the fire control problem and leave the rest to the torpedo itself. Another advantage of the acoustic torpedo was that it did not require high speed to intercept its target; so long as its speed was higher than that of the target, it homed on to it though it had to run for a little longer period. This led to the development of the torpedo which could zigzag, popularly referred to as the Wobbly Willie, or follow a spiral track, as did the Curley Charlie, during its course until it picked up the target and homed on to it.
The acoustic torpedo played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic. The only defense against this torpedo was a noisemaker which was developed during the war. Being louder than the target's propellers the noisemaker diverted the torpedoes to erratic tracks until they lost contact or ran down after exhausting their fuel.
Most of the torpedoes used until the 1950s came in two sizes - those fired by submarines and destroyers were 21-inches in. diameter and 21 feet long and those fired by torpedo planes and, during the later part of World War II, by patrol-torpedo boats (P.T. boats) were 225 inches in diameter and 13.5 feet in length. The cylindrical steel flask containing compressed air at a pressure of 3,000 pounds per square inch was fastened to a pointed nose-piece containing several kilograms of explosives. An exploder mechanism, which was set to detonate when it came into contact with any object, was inserted in the warhead before the torpedo was fired.
During actual operation, in order to prevent discovery by the enemy of an unsuccessful attempt, live torpedoes were designed to sink at the end of their run if they did not explode. Japanese torpedoes were, however, designed to explode at the end of their run if they failed to hit a target. A few years earlier, German torpedoes were designed to remain afloat at the end of the run so that they could be used as mines, i.e., there could be some chance of the torpedo being struck by another ship.
The electric torpedo, which was powered by batteries and was cheaper and easier to produce, was slower than the steam torpedo and of less range, but did not produce any air bubbles and hence did not produce any wake. While the steam torpedo had a speed of 45 knots and a range of 4,500 yards which increased to 15,000 yards if the speed was reduced to 30 knots, the electric torpedo had a range of 4,000 yards at 30 knots.
Until the early 1950s the mobile platforms used for launching torpedoes included destroyers, submarines, patrol-boats and aircraft. Destroyers and P.T. boats launched torpedoes by ejecting them from tubes mounted on their decks with a charge of powder, the latter also carrying aircraft torpedoes which were merely dropped over the side. These torpedoes were used by the P.T. boats to launch attacks on all types of vessels including battleships.
Torpedoes were launched by submarines from tubes fitted in their bows and sterns with a charge of compressed air. Cruisers were initially fitted with torpedo tubes but discontinued using them after 1936; battleships never used them mainly because their gun range far exceeded the torpedo range and at torpedo range they presented very large targets to the enemy vessels.
The greatest torpedo threat during World War II came from the torpedo planes because the attack could come from a number of directions at once and the warning was very short because of the high speed of the planes. Because of this advantage and better cost effectiveness of torpedo planes over destroyers, World War II saw increasing employment of aerial torpedo attacks.
During World War II submarine warfare was almost exclusively fought with torpedoes; and the effectiveness of the torpedo against surface vessels can be gauged from the fact that out of a total of 10,583,755 tons of Japanese naval and merchant shipping sunk by the Allied forces during World War II, 5,320, 094 tons, i.e., over 50 per cent was accounted for by torpedoes fired from United States' submarines alone.
Other Important Features
As is well-known, the eye of the submarine is the periscope which was invented and developed solely for the purpose of providing a means to view the surface or sky without detection by surface vessels or aircraft. The earlier designers of submarines didn't provide for any viewing device for submarines when they were in a submerged or semi-submerged state, as a result of which they had to grope their way blindly after diving. But the need for a suitable viewing device was soon realized and in 1854 a Frenchman, E.M. Marie-Davy, designed a submarine sight tube containing two mirrors, one above the other, held at the angle of 45 degree and facing in opposite directions. These did provide some degree of sight to the submerged vessels but were rather limited in performance and were hence substituted in 1872 with prisms. The credit for inventing the original periscope goes to Thomas H. Doughty, who developed the basic form during the American Civil War.
The first American submarine to use an internal combustion engine was fitted with 45 horse-power, two-cylinder, four-stroke gasoline engines while the British preferred gasoline engines fitted with 12 or 16 cylinders. The inherent hazards of these engines were soon realized, for stowage was a constant problem and handling of fuel was extremely dangerous. Also, internal explosions were frequent and many of the engines gave off considerable carbon monoxide fumes, creating a menace to personnel.
M.A.N. (Maschinenfabrik Augsberg-Nwinberg A.G.) of Germany had developed a four-stroke diesel engine, capable of producing 1,090 horse power but all these engines developed structural weaknesses in the crankcase. Until 1930 the engines used in most submarines of all the larger naval powers with the exception of Great Britain were four-stroke diesels.
With the development, however, of fleet type submarines, the need for more powerful engines became apparent and eventually a 16-cylinder single-acting engine was developed as well as a 9-cylinder double-acting engine. The fact that submarines are both surface and sub-surface vessels places definite restrictions on size, hull design and shape. The total weight of the submarine is also a factor having considerable bearing on underwater operations. In the first engine powered submarine, the engines were mechanically connected directly to the propeller shafting. It, however, became apparent after testing various types and designs, that the diesel-electric drive was the best. In this type, the engines were connected only to the generators, which in turn supplied power to the main motors driving the propeller shafting. Another function of the generators was charging the storage batteries.
Today's fleet type submarines are generally powered by four main propulsion diesel engines, each capable of driving a generator producing around 2,000 horse-power which in turn drives a slow-speed motor or charges a bank of batteries. An auxiliary engine is also available for driving the generators.
As is known, the conventional submarine does not use the diesels or generators while submerged, and power for the motors is supplied by two sets of storage batteries, which are charged by the auxiliary and main generators during surface operations. The two main storage batteries consist of two groups of over 100 cells each, each one of these cells weighing several quintals.
During the latter part of World War II, the Germans adopted a radical change in submarine design known as the 'schnorkel' -an invention made by the Dutch in 1936 for replenishing air supply of the crew of their submarines. The spelling was simplified by the Americans to 'snorkel' and further abbreviated by the British to 'snort'. The Germans were forced to develop the new device because of the rapid strides already made in the development of improved sonar (underwater sound-aided detecting and ranging equipment) and radar, used by the Allied aircraft and surface vessels against German vessels.
The schnorkel was originally a breathing tube which was raised while the submarine was at periscope depth. When it was raised in position, air for the crew was obtained from the surface. In 1944 the Germans equipped their submarines with double-tube schnorkels, one for Jetting in air for the submarine's diesel engines and crew and the other as an exhaust for diesel fumes, carbon dioxide and other pollutants. The intake tube projected by a foot or so above the sea surface while the exhaust gases were discharged into the sea. This considerably reduced the visible portion of the submarines and also consumption of electric power, since the submarine could cruise almost totally submerged on its engines and conserve its battery power for attacks and evasive measures.
The schnorkel had only one drawback. While by itself it was too small to be spotted from a distance or from the air ii left a distinct wake which could be visually picked up from an antisubmarine ship or aircraft in calm weather. It could also be detected by the radar fitted on ships or aircraft. Darkness or fog could not provide any camouflage any more.
The United States Navy developed an improved schnorkel and also the 'guppy' submarine at the end of World War II. The guppy (greater underwater propulsion power) had the same type of hull as that used for the fleet submarine of World War II fame, was 306 feet long and displaced about 1,800 tons. The only change in the hull was in the superstructure which was radically changed by reducing the surface and streamlining every protruding object. The life lines and all guns were removed, the bitts (posts) to which ropes were secured were made retractable and the periscope shears (supports) enclosed in a streamlined metal fairing. All topside armament and equipment were
The submarine came into its own during World War I, it’s devastating lethality and near-invincibility reinforced during and after World War II, and its nuclear propulsion and teeth giving it virtually limitless range and calamitous destructive power during the post-World War II years. However, it made a fairly late entry into India's naval fleet, possibly because the submarine was earlier considered an 'offensive' weapon platform and hence could not have a place in the arsenal of a country that had pledged to abide by the principles of peace.
Since the capability to operate in the third element - me subsurface -has now been added to the Indian Navy's repertoire, it is essential that the evolution of the submarine from its tentative conceptual state in the 16tR: century to its present day status of being the prime dealer of destruction at sea, as well as the significant role it played in shaping the ends of the two World Wars, be studied in detail before apprising oneself of the process of establishment of the submarine arm in the Indian Navy. This chapter provides a brief resume of such developments around the globe.
While addressing the men of the Royal Navy's Submarine Service during World War II, Winston Churchill had said; 'Of all the branches of men in the Forces, there is none that shows more devotion and faces greater perils than the submariner . . . great deeds are done in the air and on the land, nevertheless nothing surpasses your exploits.' Indeed, nothing can transcend the tour de force that the submarine has displayed and the impact of the revolutionary changes in the concept; both strategic arid tactical, of the war at sea brought about by its invention. Besides, its use for opera-ions against a wide variety of targets during the last century have been far greater than that of the supersession of the oared galley by the sailing galleon, the sailing ship of the line by the steam ironclad, the battleship by the carrier-borne and shore-based maritime aircraft, and the diesel-electric propulsion systems of submarines, by the nuclear power plant.
Adoption of new techniques, technology, strategy or tactics, weaponry and weapon platforms generally require a fairly long lead time because their potential and advantages over the existing techniques, tactics, etc, have to be convincingly established before they are introduced in any Service. Oared galleys continued to be constructed for England's Navy for several years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada; even thirty years after the first battleship had been fitted with engines, steam ironclads continued to be equipped with sails, and when World War II was coming to an end in 1945, the British Admiralty was still working on a new design for a 16-inch gun turret. For similar reasons, despite the developments in submarine technology in Europe and America concurrently with those in Great Britain, the Royal Navy woke up to the danger posed by submarines only after the outbreak of World War I when the armored cruisers, Cressy, Hoque and Aboukir, were sunk by one small German U-boat as a result of which the Grand Fleet's method of cruising the sea had to be drastically altered. J& fact, until the time they learnt their lessons the hard way, the British had been doing their best to discourage the development of submarines because they still believed that they, with their huge surface navy, had nothing to gain and much to lose by their development. As a result of the adoption of this attitude, the design of the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be purchased from America for construction in Britain and, what is even more surprising, this class of submarines were built not to supplement the British war effort but only to enable the British designers to find an antidote to them! It is significant to note that until October 1, 1901, when the Royal Navy's Submarine Service came into being with the launching of Submarine No, 1(129 tons), the popular view in Britain, which has a seafaring history spanning several millennia, was that submarines were 'underhand, unfair and damned un-English'.
This is of course not surprising as there is no profession so wedded to tradition as the military. During World War I the machine gun had been scorned as the 'much-overrated weapon'; the tank was thought of as a 'toy'; Marshal Joffre had refused to have a telephone installed in his office; poison gas was reluctantly adopted by the British after its use by the Germans was classified as a mere 'accessory'; the trench mortar was projected twice by the British War Office and was finally accepted after a cabinet minister secured the funds for it from an Indian maharaja; British subalterns got 'their swords sharpened before crossing to France; and as late as 1918 ‘Pershing had cluttered up his supply lines with mountains of fodder for useless horses, still dreaming of Custer and Sheridan and the glint of Virginia moonlight on the shirting saddles of Stuart's cavalry.’
Early History
There are occasional references in ancient history to the attempts made by man to seek stealth and surprise by operating from submerged or semi- submerged vessels during wars at sea. The very early protagonists of the submarine were not so much inspired by the desire to descend below the surface of the sea to explore the depths of the sea as to devise a method of rendering a warship invisible to the enemy so that it could carry out surreptitious attacks and escape at will.
The earliest reference to attempts made at waging underwater warfare is found in the writings of Aristotle who recorded that Alexander the Great used diving bells to enable his men to descend below the surface of the sea during the siege of Tyre in 332 B.C. He also ordered his divers to impede or destroy the defensive barriers still in use and known as boom defenses) the city was likely to build to prevent the movement of submerged vessels. In fact, according to legend, Alexander himself made a descent into the sea in a device which kept its occupants dry and admitted light-However it is believed that nearly a century earlier than Alexander's experiments; the Athenians had used divers to clear the entrance to the Syracuse harbour during its siege from 415 to 413 B.C.
Over the following two millennia the potential and the tactical advantages of operating below the surface of the sea continued to be appreciated by many military thinkers and several attempts were made during this period to develop an underwater platform that could be used against enemy shipping and war vessels far more effectively than surface ships, both for offensive and defensive operations. In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, is said to have designed a vessel which could dive, remain submerged for some time and surface unaided end could surreptitiously plant bombs or mines on enemy vessels, but the design of this submarine was kept secret because da Vinci he felt that man would misuse it- 'He knew a method of remaining a long time underwater, but he refused to tell of it because of the "evil nature of man”.
The Submersible Takes Shape
Experiments in diving and moving underwater continued but the first recorded mention of a submarine design conforming to the basic principles of submersion is found in the writings of a British naval officer, William Bourne, who published a detailed design of a 'boat that may go under the water' in 1578. The vessel was a completely enclosed boat which could be submerged by reducing its volume by contracting the sides through the use of hand vices, which could bring the boat back to the surface by increasing the volume. This vessel could also move underwater by using watertight oars. This realistic design provided for both submersibility and propulsion underwater but was never built.
Twenty-seven years later, in 1605, using a design similar to Bourne's, Magnus Pegelius constructed a submersible boat but due to the viscosity and adhesive properties of underwater mud the craft never surfaced after diving.
In 1620, a Dutch physician, Cornelius van Drebel, built a submarine and successfully conducted trials in the Thames River, making the craft cruise repeatedly on the surface, dive, maneuver underwater and then surface for several hours at a stretch. He later built two more craft, embodying the same principles, but larger in size. Van Drebel’s craft had an outer hull made of greased leather stretched over a wooden framework. Propulsion was provided, both on the surface and while submerged, by oars which extended through the sides and which were sealed and rendered watertight with tight-fitting leather flaps which allowed free transverse movement while anchoring the oars to the hull. The underwater endurance of the submarine crew was sought to be enhanced by using compressed oxygen to 'restore to the troubled air such portion of vital parts as would make it again, for a good while, fit for respiration/After repeated trials in the Thames river had established the capabilities of the new 'boat' in travelling on the surface and maneuvering underwater at depths of 12 to 15 feet, King James I is reported to have taken a trip in one of the larger models to demonstrate its safety. But despite the conclusive proof of the designers having evolved a powerful two-dimension weapon platform, the novel features of the submarine failed to arouse the interest of the British Navy.
The wars in the 17th century in Europe, however, Jed to a proliferation of submarine designs some of which were the work of men from professions other than those associated with the navy or seafaring; in fact some of the designers were men of peace, i.e., priests and monks! One such designer was Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law, John Wilkins, Bishop of London. His device for jettisoning gash through an underwater lock while remaining submerged led to the development of underwater lavatories in the latter-day submarines which obviated the need for the submarine to surface repeatedly. He also wrote on future naval developments and centuries later many of his predictions turned out to be true; such as his prediction of journeys by submarines under the Polar ice-cap, an idea which was dismissed as science fantasy In the 17th century.
By the middle of the 17th century, many naval architects had conceptualized and experimented with possible submersible weapon platforms. In 1653, a Frenchman, de Son, designed and built a 72-foot submarine 'that doeth undertake in one day to sink 100 ships' but his submarine never sailed, as its prime mover, a clockwork device, was not powerful enough to propel it on the surface or underwater.
The earlier decades of the 18th century saw numerous 'underwater boats' built, the British designers alone having patented no fewer than fourteen types by 1727. The concept of using a ballast tank for submerging and diving was first visualized by an inventor who described his design in the Gentleman's Magazine ml747. The hull of his craft was equipped with a bank of goatskins which would be filled with water to make the vessel submerge and a 'twisting rod' would be used to force the water out of the goatskins which would provide positive buoyancy and bring the Vessel back to the surface. This craft, however, was never built. At this time the mechanical and physical principles involved in diving and surfacing were yet to be fully understood and hence many of the ideas put forward turned out to be impractical, fanciful or, in some cases, even grotesque. Besides the lack of understanding of the principles, the general impression at this time was that it would be impossible to navigate a craft underwater and even if it became possible, its tactical advantages in naval warfare would be minimal.
The First Submarine, Bushnell's Turtle
However, developments of a submersible craft with weapon delivery capability received a shot in the arm in 1776 when the first submarine that could dive, surface, cruise -both on the surface and underwater-and plant explosives on enemy vessels while remaining submerged, made a dramatic appearance during the American War of Independence. David Bushnell, an American farmer's son, had developed the technique of exploding gunpowder underwater and had followed it up with the invention of the first one-man submersible that was to be used as a weapon platform, the Turtle. Shaped like a wooden beer-barrel, it was powered by a hand-operated screw propeller which could move it at a speed of three knots. It could stay submerged for 30 minutes during which it had to approach its target underwater, plant an explosive on its hull and get away.
It was on September 6, 1776, 29 years before the Battle of Trafalgar, that Ezra Lee, a sergeant in the American Revolutionary Army and the first submariner to launch an underwater operation against enemy vessels, undertook to scuttle Eagle, the Flagship of the British Fleet which was blockading New York Harbour, by planting a powerful explosive on its hull. He set off on his historic mission all by himself on board the Turtle and, operating the handle of the screw-propeller hard for several hours, reached the Eagle and dived. The Turtle then got under the hull of the Flagship and Lee tried to bore a screw device into the Eagle's hull for securing the explosive device to it. Later, a pre-set clockwork mechanism would trigger the explosive device. Unfortunately for Lee, the wooden hull of the Flagship had a sheathing of copper for reinforcement and prevention of the formation of any marine growth. Despite repeated attempts, Lee failed to penetrate the hull. He persisted with his efforts to plant the device, but soon the effects of carbon dioxide poisoning overwhelmed him. He then withdrew, surfaced and set course for shore but was spotted and pursued by a British patrol-beat. Lee jettisoned the explosive cargo and it went off, almost blowing the patrol-boat out of the water.
The Commander of the British Fleet soon realised that his Flagship had had a narrow escape and ordered the blockading ships of his fleet to withdraw to the outer harbour, where they were comparatively safer, but the effectiveness of the blockade was considerably reduced. Thus while the first sub-surface attack in. the history of submarines had proved to be abortive, it brought home one lesson which holds good even today- that the mere presence of a submarine lurking below the surface can upset the plans of a tactical commander over a large area far more than the sinking of a ship. In other words, the fear of the unknown and the element of surprise area greater deterrent at sea than an actual attack. Submarine warfare thus became a reality, even though the first ever submarine attack had failed to cause any physical damage.
Fulton's Nautilus
Robert Fulton, the American inventor who was the first to propel a boat by steam in 1803, and the first to build a steam warship, the Fulton, in 1815, is better remembered for having constructed a three-man submarine boat, the Nautilus, in 1795. Incorporating nearly all the main features of a modem submarine and shaped like one, the Nautilus, which was built of steel and shaped like an elongated oval, was powered by sails on the surface and by a hand-driven screw-propeller under water. Since the periscope was yet to be invented, a primitive form or a conning tower, equipped with a watertight port hole was provided and was used for observation and maneuvering the craft underwater. It was also equipped with ballast tanks for diving and surfacing, as modern submarines are, and had a submerged endurance of three hours for four men to breathe and two candles to bum! Like the Turtle, it had a device which could attach explosives to the hull of a ship while remaining underwater. During its trials at Brest, the Nautilus had also proved its capabilities by sinking an old schooner.
Since the war was over, the American naval authorities showed little interest in Fulton's submarine design, compelling him to build the Nautilus at Paris. He offered it to the authorities to deploy it off the French coast against British warships but it failed to sink or damage any ship.
Disappointed, Fulton then approached the British authorities and demonstrated the capability of his submarine craft by sinking a ship in 1804. The Prime Minister, William Pitt, was so impressed by the submarines performance that he asked the Admiralty to acquire the craft. His request was, however, dismissed by the First Sea Lord (then Earl St. Vincent) with the rather intemperate remark, 'Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which those who command the sea do not want and, if successful, will deprive them of it/
For about 60 years after the disappearance of the Nautilus, inventors continued to test various designs of small, hand-propelled submersibles with a crew of six to eight men. None of these was, however, an improvement on Fulton's craft, and hence no progress towards further development of submersibles was discernible. However, during the American Civil War the next nautical milestone in submarine development was recorded, with the sinking of a warship by a submarine, when a Federal corvette, the Housatonic, which v/as blockading Charleston harbour, was scuttled by the Confederate submersible David (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the name of the submersible was Hartley) in 1864. An explosive pack, suspended ahead of the bow of the David from a bowsprit, accomplished the feat when the submersible rammed the corvette. However, when the Housatonic was salvaged, the mangled wreck of the David was found sandwiched between the corvette's hull and the seabed. Because of the submersible's proximity to the Housatonic, the explosive had proved to be as much of a danger to the attacker as to its target. The Housatonic thus had the dubious honour of being the first surface vessel to be sunk by a submarine (and the first surface vessel to have crushed a submarine in an unintended Kamikaze attack).
Progress in submarine development continued to be bedeviled by the absence of a suitable propulsion device to enable the submarine to operate underwater for long periods, and an explosive which, rather than being planted, could be launched or fired by the submarine from a safe distance.
Steam and Electric Propulsion
Steam engines, though bulky and messy, were tried for some time for the propulsion of submersibles and in 1880, George Garret, an English clergyman, built a submarine which was propelled by two propellers driven by steam from a coal-fired boiler, which featured a retractable smokestack for ventilation. About this time, a Swedish gun designer, Norden felt, also constructed a submarine powered by steam. This submarine was capable of submerging to a depth of 50 feet, had an underwater endurance of 20 miles and was the first submersible to be fitted with a practical torpedo tube. The novelty of the new weapon-launching device appealed to the Turks and Russians, who acquired some of these craft but, because of their limitations, could not achieve anything worthwhile.
Experiments with the still new form of energy, electricity, had in the mean time proved successful, and storage batteries with several hours of endurance had been developed for the propulsion of submarines with electric motors. In 1886 two Englishmen, Campbell and Ash, developed an all-electric submarine which was powered by two 50-horse-power motors operated from a 100-cell storage battery. It was capable of maintaining a surface speed of six knots but the storage capacity of its battery being very low, its effective range was limited to only 80 miles.
The endurance of the storage battery for submarines was considerably improved by a Frenchman, Claude Gombat who, between 1888 and 1890, built some small battery-powered submarines which were acquired and used by the French Navy for about 10 years. These submarines were about 160 feet long, had a maximum speed of 13.5 knots and an effective range of 200 miles.
The 'Holland Type' Submarine -Ballast Tanks and Hydroplanes
Meanwhile John P. Holland of New Jersey, an ex-Irish school teacher who had migrated to the USA and who was to virtually become the creator of the Royal Navy's submarine service, had launched his first submersible in 1875. In 1882 he constructed the Fenian Ram which was tested on the Hudson River, and which was propelled by gasoline engines en the surface and electric motors underwater. These submersibles had several features which had to be discarded later, but some of Holland's innovations, perfected during the following years, have been incorporated in the latter-day submarine design. Of these, the most important are the use of ballast tanks for submerging and surfacing, and horizontal rudders or hydroplanes for maneuvering the craft in the vertical plane for depth control.
For some years Holland and Nordenfelt were vying with each other for an order from the United States Government for building a submarine and it finally went to the former in 1895. The vessel that was designed, the Plunger, was to be powered by a coal-fired steam engine on the surface, and battery-operated twin motors under water. Numerous designing defects came to light during construction and the craft was eventually abandoned. A new model, Holland's ninth, was built in his shipyard and delivered to the United States Government in 1900 and was used as the basic design for all the submarines that were built subsequently. This submarine, which was launched in 1897 and which was tested for three years before delivery, was named the Holland.
A contemporary of Holland, Max Lanbeuf of France, also built a submarine, Nerval, which was similar in construction to Holland's submarines and it was also powered by a coal-fired steam engine but, instead of tanks, it used the space enclosed in its double hull for ballast.
Internal Combustion Engine
The submarines of Holland and Lanbeuf were the prototypes for submarines built for several decades thereafter and they had almost all the essential features of modern day conventional submarine -ballast tanks, internal combustion engines for surface propulsion at nine knots and for charging batteries whilst on the surface and electric motors for underwater propulsion at seven knots; Us effective operational range was an impressive 1,000 miles. However, the internal combustion engines used at that time were gasoline engines which were a fire hazard because they gave off highly noxious and inflammable gasoline fumes, and, later were replaced by diesel engines developed by the German engineer, Rudolph Diesel, during the last decade of the 19th century.
Another submarine designer, Simon Lake, had built a submarine, the Argonaut Junior, in 1894 which was primarily meant for use in such peacetime operations as the exploration and exploitation of the living and mineral wealth below the surface of the sea and under the seabed, and for commercial salvage operations. The submersible was made of two layers of yellow pine with a sheet of canvas between them to render it impervious to water. This submarine could move about on the seabed and had an air-lock device which permitted its crew, using diving helmets, to emerge from the submarine and explore the surroundings.
In 1897, Lake built his second submarine, the Argonaut, which was powered by a 30-horse-power gasoline engine, had a 36-foot cigar-shaped hull and could submerge to the bed of a river or the bottom of a lake and move along the bed on three wheels which could be retracted and housed in the keel when the submersible was navigated. A year later, i.e., in November 1898, the Argonaut had the honour of being the first submarine to cross the Atlantic when she sailed from Norfolk and, despite heavy storms encountered on the way, reached New York.
Another submarine, the Protector, was built by Lake in 1906 and sold to Russia. After it was tested and accepted in Russia, he built several more, submersibles for the Russian Government.
The French Submarine -The Gustav Zede
Claude Gombat, a Frenchman, built some small but effective submarines between 1888 and 1890. One of these, the Gustav Zede, which was in service with the French Navy for over ten years, had a hull 160 feet long, was powered by storage batteries and had a range of 200 miles at a cruising speed of six knots and a maximum speed of 13.5 knots.
In 1901, this submarine, while taking part in exercises, staged a mock attack on the French Mediterranean Fleet after travelling 160 miles under her own power. While remaining totally undetected, the submarine hit the battleship Charles Martel, the pride of the French Navy, with a dummy torpedo. The successful 'sinking' of a fully protected battleship by a tiny submarine which could approach its target, deliver a lethal blow and escape without being detected, was a watershed in the history of submarines and was an object lesson to the naval planners of all major countries, in the changes that were going to be wrought into the future shape of sea power.
By the end of the 19th century, only six navies in the world had acquired a total of 10 submarines and eleven more were being built. Leading the submarine-owning countries was France, which had a total of 14, built or building, followed way behind by the United States which had only two, one of these two being of the Holland-type which was at that time reckoned to be the best design in the world. The other countries which had acquired submarines were Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey which had one craft each. Britain, which had one of the mightiest navies at that time, was yet to acquire one because of active and continued discouragement from the British Admiralty.
The 1901 success of the French submarine, Gustav Zede, however, came as a rude shock and an eye-opener to the mandarins of the Admiralty, and so it overruled the policy of the First Sea Lord, Earl St. Vincent, and promptly ordered five submarines of the Holland type of the US Navy -not for using them against enemy warships or for coastal defense- but for intensive research into antisubmarine measures! The first submarine built for the Royal Navy, Submarine No. 1 (with only one torpedo cube) was thus launched on October 2, 1901 and the submarine service of the Royal Navy was born.
Submarines for the British Navy -Acute Submarine-Phobia
The policy of active discouragement against submarine development had prevailed in the British Admiralty for about a century. Hence there had been practically no research in submarine development in England during the 19th century. As a consequence the design for the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be acquired from the USA. In trying to perpetuate this bias, even as this submarine was being commissioned, the Admiralty had decided to curtail the formalities associated with the commissioning of the new vessel to the minimum. To quote an official notice reproduced in the journal Naval and Military Record of October 3, 1901, the day after the launching: It is understood that no ceremony will take place at the forthcoming launch of the first British submarine at Barrow-in-Furness. The Admiralty regard these boats as wholly in the nature of an experiment and, like all other experiments conducted from time to time, this one will be carried out with all privacy.
Despite the official stance against the development of the underwater craft, shipbuilders in Britain had actually started building submarines as early as in 1885 - full sixteen years before the construction of the first submarine for the Royal Navy. In that year work had commenced on me construction of an experimental submarine at the Barrow- in-Furness shipyard. This submarine, which had a 100-foot hull, had been built in sections by 1886, sold to the Turkish Government, shipped out to that country, and assembled there for the Turkish Navy. Soon, another submarine, 123 feet long, was built at Barrow and sold to the Imperial Russian Navy. It is interesting to note that 'underhand, unfair and un-English' warfare wasn't acceptable to Britain but others could indulge in it so long as it yielded lucre for her!
After building five Holland-type submarines, Britain built the first A-class submarine (with one torpedo tube) in 1902, B-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1905, C-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1906, D-class (with three torpedo tubes, one tube being in the stern, and a 12-pounder gun) in 1908, and E-class (with five torpedo tubes, and one six-pounder or four-inch gun) in 1913. The B-class was the first to be fitted with surface weapons, and the D-class was the first to be equipped with a diesel engine and stern torpedo tube -all earlier classes having used gasoline engines for propulsion, and being fitted with forward torpedo tubes.
The submarine-phobia and surface-vessel mania of the British Admiralty, even after submarines had begun to the built for the Royal Navy, is evident from what Captain Hugh Oliphant, who was the Commanding Officer of Dolphin, the Royal Navy's submarine training establishment, and Captain, First Submarine Squadron some years ago, said about the prevailing ambience at that time: 'One serving British Admiral was at that moment publicly demanding that submarine crews (captured) in war should be treated as pirates and hung; the Director of Naval Construction was warning non-expendable senior officers "never to go below water", and the Engineer-in-Chief considered that the running of a petrol engine in a confined space was so dangerous that the first submarine moorings in Portsmouth were among the remote quarantine and powder hulks’. The first submarine 'depot ship' and training school was thus given the not inappropriate name of Hazard’.
By now, even in the Royal Navy, some of the senior officers had realized the potential of the submarine and were quite vociferous in demanding a change in the naval policy. In 1904, Admiral Lord Jacky Fisher wrote prophetically:
It is astounding to me, perfectly astounding, how the very best amongst us absolutely fail to realize the vast impending revolution in naval warfare and naval strategy that the submarine will accomplish!'
Here, just to take a simple instance, with the battleship Empress of India, engaged in maneuvers and knowing the proximity of submarines, so self-confident of safety and so oblivious of the possibilities of modern warfare.. . and suddenly they see a Whitehead torpedo miss her stern by a few feet!
And how fired? From a submarine of the 'pre-Adamite' period; small, slow, badly fitted, with no periscope at all.
. . . . I have not disguised my opinion in season and out of season as to the essential, imperative, immediate, vital pressing, urgent (I can't think of any more adjectives) necessity for more submarines at once, at the very least 25 in addition to those now ordered and building and 100 more as soon as practical, or we shall be caught with our breeches down....
The turn of the century was thus a watershed in the history of submarines, for the fundamental principles of the construction and operation of submersibles had taken, concrete shape and been demonstrated to the world by this time. It continues to be valid even today. Internal combustion engines, both gasoline and diesel, had proved to be the most efficient and practical power plants; electric propulsion, as an alternative or in tandem with diesel or gasoline engines, had proved a success; the invention of the periscope had increased the feasibility of underwater navigation and improved the potential of the submarine for surveillance and for carrying out attacks while remaining submerged; and the torpedo, the primary weapon of the submarine, had been perfected and had proved its deadly capability. The manually propelled and operated one-man submersibles had been replaced by the larger and more versatile, long-range and long-endurance submarine. These would soon become a major component of naval strategy, both for offence and defense. Anew chapter had begun in the history of naval warfare.
Special Features of Submarines Developed
Some of the features peculiar to these submarines were the all-welded hull, the periscope, the schnorkel or the snort, the diesel-electric propulsion system and the revolutionary weapon - the torpedo.
Below the superstructure deck was the hull which had to withstand the tremendous pressure of sea water while submerged, and to maintain its watertight integrity under varying pressure conditions. The shape of the vessel had evolved from Bushnell's spherical Turtle to the cylindrical Holland genre over a period of 125 years, the latter being constructed on the basis of the fabrication of a series of watertight containers by means of watertight joints. In the double-hull type of submarines, the pressure hull was inside the outer hull and between these hulls were the water and fuel oil tanks.
The space between the non watertight superstructure deck and the pressure hull was used as locker space for stowing anchor gear, lines, ammunition for the submarine guns, boats and other equipment that did not get damaged by immersion in Water. Extending upwards through the superstructure amidships was a watertight tower known as the conning tower, the top of which was the bridge from where the vessel was controlled when on the surface. But when submerged, it was controlled from the conning tower or from a compartment directly below it, known as the control room. For making observations while totally submerged, periscopes extending above the bridge were operated from the conning tower.
Evolution of the Torpedo
The submarine is essentially a torpedo vessel, launching Its torpedoes while surfaced or submerged, and hence it has basically evolved over the years as a torpedo-launching platform, though today its weapon outfit includes missiles. The torpedo too has been developed into a highly complicated underwater projectile with a heavy explosive charge. It is detonated by an exploding mechanism when in contact with, or in proximity to, the hulls of target vessels. Today, high-power engines drive it at high speed and sophisticated instruments control its course. Torpedoes are fired by, or launched by, surface vessels, aircraft or submarines. Its capability of being launched, approaching the target and striking with little or no warning makes it particularly useful to submarines, which can frequently carry out an attack and escape without being detected.
The word torpedo is derived from the word Torpedinidae, the family name for the fish called electric rays. These fish and electric eels have been referred to as torpedoes. The term torpedo was first applied to an explosive device around 1800 and, in its various experimental forms, this name was used for the next 65 years or so for a type of floating mine.
The first to use an explosive device of this category was David Bushnell in 1776. His was a simple type of floating mine with a clockwork mechanism which was designed tc be secured to the bottom of an enemy vessel with the help of a screw driven into the latter's hull, and to go off after the pre-set interval. As described earlier, no damage was caused to the target, the British warship Eagle, as the submersible, Turtle failed to secure the explosive device to the ship's hull.
Robert Fulton, the American genius whose talents had been recognized not at home but in France and England, used 'a catamaran torpedo' developed by him in an attack on the French Fleet at Boulogne on October 2,1804. Twelve of these devices were turned loose against the French ships, creating great excitement but causing no damage as they exploded short of their intended targets.
During the American Civil War, various kinds of torpedoes were used by the Union and Confederate forces. Some of these were simple beer kegs filled with gunpowder whose use was responsible for the well-known outburst from Admiral David Farragut, 'Damn the torpedoes... Go ahead!' At the other extreme were the gigantic electric torpedoes carrying over 90 kilograms of explosives each, one of which was used to blow the Federal gunboat Commodore Jones to smithereens.
It was an English engineer, Robert Whitehead, who, in 1868, perfected the first practical self-propelled torpedo, the forerunner of the modern torpedo. The Whitehead torpedo used all the basic principles that are used even today, such as hydrostatic depth control lateral control, and an engine which powered two contra-rotating propellers; the source of power for the 'cold-running' torpedo was compressed air contained in a metal flask which produced a speed of seven knots over a range of 700 yards. During the last decade of the 19th century, the US Navy used this torpedo, its speed increased to 27 knots though its range had been extended only by 300 yards.
The first 'hot-running' version, the Bliss-Levitt torpedo, was designed by an American, E.W. Bliss, in 1904 and featured a combustion chamber burning alcohol, preheated from the flask in which the pressure was increased. The combination of higher pressure and preheating increased the range to 4,000 yards.
Meanwhile, the introduction of torpedoes had radically changed naval warfare. In 1877, a superior Turkish naval formation was forced to keep clear of the Russians off Odessa because the latter had equipped its ships with torpedoes. With their rabidly increasing speed, range and hitting power, torpedoes soon became a serious threat to capital ships, i.e. the larger ships of the fleet in later years. Since the torpedoes caused the greatest damage when they hit their targets underwater and since it was impractical to make extensive use of armor for the protection of the 'soft underbellies' of these ships, naval designers modified their hulls by providing double or triple bottoms and highly compartmentalized hulls. An excellent example of this is provided by the hull design of the German battleship Bismarck which, despite being repeatedly hit by torpedoes from destroyers and aircraft during a lengthy engagement in World War II in May 1941, remained afloat because of her excellent watertight integrity produced by her multi-bottom and multi-compartment design.
About the time of the Spanish-American War, the torpedo-boat came into being and was used to great effect against heavier ships. As a defense against these boats, larger torpedo-boat destroyers were developed, the latter finally evolving into the destroyer whose principal weapon for many years was the torpedo it had originally been designed to counter.
During this period all torpedoes were designed for underwater launching and until 1922 even battleships used torpedoes. A torpedo for being launched above the surface was first developed in 1910; it incorporated a horizontal type turbine instead of the earlier vertical type, had a 'hot-running' engine, a speed of 35 knots and a range of 2,000 yards. Later there was some improvement in torpedo operation but torpedo design virtually remained unchanged until the end of World War I.
During World War I, Germany sank 1,381 Allied merchant ships by using torpedoes alone, and during World War II, German naval designers developed the acoustic torpedo which virtually brought the Allies to the brink of defeat. It played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic but the downslide was stopped in the nick of time by developing a device that provided fairly effective defense against the acoustic aspect of these torpedoes.
After the target had been identified and its direction and range established, the acoustic torpedo was launched in the general direction of the target. After traversing some distance, the acoustic device of the torpedo would pick up the noise made by the target's propellers and would then 'home' on to the source of the noise. This torpedo posed the greatest danger to large conveys as it could be launched in the general direction of the target without having to solve what is known as the fire control problem and leave the rest to the torpedo itself. Another advantage of the acoustic torpedo was that it did not require high speed to intercept its target; so long as its speed was higher than that of the target, it homed on to it though it had to run for a little longer period. This led to the development of the torpedo which could zigzag, popularly referred to as the Wobbly Willie, or follow a spiral track, as did the Curley Charlie, during its course until it picked up the target and homed on to it.
The acoustic torpedo played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic. The only defense against this torpedo was a noisemaker which was developed during the war. Being louder than the target's propellers the noisemaker diverted the torpedoes to erratic tracks until they lost contact or ran down after exhausting their fuel.
Most of the torpedoes used until the 1950s came in two sizes - those fired by submarines and destroyers were 21-inches in. diameter and 21 feet long and those fired by torpedo planes and, during the later part of World War II, by patrol-torpedo boats (P.T. boats) were 225 inches in diameter and 13.5 feet in length. The cylindrical steel flask containing compressed air at a pressure of 3,000 pounds per square inch was fastened to a pointed nose-piece containing several kilograms of explosives. An exploder mechanism, which was set to detonate when it came into contact with any object, was inserted in the warhead before the torpedo was fired.
During actual operation, in order to prevent discovery by the enemy of an unsuccessful attempt, live torpedoes were designed to sink at the end of their run if they did not explode. Japanese torpedoes were, however, designed to explode at the end of their run if they failed to hit a target. A few years earlier, German torpedoes were designed to remain afloat at the end of the run so that they could be used as mines, i.e., there could be some chance of the torpedo being struck by another ship.
The electric torpedo, which was powered by batteries and was cheaper and easier to produce, was slower than the steam torpedo and of less range, but did not produce any air bubbles and hence did not produce any wake. While the steam torpedo had a speed of 45 knots and a range of 4,500 yards which increased to 15,000 yards if the speed was reduced to 30 knots, the electric torpedo had a range of 4,000 yards at 30 knots.
Until the early 1950s the mobile platforms used for launching torpedoes included destroyers, submarines, patrol-boats and aircraft. Destroyers and P.T. boats launched torpedoes by ejecting them from tubes mounted on their decks with a charge of powder, the latter also carrying aircraft torpedoes which were merely dropped over the side. These torpedoes were used by the P.T. boats to launch attacks on all types of vessels including battleships.
Torpedoes were launched by submarines from tubes fitted in their bows and sterns with a charge of compressed air. Cruisers were initially fitted with torpedo tubes but discontinued using them after 1936; battleships never used them mainly because their gun range far exceeded the torpedo range and at torpedo range they presented very large targets to the enemy vessels.
The greatest torpedo threat during World War II came from the torpedo planes because the attack could come from a number of directions at once and the warning was very short because of the high speed of the planes. Because of this advantage and better cost effectiveness of torpedo planes over destroyers, World War II saw increasing employment of aerial torpedo attacks.
During World War II submarine warfare was almost exclusively fought with torpedoes; and the effectiveness of the torpedo against surface vessels can be gauged from the fact that out of a total of 10,583,755 tons of Japanese naval and merchant shipping sunk by the Allied forces during World War II, 5,320, 094 tons, i.e., over 50 per cent was accounted for by torpedoes fired from United States' submarines alone.
Other Important Features
As is well-known, the eye of the submarine is the periscope which was invented and developed solely for the purpose of providing a means to view the surface or sky without detection by surface vessels or aircraft. The earlier designers of submarines didn't provide for any viewing device for submarines when they were in a submerged or semi-submerged state, as a result of which they had to grope their way blindly after diving. But the need for a suitable viewing device was soon realized and in 1854 a Frenchman, E.M. Marie-Davy, designed a submarine sight tube containing two mirrors, one above the other, held at the angle of 45 degree and facing in opposite directions. These did provide some degree of sight to the submerged vessels but were rather limited in performance and were hence substituted in 1872 with prisms. The credit for inventing the original periscope goes to Thomas H. Doughty, who developed the basic form during the American Civil War.
The first American submarine to use an internal combustion engine was fitted with 45 horse-power, two-cylinder, four-stroke gasoline engines while the British preferred gasoline engines fitted with 12 or 16 cylinders. The inherent hazards of these engines were soon realized, for stowage was a constant problem and handling of fuel was extremely dangerous. Also, internal explosions were frequent and many of the engines gave off considerable carbon monoxide fumes, creating a menace to personnel.
M.A.N. (Maschinenfabrik Augsberg-Nwinberg A.G.) of Germany had developed a four-stroke diesel engine, capable of producing 1,090 horse power but all these engines developed structural weaknesses in the crankcase. Until 1930 the engines used in most submarines of all the larger naval powers with the exception of Great Britain were four-stroke diesels.
With the development, however, of fleet type submarines, the need for more powerful engines became apparent and eventually a 16-cylinder single-acting engine was developed as well as a 9-cylinder double-acting engine. The fact that submarines are both surface and sub-surface vessels places definite restrictions on size, hull design and shape. The total weight of the submarine is also a factor having considerable bearing on underwater operations. In the first engine powered submarine, the engines were mechanically connected directly to the propeller shafting. It, however, became apparent after testing various types and designs, that the diesel-electric drive was the best. In this type, the engines were connected only to the generators, which in turn supplied power to the main motors driving the propeller shafting. Another function of the generators was charging the storage batteries.
Today's fleet type submarines are generally powered by four main propulsion diesel engines, each capable of driving a generator producing around 2,000 horse-power which in turn drives a slow-speed motor or charges a bank of batteries. An auxiliary engine is also available for driving the generators.
As is known, the conventional submarine does not use the diesels or generators while submerged, and power for the motors is supplied by two sets of storage batteries, which are charged by the auxiliary and main generators during surface operations. The two main storage batteries consist of two groups of over 100 cells each, each one of these cells weighing several quintals.
During the latter part of World War II, the Germans adopted a radical change in submarine design known as the 'schnorkel' -an invention made by the Dutch in 1936 for replenishing air supply of the crew of their submarines. The spelling was simplified by the Americans to 'snorkel' and further abbreviated by the British to 'snort'. The Germans were forced to develop the new device because of the rapid strides already made in the development of improved sonar (underwater sound-aided detecting and ranging equipment) and radar, used by the Allied aircraft and surface vessels against German vessels.
The schnorkel was originally a breathing tube which was raised while the submarine was at periscope depth. When it was raised in position, air for the crew was obtained from the surface. In 1944 the Germans equipped their submarines with double-tube schnorkels, one for Jetting in air for the submarine's diesel engines and crew and the other as an exhaust for diesel fumes, carbon dioxide and other pollutants. The intake tube projected by a foot or so above the sea surface while the exhaust gases were discharged into the sea. This considerably reduced the visible portion of the submarines and also consumption of electric power, since the submarine could cruise almost totally submerged on its engines and conserve its battery power for attacks and evasive measures.
The schnorkel had only one drawback. While by itself it was too small to be spotted from a distance or from the air ii left a distinct wake which could be visually picked up from an antisubmarine ship or aircraft in calm weather. It could also be detected by the radar fitted on ships or aircraft. Darkness or fog could not provide any camouflage any more.
The United States Navy developed an improved schnorkel and also the 'guppy' submarine at the end of World War II. The guppy (greater underwater propulsion power) had the same type of hull as that used for the fleet submarine of World War II fame, was 306 feet long and displaced about 1,800 tons. The only change in the hull was in the superstructure which was radically changed by reducing the surface and streamlining every protruding object. The life lines and all guns were removed, the bitts (posts) to which ropes were secured were made retractable and the periscope shears (supports) enclosed in a streamlined metal fairing. All topside armament and equipment were
RUN SILENT RUN DEEP
The Evolution of the Submarine
The submarine came into its own during World War I, it’s devastating lethality and near-invincibility reinforced during and after World War II, and its nuclear propulsion and teeth giving it virtually limitless range and calamitous destructive power during the post-World War II years. However, it made a fairly late entry into India's naval fleet, possibly because the submarine was earlier considered an 'offensive' weapon platform and hence could not have a place in the arsenal of a country that had pledged to abide by the principles of peace.
Since the capability to operate in the third element - me subsurface -has now been added to the Indian Navy's repertoire, it is essential that the evolution of the submarine from its tentative conceptual state in the 16tR: century to its present day status of being the prime dealer of destruction at sea, as well as the significant role it played in shaping the ends of the two World Wars, be studied in detail before apprising oneself of the process of establishment of the submarine arm in the Indian Navy. This chapter provides a brief resume of such developments around the globe.
While addressing the men of the Royal Navy's Submarine Service during World War II, Winston Churchill had said; 'Of all the branches of men in the Forces, there is none that shows more devotion and faces greater perils than the submariner . . . great deeds are done in the air and on the land, nevertheless nothing surpasses your exploits.' Indeed, nothing can transcend the tour de force that the submarine has displayed and the impact of the revolutionary changes in the concept; both strategic arid tactical, of the war at sea brought about by its invention. Besides, its use for opera-ions against a wide variety of targets during the last century have been far greater than that of the supersession of the oared galley by the sailing galleon, the sailing ship of the line by the steam ironclad, the battleship by the carrier-borne and shore-based maritime aircraft, and the diesel-electric propulsion systems of submarines, by the nuclear power plant.
Adoption of new techniques, technology, strategy or tactics, weaponry and weapon platforms generally require a fairly long lead time because their potential and advantages over the existing techniques, tactics, etc, have to be convincingly established before they are introduced in any Service. Oared galleys continued to be constructed for England's Navy for several years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada; even thirty years after the first battleship had been fitted with engines, steam ironclads continued to be equipped with sails, and when World War II was coming to an end in 1945, the British Admiralty was still working on a new design for a 16-inch gun turret. For similar reasons, despite the developments in submarine technology in Europe and America concurrently with those in Great Britain, the Royal Navy woke up to the danger posed by submarines only after the outbreak of World War I when the armored cruisers, Cressy, Hoque and Aboukir, were sunk by one small German U-boat as a result of which the Grand Fleet's method of cruising the sea had to be drastically altered. J& fact, until the time they learnt their lessons the hard way, the British had been doing their best to discourage the development of submarines because they still believed that they, with their huge surface navy, had nothing to gain and much to lose by their development. As a result of the adoption of this attitude, the design of the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be purchased from America for construction in Britain and, what is even more surprising, this class of submarines were built not to supplement the British war effort but only to enable the British designers to find an antidote to them! It is significant to note that until October 1, 1901, when the Royal Navy's Submarine Service came into being with the launching of Submarine No, 1(129 tons), the popular view in Britain, which has a seafaring history spanning several millennia, was that submarines were 'underhand, unfair and damned un-English'.
This is of course not surprising as there is no profession so wedded to tradition as the military. During World War I the machine gun had been scorned as the 'much-overrated weapon'; the tank was thought of as a 'toy'; Marshal Joffre had refused to have a telephone installed in his office; poison gas was reluctantly adopted by the British after its use by the Germans was classified as a mere 'accessory'; the trench mortar was projected twice by the British War Office and was finally accepted after a cabinet minister secured the funds for it from an Indian maharaja; British subalterns got 'their swords sharpened before crossing to France; and as late as 1918 ‘Pershing had cluttered up his supply lines with mountains of fodder for useless horses, still dreaming of Custer and Sheridan and the glint of Virginia moonlight on the shirting saddles of Stuart's cavalry.’
Early History
There are occasional references in ancient history to the attempts made by man to seek stealth and surprise by operating from submerged or semi- submerged vessels during wars at sea. The very early protagonists of the submarine were not so much inspired by the desire to descend below the surface of the sea to explore the depths of the sea as to devise a method of rendering a warship invisible to the enemy so that it could carry out surreptitious attacks and escape at will.
The earliest reference to attempts made at waging underwater warfare is found in the writings of Aristotle who recorded that Alexander the Great used diving bells to enable his men to descend below the surface of the sea during the siege of Tyre in 332 B.C. He also ordered his divers to impede or destroy the defensive barriers still in use and known as boom defenses) the city was likely to build to prevent the movement of submerged vessels. In fact, according to legend, Alexander himself made a descent into the sea in a device which kept its occupants dry and admitted light-However it is believed that nearly a century earlier than Alexander's experiments; the Athenians had used divers to clear the entrance to the Syracuse harbour during its siege from 415 to 413 B.C.
Over the following two millennia the potential and the tactical advantages of operating below the surface of the sea continued to be appreciated by many military thinkers and several attempts were made during this period to develop an underwater platform that could be used against enemy shipping and war vessels far more effectively than surface ships, both for offensive and defensive operations. In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, is said to have designed a vessel which could dive, remain submerged for some time and surface unaided end could surreptitiously plant bombs or mines on enemy vessels, but the design of this submarine was kept secret because da Vinci he felt that man would misuse it- 'He knew a method of remaining a long time underwater, but he refused to tell of it because of the "evil nature of man”.
The Submersible Takes Shape
Experiments in diving and moving underwater continued but the first recorded mention of a submarine design conforming to the basic principles of submersion is found in the writings of a British naval officer, William Bourne, who published a detailed design of a 'boat that may go under the water' in 1578. The vessel was a completely enclosed boat which could be submerged by reducing its volume by contracting the sides through the use of hand vices, which could bring the boat back to the surface by increasing the volume. This vessel could also move underwater by using watertight oars. This realistic design provided for both submersibility and propulsion underwater but was never built.
Twenty-seven years later, in 1605, using a design similar to Bourne's, Magnus Pegelius constructed a submersible boat but due to the viscosity and adhesive properties of underwater mud the craft never surfaced after diving.
In 1620, a Dutch physician, Cornelius van Drebel, built a submarine and successfully conducted trials in the Thames River, making the craft cruise repeatedly on the surface, dive, maneuver underwater and then surface for several hours at a stretch. He later built two more craft, embodying the same principles, but larger in size. Van Drebel’s craft had an outer hull made of greased leather stretched over a wooden framework. Propulsion was provided, both on the surface and while submerged, by oars which extended through the sides and which were sealed and rendered watertight with tight-fitting leather flaps which allowed free transverse movement while anchoring the oars to the hull. The underwater endurance of the submarine crew was sought to be enhanced by using compressed oxygen to 'restore to the troubled air such portion of vital parts as would make it again, for a good while, fit for respiration/After repeated trials in the Thames river had established the capabilities of the new 'boat' in travelling on the surface and maneuvering underwater at depths of 12 to 15 feet, King James I is reported to have taken a trip in one of the larger models to demonstrate its safety. But despite the conclusive proof of the designers having evolved a powerful two-dimension weapon platform, the novel features of the submarine failed to arouse the interest of the British Navy.
The wars in the 17th century in Europe, however, Jed to a proliferation of submarine designs some of which were the work of men from professions other than those associated with the navy or seafaring; in fact some of the designers were men of peace, i.e., priests and monks! One such designer was Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law, John Wilkins, Bishop of London. His device for jettisoning gash through an underwater lock while remaining submerged led to the development of underwater lavatories in the latter-day submarines which obviated the need for the submarine to surface repeatedly. He also wrote on future naval developments and centuries later many of his predictions turned out to be true; such as his prediction of journeys by submarines under the Polar ice-cap, an idea which was dismissed as science fantasy In the 17th century.
By the middle of the 17th century, many naval architects had conceptualized and experimented with possible submersible weapon platforms. In 1653, a Frenchman, de Son, designed and built a 72-foot submarine 'that doeth undertake in one day to sink 100 ships' but his submarine never sailed, as its prime mover, a clockwork device, was not powerful enough to propel it on the surface or underwater.
The earlier decades of the 18th century saw numerous 'underwater boats' built, the British designers alone having patented no fewer than fourteen types by 1727. The concept of using a ballast tank for submerging and diving was first visualized by an inventor who described his design in the Gentleman's Magazine ml747. The hull of his craft was equipped with a bank of goatskins which would be filled with water to make the vessel submerge and a 'twisting rod' would be used to force the water out of the goatskins which would provide positive buoyancy and bring the Vessel back to the surface. This craft, however, was never built. At this time the mechanical and physical principles involved in diving and surfacing were yet to be fully understood and hence many of the ideas put forward turned out to be impractical, fanciful or, in some cases, even grotesque. Besides the lack of understanding of the principles, the general impression at this time was that it would be impossible to navigate a craft underwater and even if it became possible, its tactical advantages in naval warfare would be minimal.
The First Submarine, Bushnell's Turtle
However, developments of a submersible craft with weapon delivery capability received a shot in the arm in 1776 when the first submarine that could dive, surface, cruise -both on the surface and underwater-and plant explosives on enemy vessels while remaining submerged, made a dramatic appearance during the American War of Independence. David Bushnell, an American farmer's son, had developed the technique of exploding gunpowder underwater and had followed it up with the invention of the first one-man submersible that was to be used as a weapon platform, the Turtle. Shaped like a wooden beer-barrel, it was powered by a hand-operated screw propeller which could move it at a speed of three knots. It could stay submerged for 30 minutes during which it had to approach its target underwater, plant an explosive on its hull and get away.
It was on September 6, 1776, 29 years before the Battle of Trafalgar, that Ezra Lee, a sergeant in the American Revolutionary Army and the first submariner to launch an underwater operation against enemy vessels, undertook to scuttle Eagle, the Flagship of the British Fleet which was blockading New York Harbour, by planting a powerful explosive on its hull. He set off on his historic mission all by himself on board the Turtle and, operating the handle of the screw-propeller hard for several hours, reached the Eagle and dived. The Turtle then got under the hull of the Flagship and Lee tried to bore a screw device into the Eagle's hull for securing the explosive device to it. Later, a pre-set clockwork mechanism would trigger the explosive device. Unfortunately for Lee, the wooden hull of the Flagship had a sheathing of copper for reinforcement and prevention of the formation of any marine growth. Despite repeated attempts, Lee failed to penetrate the hull. He persisted with his efforts to plant the device, but soon the effects of carbon dioxide poisoning overwhelmed him. He then withdrew, surfaced and set course for shore but was spotted and pursued by a British patrol-beat. Lee jettisoned the explosive cargo and it went off, almost blowing the patrol-boat out of the water.
The Commander of the British Fleet soon realised that his Flagship had had a narrow escape and ordered the blockading ships of his fleet to withdraw to the outer harbour, where they were comparatively safer, but the effectiveness of the blockade was considerably reduced. Thus while the first sub-surface attack in. the history of submarines had proved to be abortive, it brought home one lesson which holds good even today- that the mere presence of a submarine lurking below the surface can upset the plans of a tactical commander over a large area far more than the sinking of a ship. In other words, the fear of the unknown and the element of surprise area greater deterrent at sea than an actual attack. Submarine warfare thus became a reality, even though the first ever submarine attack had failed to cause any physical damage.
Fulton's Nautilus
Robert Fulton, the American inventor who was the first to propel a boat by steam in 1803, and the first to build a steam warship, the Fulton, in 1815, is better remembered for having constructed a three-man submarine boat, the Nautilus, in 1795. Incorporating nearly all the main features of a modem submarine and shaped like one, the Nautilus, which was built of steel and shaped like an elongated oval, was powered by sails on the surface and by a hand-driven screw-propeller under water. Since the periscope was yet to be invented, a primitive form or a conning tower, equipped with a watertight port hole was provided and was used for observation and maneuvering the craft underwater. It was also equipped with ballast tanks for diving and surfacing, as modern submarines are, and had a submerged endurance of three hours for four men to breathe and two candles to bum! Like the Turtle, it had a device which could attach explosives to the hull of a ship while remaining underwater. During its trials at Brest, the Nautilus had also proved its capabilities by sinking an old schooner.
Since the war was over, the American naval authorities showed little interest in Fulton's submarine design, compelling him to build the Nautilus at Paris. He offered it to the authorities to deploy it off the French coast against British warships but it failed to sink or damage any ship.
Disappointed, Fulton then approached the British authorities and demonstrated the capability of his submarine craft by sinking a ship in 1804. The Prime Minister, William Pitt, was so impressed by the submarines performance that he asked the Admiralty to acquire the craft. His request was, however, dismissed by the First Sea Lord (then Earl St. Vincent) with the rather intemperate remark, 'Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which those who command the sea do not want and, if successful, will deprive them of it/
For about 60 years after the disappearance of the Nautilus, inventors continued to test various designs of small, hand-propelled submersibles with a crew of six to eight men. None of these was, however, an improvement on Fulton's craft, and hence no progress towards further development of submersibles was discernible. However, during the American Civil War the next nautical milestone in submarine development was recorded, with the sinking of a warship by a submarine, when a Federal corvette, the Housatonic, which v/as blockading Charleston harbour, was scuttled by the Confederate submersible David (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the name of the submersible was Hartley) in 1864. An explosive pack, suspended ahead of the bow of the David from a bowsprit, accomplished the feat when the submersible rammed the corvette. However, when the Housatonic was salvaged, the mangled wreck of the David was found sandwiched between the corvette's hull and the seabed. Because of the submersible's proximity to the Housatonic, the explosive had proved to be as much of a danger to the attacker as to its target. The Housatonic thus had the dubious honour of being the first surface vessel to be sunk by a submarine (and the first surface vessel to have crushed a submarine in an unintended Kamikaze attack).
Progress in submarine development continued to be bedeviled by the absence of a suitable propulsion device to enable the submarine to operate underwater for long periods, and an explosive which, rather than being planted, could be launched or fired by the submarine from a safe distance.
Steam and Electric Propulsion
Steam engines, though bulky and messy, were tried for some time for the propulsion of submersibles and in 1880, George Garret, an English clergyman, built a submarine which was propelled by two propellers driven by steam from a coal-fired boiler, which featured a retractable smokestack for ventilation. About this time, a Swedish gun designer, Norden felt, also constructed a submarine powered by steam. This submarine was capable of submerging to a depth of 50 feet, had an underwater endurance of 20 miles and was the first submersible to be fitted with a practical torpedo tube. The novelty of the new weapon-launching device appealed to the Turks and Russians, who acquired some of these craft but, because of their limitations, could not achieve anything worthwhile.
Experiments with the still new form of energy, electricity, had in the mean time proved successful, and storage batteries with several hours of endurance had been developed for the propulsion of submarines with electric motors. In 1886 two Englishmen, Campbell and Ash, developed an all-electric submarine which was powered by two 50-horse-power motors operated from a 100-cell storage battery. It was capable of maintaining a surface speed of six knots but the storage capacity of its battery being very low, its effective range was limited to only 80 miles.
The endurance of the storage battery for submarines was considerably improved by a Frenchman, Claude Gombat who, between 1888 and 1890, built some small battery-powered submarines which were acquired and used by the French Navy for about 10 years. These submarines were about 160 feet long, had a maximum speed of 13.5 knots and an effective range of 200 miles.
The 'Holland Type' Submarine -Ballast Tanks and Hydroplanes
Meanwhile John P. Holland of New Jersey, an ex-Irish school teacher who had migrated to the USA and who was to virtually become the creator of the Royal Navy's submarine service, had launched his first submersible in 1875. In 1882 he constructed the Fenian Ram which was tested on the Hudson River, and which was propelled by gasoline engines en the surface and electric motors underwater. These submersibles had several features which had to be discarded later, but some of Holland's innovations, perfected during the following years, have been incorporated in the latter-day submarine design. Of these, the most important are the use of ballast tanks for submerging and surfacing, and horizontal rudders or hydroplanes for maneuvering the craft in the vertical plane for depth control.
For some years Holland and Nordenfelt were vying with each other for an order from the United States Government for building a submarine and it finally went to the former in 1895. The vessel that was designed, the Plunger, was to be powered by a coal-fired steam engine on the surface, and battery-operated twin motors under water. Numerous designing defects came to light during construction and the craft was eventually abandoned. A new model, Holland's ninth, was built in his shipyard and delivered to the United States Government in 1900 and was used as the basic design for all the submarines that were built subsequently. This submarine, which was launched in 1897 and which was tested for three years before delivery, was named the Holland.
A contemporary of Holland, Max Lanbeuf of France, also built a submarine, Nerval, which was similar in construction to Holland's submarines and it was also powered by a coal-fired steam engine but, instead of tanks, it used the space enclosed in its double hull for ballast.
Internal Combustion Engine
The submarines of Holland and Lanbeuf were the prototypes for submarines built for several decades thereafter and they had almost all the essential features of modern day conventional submarine -ballast tanks, internal combustion engines for surface propulsion at nine knots and for charging batteries whilst on the surface and electric motors for underwater propulsion at seven knots; Us effective operational range was an impressive 1,000 miles. However, the internal combustion engines used at that time were gasoline engines which were a fire hazard because they gave off highly noxious and inflammable gasoline fumes, and, later were replaced by diesel engines developed by the German engineer, Rudolph Diesel, during the last decade of the 19th century.
Another submarine designer, Simon Lake, had built a submarine, the Argonaut Junior, in 1894 which was primarily meant for use in such peacetime operations as the exploration and exploitation of the living and mineral wealth below the surface of the sea and under the seabed, and for commercial salvage operations. The submersible was made of two layers of yellow pine with a sheet of canvas between them to render it impervious to water. This submarine could move about on the seabed and had an air-lock device which permitted its crew, using diving helmets, to emerge from the submarine and explore the surroundings.
In 1897, Lake built his second submarine, the Argonaut, which was powered by a 30-horse-power gasoline engine, had a 36-foot cigar-shaped hull and could submerge to the bed of a river or the bottom of a lake and move along the bed on three wheels which could be retracted and housed in the keel when the submersible was navigated. A year later, i.e., in November 1898, the Argonaut had the honour of being the first submarine to cross the Atlantic when she sailed from Norfolk and, despite heavy storms encountered on the way, reached New York.
Another submarine, the Protector, was built by Lake in 1906 and sold to Russia. After it was tested and accepted in Russia, he built several more, submersibles for the Russian Government.
The French Submarine -The Gustav Zede
Claude Gombat, a Frenchman, built some small but effective submarines between 1888 and 1890. One of these, the Gustav Zede, which was in service with the French Navy for over ten years, had a hull 160 feet long, was powered by storage batteries and had a range of 200 miles at a cruising speed of six knots and a maximum speed of 13.5 knots.
In 1901, this submarine, while taking part in exercises, staged a mock attack on the French Mediterranean Fleet after travelling 160 miles under her own power. While remaining totally undetected, the submarine hit the battleship Charles Martel, the pride of the French Navy, with a dummy torpedo. The successful 'sinking' of a fully protected battleship by a tiny submarine which could approach its target, deliver a lethal blow and escape without being detected, was a watershed in the history of submarines and was an object lesson to the naval planners of all major countries, in the changes that were going to be wrought into the future shape of sea power.
By the end of the 19th century, only six navies in the world had acquired a total of 10 submarines and eleven more were being built. Leading the submarine-owning countries was France, which had a total of 14, built or building, followed way behind by the United States which had only two, one of these two being of the Holland-type which was at that time reckoned to be the best design in the world. The other countries which had acquired submarines were Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey which had one craft each. Britain, which had one of the mightiest navies at that time, was yet to acquire one because of active and continued discouragement from the British Admiralty.
The 1901 success of the French submarine, Gustav Zede, however, came as a rude shock and an eye-opener to the mandarins of the Admiralty, and so it overruled the policy of the First Sea Lord, Earl St. Vincent, and promptly ordered five submarines of the Holland type of the US Navy -not for using them against enemy warships or for coastal defense- but for intensive research into antisubmarine measures! The first submarine built for the Royal Navy, Submarine No. 1 (with only one torpedo cube) was thus launched on October 2, 1901 and the submarine service of the Royal Navy was born.
Submarines for the British Navy -Acute Submarine-Phobia
The policy of active discouragement against submarine development had prevailed in the British Admiralty for about a century. Hence there had been practically no research in submarine development in England during the 19th century. As a consequence the design for the first submarine for the Royal Navy had to be acquired from the USA. In trying to perpetuate this bias, even as this submarine was being commissioned, the Admiralty had decided to curtail the formalities associated with the commissioning of the new vessel to the minimum. To quote an official notice reproduced in the journal Naval and Military Record of October 3, 1901, the day after the launching: It is understood that no ceremony will take place at the forthcoming launch of the first British submarine at Barrow-in-Furness. The Admiralty regard these boats as wholly in the nature of an experiment and, like all other experiments conducted from time to time, this one will be carried out with all privacy.
Despite the official stance against the development of the underwater craft, shipbuilders in Britain had actually started building submarines as early as in 1885 - full sixteen years before the construction of the first submarine for the Royal Navy. In that year work had commenced on me construction of an experimental submarine at the Barrow- in-Furness shipyard. This submarine, which had a 100-foot hull, had been built in sections by 1886, sold to the Turkish Government, shipped out to that country, and assembled there for the Turkish Navy. Soon, another submarine, 123 feet long, was built at Barrow and sold to the Imperial Russian Navy. It is interesting to note that 'underhand, unfair and un-English' warfare wasn't acceptable to Britain but others could indulge in it so long as it yielded lucre for her!
After building five Holland-type submarines, Britain built the first A-class submarine (with one torpedo tube) in 1902, B-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1905, C-class (with two torpedo tubes) in 1906, D-class (with three torpedo tubes, one tube being in the stern, and a 12-pounder gun) in 1908, and E-class (with five torpedo tubes, and one six-pounder or four-inch gun) in 1913. The B-class was the first to be fitted with surface weapons, and the D-class was the first to be equipped with a diesel engine and stern torpedo tube -all earlier classes having used gasoline engines for propulsion, and being fitted with forward torpedo tubes.
The submarine-phobia and surface-vessel mania of the British Admiralty, even after submarines had begun to the built for the Royal Navy, is evident from what Captain Hugh Oliphant, who was the Commanding Officer of Dolphin, the Royal Navy's submarine training establishment, and Captain, First Submarine Squadron some years ago, said about the prevailing ambience at that time: 'One serving British Admiral was at that moment publicly demanding that submarine crews (captured) in war should be treated as pirates and hung; the Director of Naval Construction was warning non-expendable senior officers "never to go below water", and the Engineer-in-Chief considered that the running of a petrol engine in a confined space was so dangerous that the first submarine moorings in Portsmouth were among the remote quarantine and powder hulks’. The first submarine 'depot ship' and training school was thus given the not inappropriate name of Hazard’.
By now, even in the Royal Navy, some of the senior officers had realized the potential of the submarine and were quite vociferous in demanding a change in the naval policy. In 1904, Admiral Lord Jacky Fisher wrote prophetically:
It is astounding to me, perfectly astounding, how the very best amongst us absolutely fail to realize the vast impending revolution in naval warfare and naval strategy that the submarine will accomplish!'
Here, just to take a simple instance, with the battleship Empress of India, engaged in maneuvers and knowing the proximity of submarines, so self-confident of safety and so oblivious of the possibilities of modern warfare.. . and suddenly they see a Whitehead torpedo miss her stern by a few feet!
And how fired? From a submarine of the 'pre-Adamite' period; small, slow, badly fitted, with no periscope at all.
. . . . I have not disguised my opinion in season and out of season as to the essential, imperative, immediate, vital pressing, urgent (I can't think of any more adjectives) necessity for more submarines at once, at the very least 25 in addition to those now ordered and building and 100 more as soon as practical, or we shall be caught with our breeches down....
The turn of the century was thus a watershed in the history of submarines, for the fundamental principles of the construction and operation of submersibles had taken, concrete shape and been demonstrated to the world by this time. It continues to be valid even today. Internal combustion engines, both gasoline and diesel, had proved to be the most efficient and practical power plants; electric propulsion, as an alternative or in tandem with diesel or gasoline engines, had proved a success; the invention of the periscope had increased the feasibility of underwater navigation and improved the potential of the submarine for surveillance and for carrying out attacks while remaining submerged; and the torpedo, the primary weapon of the submarine, had been perfected and had proved its deadly capability. The manually propelled and operated one-man submersibles had been replaced by the larger and more versatile, long-range and long-endurance submarine. These would soon become a major component of naval strategy, both for offence and defense. Anew chapter had begun in the history of naval warfare.
Special Features of Submarines Developed
Some of the features peculiar to these submarines were the all-welded hull, the periscope, the schnorkel or the snort, the diesel-electric propulsion system and the revolutionary weapon - the torpedo.
Below the superstructure deck was the hull which had to withstand the tremendous pressure of sea water while submerged, and to maintain its watertight integrity under varying pressure conditions. The shape of the vessel had evolved from Bushnell's spherical Turtle to the cylindrical Holland genre over a period of 125 years, the latter being constructed on the basis of the fabrication of a series of watertight containers by means of watertight joints. In the double-hull type of submarines, the pressure hull was inside the outer hull and between these hulls were the water and fuel oil tanks.
The space between the non watertight superstructure deck and the pressure hull was used as locker space for stowing anchor gear, lines, ammunition for the submarine guns, boats and other equipment that did not get damaged by immersion in Water. Extending upwards through the superstructure amidships was a watertight tower known as the conning tower, the top of which was the bridge from where the vessel was controlled when on the surface. But when submerged, it was controlled from the conning tower or from a compartment directly below it, known as the control room. For making observations while totally submerged, periscopes extending above the bridge were operated from the conning tower.
Evolution of the Torpedo
The submarine is essentially a torpedo vessel, launching Its torpedoes while surfaced or submerged, and hence it has basically evolved over the years as a torpedo-launching platform, though today its weapon outfit includes missiles. The torpedo too has been developed into a highly complicated underwater projectile with a heavy explosive charge. It is detonated by an exploding mechanism when in contact with, or in proximity to, the hulls of target vessels. Today, high-power engines drive it at high speed and sophisticated instruments control its course. Torpedoes are fired by, or launched by, surface vessels, aircraft or submarines. Its capability of being launched, approaching the target and striking with little or no warning makes it particularly useful to submarines, which can frequently carry out an attack and escape without being detected.
The word torpedo is derived from the word Torpedinidae, the family name for the fish called electric rays. These fish and electric eels have been referred to as torpedoes. The term torpedo was first applied to an explosive device around 1800 and, in its various experimental forms, this name was used for the next 65 years or so for a type of floating mine.
The first to use an explosive device of this category was David Bushnell in 1776. His was a simple type of floating mine with a clockwork mechanism which was designed tc be secured to the bottom of an enemy vessel with the help of a screw driven into the latter's hull, and to go off after the pre-set interval. As described earlier, no damage was caused to the target, the British warship Eagle, as the submersible, Turtle failed to secure the explosive device to the ship's hull.
Robert Fulton, the American genius whose talents had been recognized not at home but in France and England, used 'a catamaran torpedo' developed by him in an attack on the French Fleet at Boulogne on October 2,1804. Twelve of these devices were turned loose against the French ships, creating great excitement but causing no damage as they exploded short of their intended targets.
During the American Civil War, various kinds of torpedoes were used by the Union and Confederate forces. Some of these were simple beer kegs filled with gunpowder whose use was responsible for the well-known outburst from Admiral David Farragut, 'Damn the torpedoes... Go ahead!' At the other extreme were the gigantic electric torpedoes carrying over 90 kilograms of explosives each, one of which was used to blow the Federal gunboat Commodore Jones to smithereens.
It was an English engineer, Robert Whitehead, who, in 1868, perfected the first practical self-propelled torpedo, the forerunner of the modern torpedo. The Whitehead torpedo used all the basic principles that are used even today, such as hydrostatic depth control lateral control, and an engine which powered two contra-rotating propellers; the source of power for the 'cold-running' torpedo was compressed air contained in a metal flask which produced a speed of seven knots over a range of 700 yards. During the last decade of the 19th century, the US Navy used this torpedo, its speed increased to 27 knots though its range had been extended only by 300 yards.
The first 'hot-running' version, the Bliss-Levitt torpedo, was designed by an American, E.W. Bliss, in 1904 and featured a combustion chamber burning alcohol, preheated from the flask in which the pressure was increased. The combination of higher pressure and preheating increased the range to 4,000 yards.
Meanwhile, the introduction of torpedoes had radically changed naval warfare. In 1877, a superior Turkish naval formation was forced to keep clear of the Russians off Odessa because the latter had equipped its ships with torpedoes. With their rabidly increasing speed, range and hitting power, torpedoes soon became a serious threat to capital ships, i.e. the larger ships of the fleet in later years. Since the torpedoes caused the greatest damage when they hit their targets underwater and since it was impractical to make extensive use of armor for the protection of the 'soft underbellies' of these ships, naval designers modified their hulls by providing double or triple bottoms and highly compartmentalized hulls. An excellent example of this is provided by the hull design of the German battleship Bismarck which, despite being repeatedly hit by torpedoes from destroyers and aircraft during a lengthy engagement in World War II in May 1941, remained afloat because of her excellent watertight integrity produced by her multi-bottom and multi-compartment design.
About the time of the Spanish-American War, the torpedo-boat came into being and was used to great effect against heavier ships. As a defense against these boats, larger torpedo-boat destroyers were developed, the latter finally evolving into the destroyer whose principal weapon for many years was the torpedo it had originally been designed to counter.
During this period all torpedoes were designed for underwater launching and until 1922 even battleships used torpedoes. A torpedo for being launched above the surface was first developed in 1910; it incorporated a horizontal type turbine instead of the earlier vertical type, had a 'hot-running' engine, a speed of 35 knots and a range of 2,000 yards. Later there was some improvement in torpedo operation but torpedo design virtually remained unchanged until the end of World War I.
During World War I, Germany sank 1,381 Allied merchant ships by using torpedoes alone, and during World War II, German naval designers developed the acoustic torpedo which virtually brought the Allies to the brink of defeat. It played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic but the downslide was stopped in the nick of time by developing a device that provided fairly effective defense against the acoustic aspect of these torpedoes.
After the target had been identified and its direction and range established, the acoustic torpedo was launched in the general direction of the target. After traversing some distance, the acoustic device of the torpedo would pick up the noise made by the target's propellers and would then 'home' on to the source of the noise. This torpedo posed the greatest danger to large conveys as it could be launched in the general direction of the target without having to solve what is known as the fire control problem and leave the rest to the torpedo itself. Another advantage of the acoustic torpedo was that it did not require high speed to intercept its target; so long as its speed was higher than that of the target, it homed on to it though it had to run for a little longer period. This led to the development of the torpedo which could zigzag, popularly referred to as the Wobbly Willie, or follow a spiral track, as did the Curley Charlie, during its course until it picked up the target and homed on to it.
The acoustic torpedo played havoc with Allied shipping during the Battle of the Atlantic. The only defense against this torpedo was a noisemaker which was developed during the war. Being louder than the target's propellers the noisemaker diverted the torpedoes to erratic tracks until they lost contact or ran down after exhausting their fuel.
Most of the torpedoes used until the 1950s came in two sizes - those fired by submarines and destroyers were 21-inches in. diameter and 21 feet long and those fired by torpedo planes and, during the later part of World War II, by patrol-torpedo boats (P.T. boats) were 225 inches in diameter and 13.5 feet in length. The cylindrical steel flask containing compressed air at a pressure of 3,000 pounds per square inch was fastened to a pointed nose-piece containing several kilograms of explosives. An exploder mechanism, which was set to detonate when it came into contact with any object, was inserted in the warhead before the torpedo was fired.
During actual operation, in order to prevent discovery by the enemy of an unsuccessful attempt, live torpedoes were designed to sink at the end of their run if they did not explode. Japanese torpedoes were, however, designed to explode at the end of their run if they failed to hit a target. A few years earlier, German torpedoes were designed to remain afloat at the end of the run so that they could be used as mines, i.e., there could be some chance of the torpedo being struck by another ship.
The electric torpedo, which was powered by batteries and was cheaper and easier to produce, was slower than the steam torpedo and of less range, but did not produce any air bubbles and hence did not produce any wake. While the steam torpedo had a speed of 45 knots and a range of 4,500 yards which increased to 15,000 yards if the speed was reduced to 30 knots, the electric torpedo had a range of 4,000 yards at 30 knots.
Until the early 1950s the mobile platforms used for launching torpedoes included destroyers, submarines, patrol-boats and aircraft. Destroyers and P.T. boats launched torpedoes by ejecting them from tubes mounted on their decks with a charge of powder, the latter also carrying aircraft torpedoes which were merely dropped over the side. These torpedoes were used by the P.T. boats to launch attacks on all types of vessels including battleships.
Torpedoes were launched by submarines from tubes fitted in their bows and sterns with a charge of compressed air. Cruisers were initially fitted with torpedo tubes but discontinued using them after 1936; battleships never used them mainly because their gun range far exceeded the torpedo range and at torpedo range they presented very large targets to the enemy vessels.
The greatest torpedo threat during World War II came from the torpedo planes because the attack could come from a number of directions at once and the warning was very short because of the high speed of the planes. Because of this advantage and better cost effectiveness of torpedo planes over destroyers, World War II saw increasing employment of aerial torpedo attacks.
During World War II submarine warfare was almost exclusively fought with torpedoes; and the effectiveness of the torpedo against surface vessels can be gauged from the fact that out of a total of 10,583,755 tons of Japanese naval and merchant shipping sunk by the Allied forces during World War II, 5,320, 094 tons, i.e., over 50 per cent was accounted for by torpedoes fired from United States' submarines alone.
Other Important Features
As is well-known, the eye of the submarine is the periscope which was invented and developed solely for the purpose of providing a means to view the surface or sky without detection by surface vessels or aircraft. The earlier designers of submarines didn't provide for any viewing device for submarines when they were in a submerged or semi-submerged state, as a result of which they had to grope their way blindly after diving. But the need for a suitable viewing device was soon realized and in 1854 a Frenchman, E.M. Marie-Davy, designed a submarine sight tube containing two mirrors, one above the other, held at the angle of 45 degree and facing in opposite directions. These did provide some degree of sight to the submerged vessels but were rather limited in performance and were hence substituted in 1872 with prisms. The credit for inventing the original periscope goes to Thomas H. Doughty, who developed the basic form during the American Civil War.
The first American submarine to use an internal combustion engine was fitted with 45 horse-power, two-cylinder, four-stroke gasoline engines while the British preferred gasoline engines fitted with 12 or 16 cylinders. The inherent hazards of these engines were soon realized, for stowage was a constant problem and handling of fuel was extremely dangerous. Also, internal explosions were frequent and many of the engines gave off considerable carbon monoxide fumes, creating a menace to personnel.
M.A.N. (Maschinenfabrik Augsberg-Nwinberg A.G.) of Germany had developed a four-stroke diesel engine, capable of producing 1,090 horse power but all these engines developed structural weaknesses in the crankcase. Until 1930 the engines used in most submarines of all the larger naval powers with the exception of Great Britain were four-stroke diesels.
With the development, however, of fleet type submarines, the need for more powerful engines became apparent and eventually a 16-cylinder single-acting engine was developed as well as a 9-cylinder double-acting engine. The fact that submarines are both surface and sub-surface vessels places definite restrictions on size, hull design and shape. The total weight of the submarine is also a factor having considerable bearing on underwater operations. In the first engine powered submarine, the engines were mechanically connected directly to the propeller shafting. It, however, became apparent after testing various types and designs, that the diesel-electric drive was the best. In this type, the engines were connected only to the generators, which in turn supplied power to the main motors driving the propeller shafting. Another function of the generators was charging the storage batteries.
Today's fleet type submarines are generally powered by four main propulsion diesel engines, each capable of driving a generator producing around 2,000 horse-power which in turn drives a slow-speed motor or charges a bank of batteries. An auxiliary engine is also available for driving the generators.
As is known, the conventional submarine does not use the diesels or generators while submerged, and power for the motors is supplied by two sets of storage batteries, which are charged by the auxiliary and main generators during surface operations. The two main storage batteries consist of two groups of over 100 cells each, each one of these cells weighing several quintals.
During the latter part of World War II, the Germans adopted a radical change in submarine design known as the 'schnorkel' -an invention made by the Dutch in 1936 for replenishing air supply of the crew of their submarines. The spelling was simplified by the Americans to 'snorkel' and further abbreviated by the British to 'snort'. The Germans were forced to develop the new device because of the rapid strides already made in the development of improved sonar (underwater sound-aided detecting and ranging equipment) and radar, used by the Allied aircraft and surface vessels against German vessels.
The schnorkel was originally a breathing tube which was raised while the submarine was at periscope depth. When it was raised in position, air for the crew was obtained from the surface. In 1944 the Germans equipped their submarines with double-tube schnorkels, one for Jetting in air for the submarine's diesel engines and crew and the other as an exhaust for diesel fumes, carbon dioxide and other pollutants. The intake tube projected by a foot or so above the sea surface while the exhaust gases were discharged into the sea. This considerably reduced the visible portion of the submarines and also consumption of electric power, since the submarine could cruise almost totally submerged on its engines and conserve its battery power for attacks and evasive measures.
The schnorkel had only one drawback. While by itself it was too small to be spotted from a distance or from the air ii left a distinct wake which could be visually picked up from an antisubmarine ship or aircraft in calm weather. It could also be detected by the radar fitted on ships or aircraft. Darkness or fog could not provide any camouflage any more.
The United States Navy developed an improved schnorkel and also the 'guppy' submarine at the end of World War II. The guppy (greater underwater propulsion power) had the same type of hull as that used for the fleet submarine of World War II fame, was 306 feet long and displaced about 1,800 tons. The only change in the hull was in the superstructure which was radically changed by reducing the surface and streamlining every protruding object. The life lines and all guns were removed, the bitts (posts) to which ropes were secured were made retractable and the periscope shears (supports) enclosed in a streamlined metal fairing. All topside armament and equipment were
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