The Submarine Torpedo Boat
Its Characteristics And Modern Development

THE SUBMARINE TORPEDO BOAT 178 yards at a speed of 28 knots or 2000 yards at a speed of 38 knots. Next abaft the air flask is the immersion chamber. In this chamber is contained the very delicate apparatus for controlling the depth of the torpedo. It is an ingenious combination of a hydrostatic piston and a pendulum weight in mechanical connection with a horizontal rudder at the tail end. The operation of the pendulum and the piston working together is such as to counteract a too vio- lent action of either acting individually. By this mech- anism if the torpedo gets below its adjusted depth, sea pressure acting upon the hydrostatic piston causes it to push in, throwing the rudder to a “hard up” position which immediately brings the nose of the torpedo up; but this upward movement of the nose causes the pendulum to swing aft, and the moment of its weight acts directly in opposition to the hydrostatic piston and neutralizes its effect to the extent that the torpedo assumes a gentle and not too abrupt rise; otherwise it would probably jump out of the water. The control in a downward direc- tion is effected in the same manner but with the operations reversed. The depth of the immersion of the torpedo is adjusted by a tension nut acting on a coil spring attached to a hydrostatic piston. The tension caused by this nut is carefully calibrated by experiment so that to change the adjustment for depth it is only necessary to turn the nut until it intercepts one of the graduations. The operation of the rudder itself is controlled by a steering engine which is in turn controlled by a valve actuated by the hydro- static piston. The driving engine is contained in the next section abaft the immersion chamber. Formerly the Whitehead tor-