Download Photo

The Goubet class are of iron, sixteen feet long, three feet wide, and about six feet deep. The motive power is a Siemens motor driven by storage batteries. Fifty of these boats were purchased by the Russian government. They have no rudder, but a universal joint in the screw shaft permits of the screw being moved through an arc of ninety degrees. The torpedo is carried outside the boat, secured by a catch worked from inside. On arriving under the enemy, the torpedo is released, and striking the ship's bottom, is held there by spikes. The boat then withdraws, unreeling a connecting wire; and when at a safe distance, fires. The absence of a rudder, however, causes erratic steering, and the spikes with which the torpedo is fitted might fail to stick in steel-bottomed ships.

Author

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romance of Industry and Invention, Edited by Robert Cochrane Published 1897

Posted on

Sunday 15 March 2020

Dimensions

1076*415

Tags

Warship

Albums

• Technology / Transport / Water

Visits

1284

Downloads

60