This motor-dynamo, serving as a motor, drives the
boat when she is beneath the water. When the electric power is exhausted
the boat comes to the surface, the motor is disconnected from the shaft
and is run as a dynamo generating power. Twelve hours are required in
which to produce the amount of electricity required for use when the
vessel next submerges. Thus, a great proportion of the time the
submarine is a surface craft.
Again, there are important defects in the lead battery system, which was
generally used in the war. First of all, they are very heavy, and
secondly the sulphuric acid in the containers is liable to escape--in
fact, does escape--when the boat rolls heavily. Sulphuric acid mingling
with salt water in the bilges produces a chlorine gas, which, as every
one knows, is most deadly. Not only this: the acid eats out the steel
plates of a hull.
There is talk of using dry batteries, but these are heavy, too, and
there are evils arising from their use which have made the lead
batteries, objectionable though they may be, preferable in a great
majority of cases. The British have a type of submersible propelled on
the surface by steam.
The Peace Conference at this writing is talking of the advisability of
eliminating the submarine as a weapon of war. Whether by the time this
is read such action will have been taken, the fact remains that before
the submarine could hope to approach in formidability the surface
fighter, she will have to experience a development which at the present
time has not been attained.
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