GB124588A - Improvements in or relating to Means for Protecting Ships or Vessels from Torpedo Attack. - Google Patents

Abstract

124,588. Smithson, F. March 28, 1918. Protecting; torpedo nets and screens.-Relates to means for protecting ships or vessels from torpedo attack of the kind involving the use of projectiles discharged frcm guns or tubes in the path of an approaching torpedo. A number of superposed quick-firing guns or tubes A, Fig. 1, are carried in casings 1, Figs. 1 and 5, which are secured by clamping devices C on the ship's sides or are supported by pontoons E, Figs. 5 and 7, towed by cables F connected to winches G. The firing is controlled manually from a. lookout station on the vessel, or automatically by means of a network of electric wires H disposed outside the guns &c., and forming a closed electric circuit which on being struck by a torpedo will actuate electrical devices to set the guns in operation. Or, alternatively, the net will operate a signalling-device at the look-out station. By these means an underwater barrage of ordinary nr explosive bullets or small shells may be launched in a direction parallel to, or at a small angle of inclination to, the hull. The guns may be arranged to fire simultaneously in both directions, the lines of projectiles crossing one another.