p. 11 | The Davis Torpedo Gun by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 3, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 34.

The Davis Torpedo Gun

By T.

SOME years ago we mentioned the Davis torpedo gun that was being developed. Commander Davis has been conducting a long line of experiments to perfect a gun that could be carried through the water like an ordinary torpedo and then its charge fired right against the side of the battle-ship. His first experiments were with the older kinds of steel, and his gun was thus made so heavy that it was not workable. But since vanadium steel has come into such general use he has been enabled to perfect a gun that is in reality a combination of the modern cannon and the automobile torpedo.

The automobile torpedo has displaced the older forms of torpedoes, which had a range of only about two miles. The automobile torpedo is equipped with a little motor that is driven by an explosive called motorite, invented by Mr. Hudson Maxim. This motor-driven torpedo has a very wide range of action, and is constantly being improved. And now Mr. Davis comes with his invention that builds a high-power cannon in this improved torpedo. Concerning this new weapon the Scientific American says:

"The Davis torpedo, recently tested in the waters of the Lower Chesapeake, carried an 8-inch gun capable of expelling an 8-inch projectile with a muzzle velocity of something like a thousand feet per second. Ordinarily, an 8-inch gun strong enough to fire a shell with this velocity would be far too big and too heavy to be placed within the permissible limits of a torpedo. We are speaking of a piece of ordnance to be fired in the open air. Now the Davis gun, when fired, is surrounded by the sea, which, so to speak, reinforces the walls of the gun. But this is not all. The weapon is made of vanadium steel, which has a very high elastic limit, and the great strength on the part of the metal makes it possible to construct a gun of seemingly ridiculous lightness. This fact has made the new torpedo practicable."

The illustration at the bottom of the opposite page gives a view of the completed torpedo gun. The large propeller at the rear is what drives it through the water, following the initial discharge that it gets when aimed from the vessel that discharges it. The small propeller in front begins to whirl as soon as the torpedo starts and releases a pin that sticks out in front. When this pin strikes the target, it is driven backward into a device that fires the percussion-cap, and a shell is then thrown from the gun with its muzzle against the very side of the hostile ship. As this shell strikes the side of the vessel, it ignites a fuse that is timed to set off a bursting charge of high explosive right inside the ship. It can be imagined what the results would be to have a shell of this kind exploded in the boiler room or the ammunition magazine of a war-ship.

The experiments with torpedoes and mines show that very frequently the greater part of the force of the explosion is exerted on the water, which is not so resistant as the solid walls of the ship, and about all the result obtained is to make a fine, high waterspout. But the Davis gun drives the shell with its destructive bursting charge of high explosive right into the vitals of the vessel.

It has been only within the last year or so that architects have been giving any attention to putting armor on the battle-ship below the water-line. They have had to contend only against the shell that came crashing through the air. But now, with the submarine torpedo-boat that has been so fully perfected during the last fifteen years, and with the automobile torpedo gun that Mr. Davis has made an assured success, and with the further prospect that we are right on the threshold of the time when the air-ship will be dropping deadly bombs from the skies, the battle-ship architects are put to their wits' ends to know what to do next.

The intensity of the struggle in preparations for war is awful. And despite all the efforts of the good men and women who are working to hold it in check, it goes right on increasing in its destructive madness. There should be no doubt in the mind of any thoughtful person that we are in the very time foretold in the sixteenth chapter of Revelation, when the spirits of demons are going to the kings of the whole world to incite them to the great Armageddon war of the day of the Lord.