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WHEN OUR INVENTORS FAILED A little over a year ago every inventor profes ¬ sional and amateur in the United States was thought to be working on some method of defeating the submarine Curiosity was whetted by tantaliz ingly vague descriptions of the most amazing devices for destroying submarines or rendering them harm ¬ less The submarine has been rendered ineffective partly by defensive and partly by offensive war ¬ fare but chiefly by the construction of ships We have sent over 1000000 soldiers to France with the loss of 291 who were on one vessel Few sup ¬ plies have been lost through the submarines The sinkings have been comparatively few and the losses generally were to Americanbound vessels But we owe little of this record to the inventors inventorsSecretary Secretary Daniels and the Naval Consulting Board have issued a bulletin showing the fundamental er ¬ rors of the inventors Many made such delicate complex instruments that they could not be safely used in the hurry of battle Hundreds were based on erroneous beliefs as to the effectiveness of mag ¬ nets A torpedo weighing 2500 pounds and traveling from twentyfive to fortyfive miles an hour could not be deflected to a great degree even if the magnet could be used in time and usually the tor ¬ pedo was fired without warning The submarine compass is intentionally made immune to outside influences The pigmy submarines proved worth ¬ less as one fit for service would weigh 300 tons It would be difficult to put one of those in opera ¬ tion in a hurry All sorts of cts pontoons and bridges have been rejected The really effective protective methods arc thus summarized Smoke screens the blinding of enemy periscopes by float ¬ ing thick black clouds upon the sea camouflage paintings and the most valuable of all speed The loss of vessels with a speed of fifteen knots or more is negligible while nearly every slow vessel that lias been attacked has been sunk The submarine has no chance when it shows itself where airplanes carrying depth bombs or destroyers are around Its chief method now is to stalk a slow ship until night when its own visibility is low and then make its attack But vigilance is constantly re ¬ ducing even this toll St Louis GlobeDemocrat
