Holland thought submersion should be made bypower-diving, using the force of the propellerand the angle of the bow planes.Lake said boats should descend on an even keelwith slight negative buoyancy.L a ke wa s m o r e i n t e r e s t e d i n u n d e r wa t e rexploration than naval warfare. He thought a submarinecould be equipped with wheels and driven along theocean’s floor, although he did not pursue that idea.Holland was more practical; his design included aworkable torpedo tube, which Lake’s did not.Holland received a 0,000 contract from theNavy for a subsurface vessel. His first attempt failed, butthe Navy was impressed enough to award him anothercontract. By 1898, he had built USS Holland, acigar-shaped craft, 52 feet long and 10 feet in diameter.The USS Holland was equipped with a gasoline enginefor surface power and generators that charged batteriesfor underwater power. It was armed with a torpedo tubethat fired an 18-inch torpedo and a bow gun recessedinto the hull. A New York newspaper commented that“…the offensive powers of the Holland are, consideringthe size and method of attack, far greater than any otherengine of war.”The submarine’s problem of running blind whens u b m e rg e d wa s c o r r e c t e d a f t e r S i m o n L a keexperimented with a set of prisms and lenses. Beforethat, the USS Holland had to surface to permit the crewto look out the conning tower; causing it to lose itsgreatest advantage—surprise. Lake and a professorfrom Johns Hopkins University worked out a design fort h e p e r i s c o p e . T h e p e r i s c o p e , w i t h va r i o u simprovements, remained the submarine’s basic visualaid until 1958.THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WARAt the end of the 19th century, the United States andSpain became involved in diplomatic disputes aboutCuban independence, trade, and U.S. citizens livingthere. On the evening of February 15, 1898, a terrificexplosion suddenly tore through the battleship USSMaine at anchor in Cuba’s Havana harbor. Theexplosion killed 250 American Sailors. The explosionw a s a m a j o r r e a s o n f o r t h e s t a r t o f t h e5-13Student Notes:Figure 5-6.—Rear Admiral Dahlgren, standing next to one ofthe guns he designed, was a leading pioneer in modernnaval ordnance and gunnery.Figure 5-7.—A philosopher of naval strategy, Mahanresearched military history and proved that the nationcontrolling the oceans is the nation that maintains itssupremacy in war or peace.
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