Elements of a Submarine Mining Station

Submarine Mines And Torpedoes As Applied To Harbour Defence by Lt Col John Townsend Bucknill, includes the following chapter which explains the various elements of a Submarine Mining Station

CHAPTER XIII .

THE STORE DEPOT.

The efficiency of many of the arrangements connected with sea mining centres upon good work and good methods at the central store depôt. Numerous considerations, principally connected with the water traffic, prevent mines being laid permanently, so that it is of the utmost importance to arrange so that they can be laid quickly and properly when the order is given to do so. The various stores should therefore be prepared and labelled. In labelling, the best plan is to use numbers, and to keep a record book showing the mine and group to which any number refers.

The Wire Rope should be cut to the proper lengths and each end prepared with an eye and thimble, or whatever the system adopted may be; a shackle should also be connected to each eye. These mooring lines should then be oiled, number labelled, and put away in batches, those for each group of mines being tied together in one batch.

The Tripping Chains (galvanised) should be prepared in a similar manner, an iron ring added at one end, and a shackle attached. The chains for one group should lie in one heap.

The Junction and Connecting Boxes, the Multiple Connectors and Disconnectors, and all gear of the kind, should be number labelled and arranged systematically.

The Mines, after being carefully tested, should be loaded and stored in a sentry-guarded bomb-proof, with an overhead traveller on the roof and a tramway on the floor. Should it be inconvenient to keep all the mines loaded, a proportion only should be loaded, viz., those to be laid first. The mines should be number labelled.

The Apparatus for each mine should be carefully adjusted, number labelled, and put away in a dry place. The apparatus should not be loaded with the priming charge and detonating fuzes until the order to lay the mines has been given.

The Primary Charges of dry explosive may, therefore, be stored in hermetically sealed metal cases in a store by themselves.

The Fuzes should be stored in a dry place at a distance from any explosives.

The Sinkers may be collected in tiers round a crane close to some portion of the tramway, and not far from the pier.

The Voltaic Battery Cells should be number labelled and stored in boxes ready to be moved to the firing stations at a moment’s notice. The salts for same should be stored separately.

The Electrical Instruments should be number labelled, be stored in a warm dry room in glass-fronted cases, and be tested for efficiency periodically, records being kept of same. Some of the less delicate instruments can with advantage be kept ready fixed on the walls or tables of the firing stations away from the depôt.

The Buoys to be used in connection with certain defined groups of mines should be stored suitably and be number labelled. Their mooring lines may be attached to them.

The General Stores, viz., ropes, flags, lamps, &c., can be kept in a large shed suitably fitted and partitioned for the purpose.

The Consumable Stores, viz., the tar, oil, tallow, &c., should be placed in another shed.

The Explosives for the unloaded and spare or reserve mines should be stored at a safe distance from all. An old hulk moored in an unfrequented creek near at hand often affords a convenient store of this nature. Wherever situated, such a store should be carefully guarded at all times, and the explosives be subject to periodical examination, records being kept of same.

The Boat and Steamer Stores, when not on board, should be kept separately from the other stores to avoid confusion.

The Boats should be housed in suitable sheds to protect them from the weather, a boat slip being provided in connection therewith.

The Electric Cables should be cut to the required lengths, their ends crowned and number labelled, and a piece of each core about one yard long left at each end for testing purposes . These ends should be carefully insulated before the cables are placed in the storage tanks.

The cable lengths should be stored so that those first required are on the top. Tests for insulation and conductivity should be taken periodically and records kept.

The Pier. Each depôt must be provided with a wharf or pier fitted with suitable cranes, alongside which the mooring steamers can lie at all times of tide.

A Tramway, 1 ft. 6 in. gauge, with small iron trucks strong enough to carry a load of 5 or 6 tons, should connect the various parts of the store depôt with each other and the pier-head.

It is not necessary to build workshops for artificers except at those stations where experiments or exercise are carried out upon an extended scale and for long periods, but a portable forge, a carpenter’s bench, and sets of tools for white and blacksmith, carpenter, fitter, and painter should form part of the equipment at every depôt.

The General Workshop.-One long shed can advantageously be appropriated as a general workshop in which most of the operations requiring cover from the weather can be carried out. Small portions can be partitioned off; one for a storekeeper’s office, another for electrical testing, a third for fitting the apparatus, and so on. The size of this, and of all the other sheds, must depend upon the number of mines, the strength of the working parties, &c.

A diagram is given on Fig. 84, showing the general plan of a depôt for sea mining, but the sites, the stores, and the conditions being so different at various stations it must be treated as suggestive and nothing more.

(1) is a 1 – ton whip hand crane, with a sweep of about 15 ft., placed at one corner of the pier-head.
(2) is a 5 – ton hand crane, with same sweep, placed at the other corner of the pier-head.
(3) (3) are small turntables for the trucks on
(4) (4) the 18- in. tramway.
(5) (5) is the pier with steps at the inner angle.
(6) is a 1 – ton crane or derrick for lifting the sinkers on the trucks.
(7) (7 ) are the cable tanks,
(8) (8) the boathouse and slipway.
(9) (9) the parade, available for any open- air work.
(10) general stores.
(11) consumable stores.
(12) boat and steamer stores.
(13) clerk’s office .
(14) superintendent’s office.
(15) storekeeper’s office.
(16) dry store for instruments and other articles.
(17) electrical test room.
(18) electrical fitting room .
(19) general workshop provided with bays and benches.
(20) store for empty cases, buoys, &c. , and provided with a bay for hydraulic testing.
(21) (22) shifting and loading rooms.
(23) bomb -proof magazine and store for loaded cases ; the tramway runs down an incline into the latter.

The Depôt should be placed in a secure position, and yet not too remote from the mine fields, say not more than three or four knots from the furthest mine, and as much nearer as possible. A small creek running back from the main harbour may often be found, and a site selected so that high ground both hides and protects it.

At an important station the pier-head must be considerably larger than the one shown on Fig. 84, and a third crane should be added so that two steamers can lie at the pier-head and be loaded simultaneously; but it is often preferable to have two moderately sized depôts rather than one large depôt, especially when the mine fields are scattered and separated by considerable distances.