World War I: Naval Technology, 1914 [Slide Show]
A look at the science of naval warfare in the first year of the Great War
![World War I: Naval Technology, 1914 [Slide Show]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/0A5C3032-EF83-440F-B567DA8AB061967E.jpg?w=590&h=393)
World War I: Naval Technology, 1914 [Slide Show]
- USS Louisiana: Launched in June 1906. It appears large and impressive but this ship and others like it became obsolete six months later when the British ship HMS Dreadnought was launched. During World War I it was kept out of combat and served as a training ship. ... Image: Scientific American, July 18, 1914
- Fighting Top: On U.S. battleships the “fighting top” was no longer a cumbersome armored mini-fort, but was used as an elevated platform for the “range-finder” (the long horizontal tube). Before radar this device was the most accurate way to determine the distance, or range, to a target... Image: Scientific American, February 14, 1914
- The Submarine: In 1914 the German navy had fewer than 10 ocean-going “U-boats” available. Here, a view of the interior of a German submarine as it is being manufactured, with internal machinery in place before the rear section was bolted on... Image: Scientific American Supplement, September 5, 1914
- The Invisible Enemy: This drawing shows how a submarine could lurk beneath the surface of the water, spying its targets with a periscope. Luckily for the allies, the submarine was a very slow vessel, especially underwater, and the periscope left a telltale wake if the boat was moving... Image: Scientific American, October 3, 1914
- HMS Aboukir: An older armored cruiser, launched in 1900, retired in 1912, but pressed into service again when war broke out in 1914. The tragic fame of this ship was that it and two sister ships were sunk by a single German submarine on September 22, 1914... Image: Scientific American, October 3, 1914
- Submarine Success: A single German submarine sank three older British armored cruisers on September 22, 1914, thus validating the concept of the submarine as an effective naval weapon. Here, the cover of this issue of Scientific American magazine gives us a somewhat colorful view of the event... Image: Scientific American, November 7, 1914
