''Gustave Zédé'' was one of the world's earliest commissioned naval

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

s. She was launched on 1 July 1893 at

Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...

, France, although only formally entering service with the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

in May 1900 after a long series of trials and design alterations. The submarine carried out the first successful

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

attack by a submerged vessel against a surface ship. Initially ordered as ''Sirène'' on 4 October 1890, on 1 May 1891 the boat was renamed after Gustave Zédé, a naval architect who had worked on its design, but who died in 1891 following an explosion during the development of an experimental torpedo. Development followed on from the previous smaller design, . Both ships were electrically propelled using power from storage batteries.

Development

The

had become interested in unconventional approaches to naval warfare in its attempts to face the numerically superior

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

, and was an early adopter of the

and

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...

for use against

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

s. As part of this program, they became interested in the submarine, able to approach undetected to within torpedo range. ''Gustave Zédé'' was the second experimental submarine developed for the French Navy. The ship's principal constructor was Gaston Romazotti who took control of the project after the death of Gustave Zédé in 1891. Construction and development took ten years, in part because interest in submarines in the French Navy came and went with the changing policies of different

ministers of marine Minister may refer to: * Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric ** Minister (Catholic Church) * Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department) ** Minister without portfolio, a member of government w ...

, and because of ongoing development of the design during this time.

Characteristics

The hull was made of

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

rather than steel to resist corrosion, which also allowed a

magnetic compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with m ...

to operate inside. It had a different profile fore and aft, unlike other submarines at this time which tended to be the same shape either end. Seventy-six longitudinal round ribs provided the strength of the hull. The boat had two centrally placed

ballast tank A ballast tank is a Compartment (ship), compartment within a boat, ship or other floating structure that holds water, which is used as ballast to provide hydrostatic stability for a vessel, to reduce or control buoyancy, as in a submarine, to co ...

s and trimming tanks at either end. Electric pumps were used to redistribute the water. There was a detachable central

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element of a watercraft, important for stability. On some sailboats, it may have a fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose as well. The keel laying, laying of the keel is often ...

. The ship was initially fitted with manually operated diving rudder at the stern as in the design of , but proved difficult to maintain level or on a steady incline while diving or rising. Hydraulic

hydroplanes Hydroplaning and hydroplane may refer to: * Aquaplaning or hydroplaning, a loss of steering or braking due to water on the road * Hydroplane (boat), a fast motor boat used in racing ** Hydroplane racing, a sport involving racing hydroplanes on l ...

were therefore added at the center of the ship and forwards. The ship was designed to dive to a depth of . A

periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...

was fitted in the

conning tower A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armoured, from which an officer in charge can conn (nautical), conn (conduct or control) the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for t ...

which gave a field of view 20° above and 7° below the horizon but the view was distorted and of limited use. The boat was electrically driven with power supplied by a bank of batteries. Two 360 hp Sauter-Harlé DC electric motors were coupled to the single propeller drive shaft operating at 250 rpm. Together the motors weighed 27 tons. The original Laurant-Celvieva battery configuration was of 720 cells weighing 130 tons capable of delivering 1,800 A at 300 V. The battery system exploded on first charging causing a fire, so a new layout of only 360 cells was installed. This led to a significant reduction of surface speed from 15 to 8 knots. The boat had no alternative power source on board which could be used to recharge the batteries, unlike other contemporary designs such as the Holland VI design which had a

petrol engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American and Canadian English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends ...

as well as batteries.

Service history

In December 1898 ''Gustave Zédé'' took part in

naval exercise A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations ...

s with the Mediterranean fleet commanded by Admiral François Fournier. The submarine successfully twice attacked the gunnery training ship , once at anchor and once while the battleship was underway, after travelling the from Toulon to the

Îles d'Hyères The Îles d'Hyères (), also known as Îles d'Or (), are a group of four Mediterranean islands off Hyères in the Var department of Southeastern France. Their old name is the Stoechades Islands from ''Stoikhádes'' from ''stoikhás'' meaning ...

. ''Gustave Zédé'' was commanded by Lieutenant Lucian Mottez. This was the first recorded successful attack by a submerged submarine using torpedoes against a surface target and was widely reported in naval circles.Lambert pp. 27–28 The British Naval Attaché reported that ''Gustave Zédé'' was observed approaching ''Magenta'' at a speed of and a distance of with four men on the

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

. The submarine then submerged until only the conning tower was visible. At the conning tower had disappeared but some wash from the screw could be observed. The boat then submerged to a depth of . At the ship came to the surface momentarily to check her distance and course, before diving again and firing a torpedo at a range of , striking ''Magenta'' amidships. The submarine passed under the ship and resurfaced on the opposite side.Compton-Hall pp. 118–119 The exercise was repeated early in 1899 in front of the French Minister of Marine and invited journalists. The successful demonstration resulted in further funding to purchase more submarines for the French Navy.

Footnotes

References

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External links