Originally Posted by Edward Young: One of our Submarines
Every morning after an excellent breakfast we walked out of the Fort's western gate and along the sea road, invigorated by the salty breeze and talking at the top of our voices, and came to a small brick building where we were learning about how to carry out attacks on enemy ships. This was the Attack Teacher, an ingenious and elaborate 'war game' which allowed us to make our elementary mistakes without fatal results to ourselves and anyone else.
It was built on two levels. The top floor, reached by an outside flight of steps, was the plotting-room. At the far end of it, a travelling platform, with a small central turn-table to take the taget model, ran out on rails through a window into the open air. The other end was occupied by large white plastic plotting table, market off in squares to a scale of a thousand yards (half a sea-mile) to the inch. The plotting of the attacks and the operating of the machinery which controlled the targets movements, were performed by a team of charming and intelligent Wrens (Female sailors in the Royal Navy). On shelves around the walls stood fleets of small scale models of ships of all the warring nations:Battleships, aircraft-carriers, destroyers, submarines; liners, cargo steamers, tankers, tramps. The lower floor of the building represented the interior of the attacking submarine. Imagine for a moment that you are a spectator in this lower room and that it is my turn to carry out the next attack.
The circular white box in which I am standing represents the submarines control room, though in appearence it does not resemble one in the least. A periscope leads up to the plotting room; its top window is covered for a moment because the stage is being set for the start of the attack. Out of sight, upstairs, Commander Teddy Wardward, the instructor, is placing a new ship model on the traelling target platform. As the attack develops, the target will move slowly in towards the periscope, turning on its platform in accordance with the gradually changing relative bearing of the submarine. Its movements are prearranged by Commander Woodward before the start of the attack, and those are automattically repeated on the plotting table. My own tactics will be plotted on it by the wrens, following the orders I gave up the voice-pipe...
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