Tesla's Great Invention to Blow Up Hostile Warships by Electric Waves

“I am perfecting an electrical engine of war which I am to offer to the Government. It is to exert such a terrible force as to disable war ships and powerfully vast armies on land at great distances.” - Tesla.

The Terribly Destructive Electrical Engine of War

I am perfecting an electrical engine of war which I am about to offer to the Government. It is to exert such a terrible force as to disable war ships and powerfully affect vast armies on land at great distances.

If this device acts as effectively on a large scale as it does in my laboratory, the results will be incalculable. When put into operation it will tend to bring war to a speedy end by reason of its unlimited power of extermination.

It is the application of the principle of oscillating waves. By this means electrical currents of high potentials can be sent out in all directions and aimed against the vulnerable part of a hostile army or war ship.

Five years ago I discovered that electrical vibrations by a novel kind of apparatus, which I have since considerably improved, may be propagated through the earth and through the air, and from experimental data I have calculated that such vibrations be propelled a distance equal to the diameter of the earth. To effect this an expenditure of energy of about five hundred horse-power is needed, although this estimate may not be quite true, as there are a number of uncertain quantities in the calculation.

I intended to use the principle primarily for the transmission of signals over great distances, but soon I saw that something of greater importance could be accomplished by its use.

The only way to insure the action was to construct apparatus on novel principles which would make possible the production of waves of many hundred times greater intensity.

I foresaw long ago that, despite the strenuous efforts of the President to maintain peace, war would break out and I have concentrated my energies upon perfecting these devices and rendering them immediately available.

This, in fact, is the only reason why I have not, up to this time, offered my services as a volunteer, which I would certainly have done under other circumstances. In this respect, I may say, I have already formed definite plans.

Although the United States have taken energetic measures, and are determined to bring the difficulty to a speedy termination, I fear that the war will be prolonged, and it will become all the more important to apply improved electrical measures and contrivances.

The Famous Scientist and Lecturer Describes Tesla’s Wonderful Oscillator

The great naval war between the United States and Spain, which bids fair to make the close of the nineteenth century forever memorable, may, if Mr. Nikola Tesla is able to fulfill his promises, also mark greatest advance in the art and science of destruction that war has ever known.

For several years now the public has been familiar with the fact that Mr. Tesla who in many respects is recognized as the foremost master of electrical science now living has been able to produce by means of an instrument called the electrical oscillator a vibratory force capable of causing brilliant lights to burst forth in the centre of a room without material connection with any electrical instrument, and electro-magnetic phenomena to manifest themselves at great distance from the oscillator and without connection with it by wire or otherwise.

More recently great attention has been aroused by the experiments of Mr. Tesla of Senor Marconi, an Italian: of Mr. W. J. Clarke of this city, and others in the transmission of telegraphic dispatches without wires. Dispatches of this kind have been sent from a distance of not less than twelve miles.

Electric Vibrations to Shatter Spanish Ships.

Mr. Tesla himself has repeatedly declared that it would be possible to send out from the earth an electric vibration which would reach the planet Mars, that if there were people and instruments there to receive it telegraphic communication might be opened up between the earth and that distant world.

The practical principle underlying all of these surprising experiments is that which is now invoked by Mr. Tesla in the invention of an instrument of [sic] quite as potent and wonderful as some of the devices which have recently been suggested in stories of mimic warfare. But up to the outbreak of the present hostilities with Spain no one had apparently thought of turning this tremendous and mysterious power to other than peaceful uses.

There seems good reason to hope that early in the coming century it might become possible to do away entirely with cumbersome telegraph wires, and that houses and city streets and squares might be filled with artificial daylight without the aid of the elaborate apparatus at present employed.

Electricity to Become Our Greatest Weapon.

BY W. J. GLARKE,
General Manager of the United States Electric Agency.

To fire a cannon and blow up a war ship by electricity without any connections may seem miraculous. Yet this is exactly what will be done on a small scale at the Electrical Agency. This spectacle is designed to show the newest and most wonderful development of electricity at the present it seems like this remarkable American achievement may be converted into the great military use by directing it against a hostile fleet or army.

In this way not only may approaching war ships be sunk far out at sea by the medium of torpedoes, their but troops on land can repel invasion by firing the batteries of their own and then landing miles away from their exposed guns. All the appliances for this latter purpose have been developed.

At the present stage of development of this art it is necessary to have all the equipment on or close to the cannon or war ship to be acted upon by the electrical waves produced by pressing the key at the distant station, but the results of recent experiments indicate that we should be able to explode the powder in the magazine of our enemy’s war ship without any corresponding electrical waves from such ship.

I also believe it possible to totally disarrange the electrical signal system in the ship by the same means and without allowing them to affect our signal system.

It will also be possible for the whole fleet to be at the absolute control with the mere pressing of a key by the Admiral being sufficient to stop or start the engines of every motorized guns, to turn their lights on or off and to make them perform many other simultaneous actions.

No. 141 East Twenty-fth street, New York, April 30, 1898.

In fact, almost everybody familiar with the experiments going on in the laboratories of Mr. Tesla and the other great inventors has been looking forward to the dawn of a new era in electrical science, an era which would mark as great an advance in the condition of the world as anything that has ever occurred in its history.

But it now appears these new potencies are to be turned to an unexpected and even terrible employment. In the electrical exhibition to be given in this city the coming week the public will have an opportunity to see the application of the invisible electrical oscillations to the firing of cannon and the blowing up of models of ships. This is wireless telegraphy in a new form.

What the Electrical Oscillator Will Do.

The invisible waves of electricity, radiating from their source, carry not information, but destruction. It will only be necessary, according to the belief of the inventors, to increase the power and range of the oscillations in order that what is done with toy vessels in the exhibition hall may be accomplished with actual ships of war invading the harbor of New York or met in the open sea.

Mr. Goldwin Smith may find that he spoke far more truth than he was aware of the other day when he declared that Spain would be enormously overmatched in this war because the Spaniards had no mechanical genius. In the mechanical application of science it is not self-flattery to say that America stands foremost. Let Mr. Tesla turn his electrical oscillator into an engine of war and America will be more than foremost - there will be no second.

On account of the intense interest which Mr. Tesla’s declaration is certain to awaken, it is important to point out how far the application of the electrical oscillator for use as an instrument of war has practically progressed and what remains yet to be done.

From a central station on the shore, or from a ship of war, it is possible to send forth without the aid of wires electrical oscillations in widening circles, like waves in water, to an effective distance of several miles. Anywhere within the radius of such waves an electric spark can be produced by means of a proper instrument or receiver. But an enemy’s war ship cannot be expected to contain such a receiver, and particularly not in such a position that a spark from it could reach the ship’s powder.

The problem remaining to be solved is how to produce electric sparks within the radius of influence of the oscillatory waves without the existence of a transforming instrument at the receiving end. Both Mr. Tesla and Mr. Clarke, who have worked independently upon this matter, assert their belief that it will be possible to produce such sparks. Not only so, but these gentlemen speak of the problems in a manner which gives reason to hope that the solution will not be long deferred.

Aiming Lightning Bolts at the Enemy.

It may even be possible to focus the oscillations on a particular ship. In that case all danger of exploding our own mines and magazines in the neighborhood would be eliminated.

Supposing this final problem solved, then the situation of affairs will be as follows: An enemy’s fleet is seen approaching the harbor. One or more electric oscillators placed in a commanding position on headlands or on anchored ships of war are prepared for their deadly work.

The enemy approaches with flags flying, cleared for action, conscious of overpowering numbers in his favor, confident of success. Perhaps by means of some of the appliances now existing for that purpose he may have cleared the channels of mines, and believes he can enter the harbor in safety.

On come the battle ships, volumes of black smoke rolling backward in the breeze, their guns glittering a fearful spectacle. They are prepared for hostile shots and expect them, but none comes. The great batteries of Sandy Hook are silent. There is no thunder from the gigantic mortars in the sandpits.

“The Yankee pigs are afraid to shoot,” says the Admiral of the Spanish Squadron, “the mere sight of a Spaniard has terrified them. In two hours, gentlemen of Spain, the great city of the New World will be ours.”

But at this moment, unknown and invisible to the Spanish commander and his men, Mr. Tesla has touched an electric button. Likewise invisible, but with the speed of light, the electric oscillations expand over the bay. Unnoticed they penetrate the steel sides of one of the Spanish ships and little blue sparks play through its magazines.

Bang! Boom! Bang!

The great steal hull leaps, bursts and is scattered far and wide on the foam beaten waters.

The Spanish commander does not understand what has happened. He believes the magazines of the ship have blown up of their own accord. Perhaps he recalls the insulting words of the Spanish “report” on the blowing up of the Maine, and wonders whether there has not been some “carelessness” on a Spanish warship.

Will Sink Spaniards.

And now suddenly the great batteries at the Hook begin to open. The smoke rolls over Atlantic Highlands; the piercing flashes of the guns are visible even in the broad daylight and the thundering reverberations shake the city miles away. Fort Wadworth and Fort Hamilton are next ablaze.

“The Spanish ships are still advancing,” says the bulletins.

“The forts seem unable to sink them.”

“They are nearing the Narrows.”

“The oscillators! What are the oscillators doing?” cried the maddened crowd. “Will they never sink them? Will they never blow them up?”

But these things the Spaniards are prepared for. Their armored sides are battered and smashed, but still their vitals are not touched and their great guns reply fiercely to the fire of the forts.

Three million hearts listen to the hellish uproar. “All work is abandoned. Houses and offices are deserted; the thronging multitudes in the streets are crazed with excitement. Ticking telegraph instruments transmit every instant the latest news of the fight and the men at the bulletin boards seem electrified, and write and rub out and write again amid the cheers and the shouts of the inlookers.

“Mr. Tesla has touched an electric button ... electric oscillations expand over the bay Bang! boom! bang! ... The great steel hall leaps, bursts, and is scattered far and wide on the foam beaten waters.”