3-028-449 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A £3000 war-ship destroyer that is steered by "wireless"; the Gabet Torpedo-craft, 1909. 'This remarkable torpedo-craft is steered by "wireless," or, to use more scientific language, by means of Hertzian waves. The inventor claims that it can be steered with absolute accuracy for a distance of seven kilometres (about four miles and three-quarters). Lamps are fixed to the small masts, that the operator may be able to watch the vessel's progress from his station on board ship or on shore. Each of the torpedo-craft costs £3000; thus the new engine of warfare is, perhaps. the most expensive thing of its kind in the world; for it is designed to explode on striking its quarry, and perishes with the vessel it destroys'. From "Illustrated London News", 1909.