Nicholas Roosevelt (inventor) 74-gun ships. In 1797, with Robert R. Livingston and John Stevens, he agreed to build a boat on joint account, for which the engines were to be constructed by Roosevelt, and the propelling agency was to be that planned by Livingston. The experiment failed, the speed attained being only equivalent to about in still water. On September 6, 1798, Roosevelt described and earnestly recommended to Livingston a vertical wheel, which is the first practical suggestion of the combination that made steam navigation a commercial success, although four years later Robert Fulton believed that chains and floats were alone to be
Naval tactics in the Age of Steam were similar to privateers in the age of sail, because they were employed primarily to destroy the enemy's merchant traffic in an extremely opportunistic sense rather than engage in battle with enemy naval vessels. Individually, submarines were only capable of sinking a small number of ships because of their limited supply of torpedoes and shells. Anti-submarine tactics were in their infancy at the outbreak of the First World War. Surface warships lacked the means to detect submerged submarines or the weapons to attack them. Surface warships were reduced to hoping to sight the periscope of a submerged submarine or the