Shortly after von Weddigen’s great exploit, a German submarine rose to the surface so near the British destroyer _Badger_ that before the undersea boat could submerge again she was rammed, cut open and sunk. One of the most picturesque and least expected features of this war has been the revival of old ways; soldiers are again wearing breastplates and metal helmets and fighting with crossbows and catapults, while against the modern submarine, seamen are effectively using the most ancient of all naval weapons: the ram. It takes two minutes for the average undersea boat to submerge, during which time a thirty-knot destroyer can come charging up from a mile away, with a good chance of scoring a hit with her forward 3- or 4-inch gun, even if she gets there too late to ram. In the case of the _U-12_, the submarine dived deep enough to get her hull and superstructure out of harm’s way, only to have the top of her conning-tower crushed in by the destroyer as it passed over her. When the inrush of water forced the _U-12_ to rise to the surface and surrender, her crew discovered that the main hatch could not be opened because one of the periscopes had been bent down across it. Some of them succeeded in climbing out of the torpedo-hatch and jumping overboard before the _U-12_ went down for good. As she sank stern-foremost, it was observed that both of her bow-tubes were empty; evidence that she had vainly launched two torpedoes at the British flotilla that were hunting her down. Though several British destroyers and torpedo-boats have been sent to the bottom by German submarines, and the English _E-9_ has sunk the German destroyer _S-126_, yet the nimble surface torpedo-craft have usually proved too difficult for the undersea boats to hit with their fixed tubes that can only fire straight ahead or astern. It has been pointed out that the _Aboukir_, _Cressy_ and _Hogue_, the _Formidable_, and the _Audacious_ were all moving slowly and unescorted by any destroyers when they were attacked and sunk. The same was true of the _Leon Gambetta_ and the _Giuseppe Garibaldi_, when they were sent to the bottom of the Mediterranean by Austrian submarines. Under modern conditions, such isolated big ships are in much the same perilous position as would have been a lonely battery of Union artillery marching through a country swarming with Confederate cavalry. While an escort of destroyers is no sure guarantee against submarine attack, their presence certainly seems to act as a powerful deterrent.