A modern torpedo, historically called a self-propelled torpedo, is a self-propelled guided Projectile that (after being launched above or below the water surface) operates underwater and is designed to detonate on contact or in proximity to a target. Torpedoes are weapons that may be launched from submarines, surface ships, helicopters and fixed-wing Aircraft, unmanned naval mines and naval fortresses
[image]
They are also used as parts of other weapons; the Mark 46 torpedo used by the United States becomes the warhead section of the ASROC (Anti-Submarine ROCket) and the Captor mine uses a submerged sensor platform that releases a torpedo when a hostile contact is detected.
The word torpedo comes from the Torpedo genus of electric rays in the order Torpediniformes, which in turn comes from the Latin "torpere", to be stiffened or paralyzed. There is no physical resemblance between the ray and the mechanical torpedo.
In naval usage, the term "torpedo" was first used by Robert Fulton who used the word for the towed gunpowder charge used by his Submarine Nautilus in 1800-1805 to demonstrate that it could sink warships.
The term became generally used to refer to tethered naval mines, developed in the American Civil War in the 1860s by Matthew F. Maury, a Confederate Admiral (these are what David Farragut was referring to when he ordered his men to "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"). This use of the word to refer to what are now called "mines" lasted until World War I. As self-propelled torpedoes were developed the tethered variety was referred to as "stationary torpedo" and later "mine".
The Bangalore torpedo, invented in 1912, is a cylindrical explosive device` on the end of a pipe used to clear minefields and barbed wire. As such it can be considered a land form of the spar torpedo.
The first torpedoes driven at the target were Spar torpedoes - the explosive device was on the end of a spar up to 40 feet long projecting forward under the water from the attacking vessel. When driven up against the enemy and detonated a hole would be caused below the water line. These devices were used in the American Civil War.
Attempts had been made to develop unpowered but directable towed torpedoes, such as the torpedo created by John and Frederick Harvey. Matthew F. Maury worked on an electric torpedo design during the American Civil War, but the result wasn't an effective weapon.
The first prototypes of a self-propelled torpedo were created by Ivan Lupis-Vukić, a retired Croatian naval engineer who served in the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The design was presented to the Emperor Franz Joseph in the port city of Rijeka in 1860. Robert Whitehead, an English engineer/entrepreneur, was working in the Trieste port on navy projects, so in 1864 Lupis made a contract with him in order to perfect the invention. This resulted in Minenschiff, the first self-propelling torpedo, officially presented to the Imperial Naval commission on December 21, 1866.
After the government decided to invest in the invention, Whitehead started the first torpedo factory in Rijeka. In 1870, they improved the devices to travel up to 1,000 yards (914 m) at a speed of up to six knots, and by 1881 the factory was exporting its torpedoes to ten other countries. The torpedo was powered by compressed air and had an explosive charge of gloxyline or gun-cotton. Whitehead went on to develop more efficient devices, demonstrating torpedoes capable of 18 knots (1876), 24 knots (1886) and finally 30 knots (1890).
Whitehead purchased rights to the Gyroscope in 1890 to improve self-regulation of his designs. Whitehead's torpedoes came to be called the Devil's device.
In 1877 the British Admiralty paid him £15,000 for certain of his developments and he opened a new factory near Portland Harbour in 1891. The largest Whitehead torpedo was 19 feet (5.8 m) long, 18 inches (457 mm) in diameter made of polished steel or phosphor-bronze, the explosive charge was up to 200 lb (90 kg) of gun-cotton. The air was compressed to around 1,300 lb/in² (approx 90 times atmospheric pressure) and drove two propellers through a three cylinder Brotherhood engine. Considerable effort was taken in trying to ensure that the torpedo self-regulated its course and depth.
On 16 January 1877, Turkish steamer Intibah became the first vessel to be sunk by torpedoes, launched from torpedo boats operating from the tender Velikiy Knyaz Konstantin under the command of Stepan Osipovich Makarov during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.
In another early use of the torpedo, Blanco Encalada was sunk by a torpedo from the gunboat Almirante Lynch, during the Chilean Civil War on April 23 1891.
By this time, the Torpedo boat had gained recognition for its efficiency, and the first torpedo boat destroyers were built to counter it.
Around 1897, Nikola Tesla patented a remote controlled boat and later demonstrated the feasibility of radio-guided torpedoes to the United States military. Radio remote controlled torpedoes remained uninvestigated until the 1960s.
During World War I, torpedoes came to mean self-propelled projectiles fired from a ship or submarine. Later, torpedoes were given (homing) guidance systems.
In the inter-war years, tight budgets in nearly all navies caused them to skimp on testing their torpedoes. As a result, only the Japanese had fully-tested torpedoes at the start of the Second World War. The instrument used in German torpedoes to gauge running depth changed over time, so torpedoes of this design ran ever deeper than that dialed-in at firing as the U-Boat continued its voyage. The contact fuzes of US Navy torpedoes would not detonate with straight-on, but only at an angle, while those of the German navy had directly the opposite problem. The Royal Navy had problems as well.
All classes of ship from destroyers to battleships were armed with torpedoes.
At higher pressures the cooling experienced by the air as it expanded in the engine caused icing problems (see adiabatic cooling). This was remedied by heating the air with seawater before it was fed to the engine. Unexpectedly, this increased engine performance further, because the air expanded even more after heating.
Germany was the first nation to field an electric torpedo shortly prior World War II, the G7e. It was slower and of shorter range than its conventional G7a counterpart, but wakeless and much cheaper to produce. On the other hand, it used a lead-acid Rechargeable battery which was sensitive to shock and also required frequent maintenance and needed to be preheated for best performance before launch. To overcome these restrictions, other energy sources were researched.
The experimantal G7ep, an enhancement of the G7e, used primary cells like modern electric torpedos. Silver-oxide is the most common type of batteries in post-war electric torpedos like the Mark 24 Tigerfish or DM2 series. Such a battery doesn't need any maintenance and a torpedo equipped with it can be shelved for years without losing much performance.
Many navies have two weights of torpedoes:
In the case of deck or tube launched torpedoes, the diameter of the torpedo is obviously a key factor in determining the suitability of a particular torpedo to a tube or launcher, similar to the calibre of the gun. The size is not quite as critical as for a gun barrel, but diameter has become the most common way of classifying torpedoes.
[image]
Length, weight, and other factors also contribute to compatibility. In the case of aircraft launched torpedoes, the key factors are weight, provision of suitable attachment points, and launch speed. Assisted torpedoes are the most recent development in torpedo design, and are normally engineered as an integrated package. Versions for aircraft and assisted launching have sometimes been based on deck or tube launched versions, and there has been at least one case of a submarine torpedo tube being designed to fire an aircraft torpedo.
As in all Munition design, there is a compromise between standardisation, which simplifies manufacture and Logistics, and specialisation, which may make the weapon significantly more effective. Small improvements in either logistics or effectiveness can translate into enormous operational advantages.
Some common torpedo diameters (using the most common designation, metric or inch, and listed in increasing order of size):
Even larger sizes of torpedo tube, including 660 mm (26 inches), 30 inch (762 mm) and 36 inch (about 914 mm), have been installed on some nuclear submarines. These tubes are designed to be capable of firing large diameter munitions such as cruise missiles, as well as the standard 21 inch heavy torpedo. See Torpedo tube.