Whitehead torpedo

The Whitehead torpedo was the first self-propelled or "locomotive" torpedo ever developed. It was perfected in 1866 by Robert Whitehead from a design conceived by Giovanni Luppis of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Many naval services procured the Whitehead torpedo during the 1870s, including the US Navy. This early torpedo proved itself in combat during the Russo-Turkish War when, on January 16, 1878, the Turkish ship Intibah was sunk by Russian torpedo boats carrying Whiteheads.

The term "torpedo" comes from the Torpedo fish, which is a type of ray that delivers an electric shock to stun its prey.

History
During the 19th century, an anonymous officer of the Austrian Marine Artillery conceived the idea of using a small boat laden with explosives, propelled by a steam or an air engine and steered by cables to be used against enemy ships; his papers came into the possession of Captain Giovanni Luppis upon his death. Luppis had a model of the device built; it was powered by a spring-driven clockwork mechanism and steered remotely by cables from land. Dissatisfied with the device, which he called the "coast-saver", Luppis turned to Robert Whitehead, who then worked for Stabilimento Tecnico Fiumano, a factory in Fiume, Austria. In about 1850 the Austrian Navy asked Whitehead to develop this design into a self-propelled underwater torpedo.

Whitehead developed what he called the Minenschiff (mine ship): an 11-foot long, 14-inch diameter torpedo propelled by compressed air and carrying an explosive warhead, with a speed of 7 knots (13 km/h) and the ability to hit a target up to 700 yards (640 m) away. In 1868, Whitehead introduced a solution to the stability problem for his torpedo: Pendulum-and-hydrostat control. The Austrian Navy bought the manufacturing rights to the Whitehead torpedo in 1869. By 1870 Whitehead's torpedoes were running at 17 knots. Still, there remained the problem of course correction: returning the torpedo to its correct course after it had deviated due to wind or wave action. The solution was in the form of the gyroscope gear, which was patented by Ludwig Obry, the rights to which was bought by Whitehead in 1896.

Design
In 1868, Whitehead offered two types of torpedoes to the world's navies: one was 11 feet, seven inches in length with a diameter of 14 inches. It weighed 346 pounds and carried a 40-pound warhead. The other was 14 feet long with a 16-inch diameter. It weighed 650 pounds and carried a 60-pound warhead. Both models could do 8-10 knots with a range of 200 yards.

The United States Navy started using the Whitehead torpedo in 1892 after an American company, E. W. Bliss, secured manufacturing rights. As manufactured for the US Navy, the Whitehead torpedo was divided into four sections: the head, the air flask, the after-body and the tail. The head contained the explosive charge of guncotton; the air flask contained compressed air at 1350 pounds per square inch, or 90 atmospheres; the after-body contained the engine and the controlling mechanism, and the propellers and rudder were in the tail. The air flask was constructed from heavy forged steel. The other parts of the shell of the torpedo were made of thin sheet steel. The interior parts were generally constructed out of bronze. The torpedo was launched above or below the waterline from a tube, using air or gunpowder discharge.

Significance
In 1871, the Royal Navy bought manufacturing rights, and started producing the torpedo at the Royal Laboratories at Woolrich, England. The Royal Navy fitted the Whitehead torpedo on its earliest submarines, from the HMS Holland 1 onwards. The French, German, Italian, Russian, and Chinese navies soon followed suit and began acquiring the Whitehead torpedo. By 1877, the Whitehead torpedo was attaining speeds of 18 mph for ranges of 830 yards.

By the 1880s, more of the world's navies acquired the Whitehead and began deploying torpedo boats to carry them into battle and engineers began to envision submarines armed with Whitehead torpedoes. In 1904, British Admiral Henry John May commented, "but for Whitehead, the submarine would remain an interesting toy and little more".