When was the first torpedo made

During the American Civil War , the term torpedo was used for what is today called a contact mine , floating on or below the water surface using an air-filled demijohn or similar flotation device. As self-propelled torpedoes were developed the tethered variety became known as stationary torpedoes and later mines. Several types of naval "torpedo" were developed and deployed, most often by the Confederates, who faced a severe disadvantage in more traditional warfare methods.

In this period, "torpedoes" floated freely on the surface or were bottom-moored just below the surface. They were detonated when struck by a ship, or after a set time, but were unreliable. These could be as much a danger to Confederate as to Union shipping, and were sometimes marked with flags that could be removed if Union attack was deemed imminent. Rivers mined with Confederate torpedoes were often cleared by Unionists placing captured Confederate soldiers with knowledge of the torpedoes' location in small boats ahead of the main fleet.

However, the Confederacy was plagued by a chronic shortage of materials including platinum and copper wire and acid for batteries, and the wires had a tendency to break. Electricity was a new technology, and the limitations of direct current for effective distance was poorly understood, so failures were also possible because of the decrease in voltage when the torpedoes were too far from the batteries. Former United States Navy Commander Matthew Maury , who served as a commander in the Confederate Navy , worked on the development of an underwater electrical mine.

On 12 December , while clearing mines from the river preparatory to the attack on Haines Bluff, Mississippi, USS Cairo struck a torpedo detonated by volunteers hidden behind the river bank and sank in 12 minutes; there were no casualties. Cairo became the first armored warship sunk by an electrically detonated mine. It was raised in , reconstructed, and is currently on display at the Vicksburg National Military Park.

After his leading ironclad , USS Tecumseh , was sunk by a tethered contact mine torpedo , his vessels halted, afraid of hitting additional torpedoes. Inspiring his men to push forward, Farragut famously ordered, as usually paraphrased, " Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

The first torpedo designed to attack a specific target was the spar torpedo , an explosive device mounted at the end of a spar up to 30 feet 9. When driven up against the enemy and detonated, a hole would be caused below the water line. Spar torpedoes were employed by the Confederate submarine H. Hunley and were successful in sinking the USS Housatonic , as well as by David -class torpedo boats, among others. However, these torpedoes were apt to cause as much harm to their users as to their targets.

Illustration of naval torpedoes moored to the river bottom the predecessors of modern naval mines. During the US Civil War, the term "torpedo" was also used to refer to various types of bombs and boobytraps. Confederate General Gabriel J.

Rains deployed "sub-terra shells" or "land torpedoes", artillery shells with pressure fuses buried in the road by retreating Confederate forces to delay their pursuers. These were the forerunners of modern land mines. Union generals publicly deplored this conduct. Confederate secret agent John Maxwell used a clockwork mechanism to detonate a large "horological torpedo" time bomb on August 9, The coal torpedo was a bomb shaped like a lump of coal, to be hidden in coal piles used for fueling Union naval vessels.

The bomb would be shoveled into the firebox along with the real coal, causing a Boiler explosion. Although the North referred to the device as the coal torpedo in newspaper articles, the Confederates referred to it as a "coal shell". From the s onwards, the word torpedo was increasingly used only to describe self-propelled projectiles that traveled under or on water.

By the turn of the 20th century, the term no longer included mines and booby-traps as the navies of the world added submarines , torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers to their fleets. The first working prototype of the modern self-propelled torpedo was created by a commission placed by Giovanni Luppis Croatian language: Ivan Lupis , an Austrian naval officer from Fiume now called Rijeka , a port city of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy modern Croatia , and Robert Whitehead , an English engineer who was the manager of a town factory.

In , Luppis presented Whitehead with the plans of the salvacoste coastsaver , a floating weapon driven by ropes from the land, and made a contract with him in order to perfect the invention.

Whitehead was unable to improve the machine substantially, since the clockwork motor, attached ropes, and surface attack mode all contributed to a slow and cumbersome weapon. However, he kept considering the problem after the contract had finished, and eventually developed a tubular device, designed to run underwater on its own, and powered by compressed air. The result was a submarine weapon, the Minenschiff mine ship , the first self-propelled torpedo, officially presented to the Austrian Imperial Naval commission on December 21, Maintaining proper depth was a major problem in the early days but Whitehead introduced his "secret" in which overcame this.

It was a mechanism consisting of a hydrostatic valve and pendulum that caused the torpedo's hydroplanes to be adjusted so as to maintain a preset depth.

After the Austrian government decided to invest in the invention, Whitehead started the first torpedo factory in Fiume. The torpedo was powered by compressed air and had an explosive charge of gun-cotton.

Royal Navy representatives visited Fiume for a demonstration in late , and in a batch of torpedoes was ordered. These are now closed. Whitehead opened a new factory near Portland Harbour, England in , which continued making torpedoes until the end of the Second World War. Because orders from the RN were not as large as expected, torpedoes were mostly exported.

A series of devices was produced at Fiume, with diameters from 14 in 36 cm upward. The largest Whitehead torpedo was 18 in 46 cm in diameter and 19 ft 5. It was propelled by a three-cylinder Brotherhood engine, using compressed air at around 1, psi 9.

By , nearly torpedoes had been produced. Bliss, secured manufacturing rights. Howell , whose own design , driven by flywheel , was simpler and cheaper.

It was produced from to , and it ran straight, leaving no wake. A Torpedo Test Station had been set up in Rhode Island in , and an automobile torpedo produced in was unsuccessful. The Lay torpedoes were also largely unsuccessful as were various privately invented types. Bliss Company entered service in Five varieties were produced, all 18 in 46 cm diameter. An improved version, the Bliss-Leavitt , with a turbine engine was later produced, some with a larger diameter.

Whitehead purchased rights to the gyroscope of Ludwig Obry in but it was not sufficiently accurate, so in he purchased a better design ironically from Howell to improve control of his designs, which came to be called the "Devil's Device".

The firm of L. Schwartzkopff in Germany also produced torpedoes and exported them to Russia, Japan and Spain. In , Britain ordered a batch of 50 as torpedo production at home and at Fiume could not meet demand. On 16 January , the Turkish steamer Intibah became the first vessel to be sunk by self-propelled 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 In another early use of the torpedo, Chilean frigate Blanco Encalada was sunk on April 23, by a torpedo from the gunboat Almirante Lynch , during the Chilean Civil War.

The Chinese turret ship Dingyuan was purportedly hit and disabled by a torpedo after numerous attacks by Japanese torpedo boats during the First Sino-Japanese War in At this time torpedo attacks were still very close range and very dangerous to the attackers.

By this time the torpedo boat , the first of which had been built at the shipyards of Sir John Thornycroft in , had gained recognition for its effectiveness, and the first torpedo boat destroyers later simply destroyers were built to counter it.

Torpedoes were also used to equip gunboats of around 1, tons, these becoming torpedo gunboats. Originally, torpedoes were designed to be straight running, though this was not always the case in practice. Around , Nikola Tesla patented a remote controlled boat and later demonstrated the feasibility of radio-guided torpedoes to the United States military. Several western sources reported that the Qing dynasty Imperial Chinese military under the direction of Li Hongzhang acquired "Electric torpedoes", which were deployed in numerous waterways along with fortresses and numerous other modern military weapons acquired by China.

The Russo-Japanese War — was the first great war of the 20th century. During the course of the war the Imperial Russian and Imperial Japanese navies would launch nearly torpedoes at each other, all of them of the "self propelled automotive" type. On 27 May , during the battle of Tsushima , Admiral Rozhestvensky 's flagship , the battleship Knyaz Suvorov , had been gunned to a wreck by Admiral Togo 's 12 inch gunned battleline.

With the Russians sunk and scattering, Togo prepared for pursuit, and while doing so ordered his torpedo boat destroyers TBDs mostly referred to as just destroyers in most written accounts to finish off the Russian battleship. The Knyaz Suvorov was set upon by 17 torpedo firing warships, 10 of which were TBDs and 4 torpedo boats. In , Admiral Bradley A. Fiske imagined an aerial torpedo attack would be carried out close to the water and at night. The end of the war fuelled new theories, and the idea of dropping lightweight torpedoes from aircraft was conceived in the early s by Bradley A.

Fiske , an officer in the United States Navy. Fiske determined that the notional torpedo bomber should descend rapidly in a sharp spiral to evade enemy guns, then when about 10 to 20 feet 3 to 6 m above the water the aircraft would straighten its flight long enough to line up with the torpedo's intended path. The aircraft would release the torpedo at a distance of 1, to 2, yards 1, to 1, m from the target.

The first recorded launch of a self-propelled torpedo in battle by a submarine was on Dec. According to the archives, the attack was unsuccessful. Torpedoes were widely used in the First World War, both against shipping and against submarines.

Germany and its allies disrupted the supply lines to Britain largely by use of submarine torpedoes though submarines also extensively used guns. U-boats themselves were often targeted, twenty being sunk by torpedo. Initially the Japanese Navy purchased Whitehead or Schwartzkopf torpedoes but by they were conducting experiments with pure oxygen instead of compressed air.

Because of explosions they abandoned the experiments but resumed them in and by had a working torpedo. They also used conventional wet-heater torpedoes. A Japanese Type 93 torpedo -- nicknamed "Long Lance" after the war. In the inter-war years, tight budgets caused nearly all navies to skimp on testing their torpedoes.

As a result, only the Japanese had fully tested torpedoes in particular the Type 93 , nicknamed Long Lance postwar by historian Samuel E.

Morison [22] [23] at the start of World War II. All classes of ship, including submarines, and aircraft were armed with torpedoes. Targeting unarmed enemy merchant shipping was prohibited by rules of war. In the event, merchantmen were armed and acted as de facto naval auxiliaries, rendering the distinction irrelevant.

There was concern torpedoes would be ineffective against warships' heavy armor; an answer to this was to detonate torpedoes underneath a ship, badly damaging its keel and the other structural members in the hull, commonly called "breaking its back". This was demonstrated by magnetic influence mines in World War I. The torpedo would be set to run at a depth just beneath the ship, relying on a magnetic exploder to activate at the appropriate time. Germany, Britain and the U.

Inadequate testing had failed to reveal the effect of the Earth's magnetic field on ships and exploder mechanisms, which resulted in premature detonation. The Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy promptly identified and eliminated the problems. In the United States Navy , there was an extended wrangle over the problems plaguing the Mark 14 torpedo and its Mark 6 exploder. Cursory trials had allowed bad designs to enter service. Accession : AZ. The earliest known use of the torpedo dates back to by the Dutch, which was actually a ship packed with explosives.

The torpedo is a direct descendant of the mine. During the American Revolution , kegs of gunpowder took the place of ships in the Battle of the Kegs. The first American use of the torpedo dates back to when David Bushnell discovered gunpowder could explode underwater. The mines, which he sold to the American Navy, could stay in place indefinitely unlike other versions, which were uncontrollable and would move with the tide.

Throughout the Civil War , mine warfare continued. It was designed to attack the enemy rather than wait for the enemy. His torpedo design was the point where all other concept designs would begin. The first Whitehead torpedo used a two-cylinder, compressed air engine capable of traveling up to 6.

The engine was also flawed. Only two torpedoes were ever developed at the torpedo station before the program was terminated in The first successful torpedo program by the U. Navy began in Lieutenant Commander John A.

Howell created a torpedo that was driven by a pound flywheel that spun to 10, revolutions per minute. A steam turbine housed on the torpedo tube spun the flywheel before it launched. The Navy produced about 50 of the Howell torpedoes for tactical use. Eventually, the U. The Whitehead Mk 5 could go about 4, yards at speeds up to 27 knots. From to , the torpedo detonator saw many modifications.

Before the modifications, torpedoes would have to strike a direct hit to explode, but the improved detonators could explode from any direction or even a glancing blow to a hull.

Torpedo development was minimal during World War I. The Mk 7 was the first steam-driven torpedo that could be fired from both destroyers and submarines. The first American airdrop torpedo test occurred in The Mk 14 torpedo was deployed from submarines. That type of torpedo was responsible for sinking more than four million tons of Japanese shipping during World War II. The Mk 15 torpedo that was on destroyers had an pound warhead and remained in service until the s.

Around , German submarine U was captured and with it came the design of the electric torpedo. Within a year of the U-boats capture, the Mk 18 was available to the fleet. The electric torpedo had two advantages: it was wakeless and required less manufacturing effort. Another torpedo developed during the war was the homing torpedo. The idea was the torpedo attacked what it heard.

In the early s, the thrown torpedo was developed. They were built to detect enemy submarines coming too close to ship convoys or U. The torpedo was the initial format for the Mk 44 and Mk 46 torpedoes, which were rocket propelled. Also in the s, submarines acquired nuclear propulsion, which made them faster.

A faster torpedo also had to be developed. The Mk 45 provided speeds up to 40 knots and a range of 11, to 15, yards. It was eventually replaced with the Mk 48, which still today is the primary active service torpedo in the United States submarine arsenal.

It is feet long, weighs approximately 3,pounds, and carries pounds of high explosive. The Mk 50 could be dropped from a plane, helicopter, or launched from a surface combatant.

It is only 9-feet long, but can travel faster than 40 knots and has a range of 20, yards. Singer Torpedo Designed for H. Drawing of a spar-mounted torpedo designed by Singer for use on the submarine H. Hunley taken from the papers of Quincy Adams Gallimore, a Union general and engineer who had access to Confederate military papers in Charleston after the city's surrender.

The heading claims it is the one used to sink USS Housatonic. From the National Archives and Records Administration. Torpedo gyro of the obry type, used in the Whitehead torpedo, MK.

Firing torpedoes during torpedo practice, Note torpedo cart. National Archives photograph, G Mark 11 Torpedo. The first all-Navy torpedo design at Newport, Rhode Island, torpedo factory, Submariners drinking coffee in the torpedo room of their boat, at the New London Submarine Base, Photo has apparently been censored.

Consistent with its established purpose, much of the production effort in the early days of the Torpedo Station at Newport was concentrated on manufacturing main charge explosives and explosive components primers and detonators. From the first, torpedo acceptance by the U. Navy was on the basis of in-water performance. Early in , explosive main charge manufacturing and all equipment for that purpose were transferred to Indian Head, Md.

Navy Torpedo Factory at Newport, R. He was apparently successful, for construction of the factory began on July 1, , and in , the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport the torpedo factory received an order for 20 Whitehead Mk 5 torpedoes.

In the light of establishing a competitor to E. Navy, the climate was probably more favorable for dealing with Whitehead rather than Bliss for manufacturing rights, tooling, etc. At the same time, an order for additional Whitehead Mk 5 torpedoes was placed with Vickers Ltd. Navy and the Bliss Co. Bliss staged a comeback with the Bliss-Leavitt Mk 6 torpedo in which used horizontal turbines spin axis at right angles to the longitudinal centerline.

An inch diameter torpedo intended for above-water launching, this weapon could obtain a speed of 35 knots but a range of only yards. A water spray was introduced into the combustion pot along with the fuel spray and the "steam" torpedo came into being.

Torpedo Mk 7, with a range of yards at 35 knots, was introduced into the Fleet about and was in use for 33 years up to and including World War II when it was used in reactivated World War I destroyers with inch torpedo tubes. In the "steam" torpedo, air, fuel, and water are simultaneously fed into the combustion pot. The fuel burns and the water reduces the temperature of the gases produced by combustion. The water turns into steam, thus increasing the mass of the gas.

The gases generated by combustion and the steam provide the motive power to the engine. Although only a fraction of the gases is steam, the term "steam" torpedo has been generally used throughout the years figure Navy inventory of torpedoes included both "hot" and "cold" running Whitehead and Bliss-Leavitt design torpedoes, with some identified by the same Mark.

Consequently, new designations were formulated as shown in tables 1 and 2. All other torpedoes in the inventory i. Navy's new class of torpedo boats, was commissioned and assigned to Newport.

Torpedo boats of the CUSHING class were feet long, displaced tons, had a top speed of 23 knots, and were equipped with two or three inch torpedo tubes. Fletcher, U. Each year larger and faster torpedo boats were developed. In , Japanese torpedo boats attacked the Chinese fleet at anchor with a loss to the Chinese of 14, tons.

This action appears to have been a major factor in development of the torpedo boat countermeasure - the torpedo boat destroyer. Navy torpedo boat destroyer. In a few years, ships of this type became known simply as destroyers. These destroyers of torpedo boats were, in fact, torpedo boats as well.

Of far reaching significance, the advent of the DD 69 also introduced the standard inch surface torpedo tube. With tubes installed in triple mounts, four mounts per ship 12 tubes in all , these ships fired the Bliss-Leavitt Mk 8, the U. Navy's first inch by foot torpedo, with a range of 16, yards at a speed of 27 knots. Harry H. Caldwell, who is believed to be the U. Navy's first. Navy submarines in tests and experiments at Newport. During the submarine's days of infancy, later classes had two or four inch torpedo tubes installed and carried a total complement of four to eight torpedoes on board.

The exception was the G-3 which had six inch torpedo tubes installed and carried a total complement of ten torpedoes.

The ultimate torpedo for these early submarines was the Bliss-Leavitt Mk 7. Like the surface Navy, submarines were standardized with inch torpedo tubes beginning in with the "R" class.

Submarines equipped with the inch torpedo tubes used Torpedo Mk 10, which had the heaviest warhead of any torpedo up to that time, pounds, with a speed of 36 knots, but a range of only yards. It was intended to replace Bliss-Leavitt Mk 3-type torpedoes in battleships. When use of torpedoes in battleships was discontinued in , the Mk 9 was converted for submarine use and was used in the early days of World War II to supplement the limited stock of Mk 14's.

The last of the Bliss-Leavitt torpedoes, the Mk 9 appears to have been a misfit in the evolutionary process. It was slow, had a short range for a surface ship torpedo, carried a small explosive charge and air flask pressure was reduced to psi from psi. There was apparently some effort to improve Mk 9 capability, for in follow-on mods, its speed was unchanged and range in some cases reduced, while the explosive charge was increased to around pounds and air flask pressure was increased to psi indicating use of a new air flask.

By the spring of , the German U-boat menace had become so great that it overshadowed all other enemy threats. Torpedo research and development was practically discontinued in favor of the development of depth bombs, aero bombs, and mines, which were the antisubmarine warfare weapons of that era. The resources of the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport were redirected to this end and played an important role in wartime development, particularly in the development of the U.

The use of the torpedo by the U. Navy and the Allies in World War I was a negligible factor specific data are not available ; on the other hand, German submarines are credited with sinking 5, ships for a total of 11,, tons. The characteristics were as follows:. The propulsion motor of the proposed electric torpedo was to act as a gyroscope to stabilize the torpedo in azimuth, as in the old Howell Torpedo.

This development was terminated in with no torpedoes having been produced. Navy interest in the development of an electric torpedo, prompted by the successful development of one during World War I in Germany, continued after termination of the Sperry contract.

Navy in-house development of an electric torpedo of conventional size continued at the Navy Experiment Station, New London, Conn. This design was designated the Type EL, then the Mk 1. Development continued sporadically over the next 25 years on the Mk 1 and Mk 2 electric torpedoes culminating finally with the Mk In the same wave of economy, development and manufacture of torpedoes for the U.

Navy at the E. Disputes over patent rights, and also the fact that the USNTS, Newport, with 15 years of experience in torpedo manufacture was considered capable of providing for the Navy's needs, were cited as factors influencing termination of work with the Bliss Co. Economy seems to have been the primary motivation, for at the same time, torpedo manufacturing activities at the Washington Navy Yard and the Naval Torpedo Station in Alexandria, Va.

The Newport Torpedo Station became the headquarters for torpedo research, development, design, manufacture, overhaul, and ranging. In , in a move to reduce maintenance costs, all torpedoes of design prior to the Bliss-Leavitt Torpedo Mk 7 were condemned withdrawn from service and probably scrapped in favor of more modern torpedoes.

With this move, the U. Navy inventory of torpedo types then consisted of four models:. Torpedo Mk 8 - used by destroyers with inch tubes, 3.

Torpedo Mk 9. Torpedo Mk 10 - used by submarines with inch tubes. In the mid's, manufacturing efforts were minimal, and the efforts were mainly concerned with improving the existing torpedo inventory. Cruiser use of torpedoes was discontinued in Production of Torpedo Mk 11 started in ; however, in , the Mk 11 was succeeded by the Mk 12, which was similar but refined in many details.

About Mk 12's were produced. It involved two Navy Bureaus - Ordnance and Aeronautics the latter due to the necessity of parallel development of a satisfactory torpedo plane. Air speed for these drops is believed to have been 50 to 55 knots at altitudes of 18 and 30 feet. It was found that the torpedo dropped from 30 feet was badly damaged while the one dropped from 18 feet was not. The prime mover in the early days of Naval aviation, particularly with respect to the use of the torpedo as an aircraft strike weapon, was Rear Adm.

Bradley A. Fiske, U. He was granted a patent for the torpedo plane in Included in his patent were proposed methods for the tactical use of the aircraft torpedo, which were used by the U. Navy for many years. A degree of the interest in the aircraft torpedo is evidenced by the fact that an Aviation Unit for the Newport Torpedo Station was established at Gould Island, R.

It was at this facility that the bulk of the testing that ultimately resulted in the aircraft torpedo was accomplished. By , Torpedoes Mk 7 were being launched successfully from DT 2 torpedo planes at air speed of 95 knots from an altitude of 32 feet. An air-dropped Mk 7 is shown in figure In February , BuOrd initiated "Project G-6" to develop a torpedo specifically for aircraft launching with the following specifications:.

The torpedo was also to withstand launching speed of mph from an altitude of at least 40 feet. In , Project G-6 was discontinued in favor of adapting existing inch torpedoes.

The moratorium was short-lived and Project G-6 was revived in upon the urging of the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. The intent was to develop a torpedo designed to meet aircraft requirements, in order that production could be started before the existing stock of inch torpedoes was depleted. After a period of vacillation, specifications were revised in The torpedo was to be capable of launch at knots ground speed from an altitude of 50 feet.

Other specifications included:. The design that evolved from these specifications was the foot, 6-inch by In March , the question of whether or not there would be a torpedo plane was aired. These two factors tended to result in tactical ineffectiveness and large losses of material.

The Bureau of Aeronautics, in essence, withdrew support for the Mk 13 type torpedo, favoring instead the development of a pound torpedo for use from bombing aircraft with these specifications: 1 capable of launching at knots from an altitude of 50 feet; 2 range, yards; and 3 speed, 30 knots.

At the time, BuOrd considered that the development of the pound torpedo was practically impossible within the state of the art and continued with the development of the Mk Torpedo Mk 13 was available, although in limited numbers, when the United States entered the war in With Mk 14 development completed and production started prior to the start of the second World War, approximately 13, torpedoes of this type were manufactured during the war years.

The mainstay of the submarine force in the war until the advent of the wakeless, electric Torpedo Mk 18 about , the Mk 14 is credited with sinking approximately 4,, tons of Japanese shipping. Originally designed and produced for mechanical fire control setting, Torpedo Mk 14 was modified to be compatible with modern electrical-set fire control systems, and continues in service in today's submarine forces. Wartime service demands for more torpedoes and scarcity of materials in led to development and manufacture of Torpedo Mk 23, a short-range, high-speed torpedo yards at 46 knots.

Identical to the Mk 14 without the low-speed feature, this torpedo was not favored by the operating forces since the multispeed option of the Mk 14 permitted greater tactical flexibility, especially during the latter stages of World War II, when more sophisticated escorts and ASW tactics forced firing from longer ranges.

No new destroyers were commissioned in the years between and The modern destroyer of this and later classes was equipped with multiple-mount, inch torpedo tubes. The limited inventory of destroyer Torpedoes Mk 11 and Mk 12 developed and produced during the economy years 's , coupled with limited warhead size pounds , were factors leading to the development of Torpedo Mk 15 in With speed and range similar to its predecessors, it was longer and.

Production started and continued during the war years to the extent that approximately Torpedoes Mk 15 were manufactured. Decisively used on occasion during the war in the Pacific, the Mk 15 died a natural death when the inch torpedo tubes were removed from destroyers during the Fleet rehabilitation and modernization program of the 's, to make way for ASW weaponry consistent with the emerging role of the destroyer as an ASW platform.

James B. Conat, President of Harvard University, was appointed chairman. Others named were Dr. Frank B. Jewett, President of the National Academy of Science. The main objectives of NDRC were to: 1 recommend to OSRD suitable projects and research programs on the instrumentalities of war, and 2 initiate research projects on request of the U. Army and Navy or allied counterparts. NDRC, as finally constituted, consisted of 23 divisions, each specializing in a particular field. Division 6 Sub-Surface Warfare, headed by Dr.

John T. Tate was the group tasked with the torpedo research and development role. The division's first objective was "the most complete investigation possible of all the factors and phenomena involved in the accurate detection of submerged or partially submerged submarines and in anti-submarine devices.

Within 15 weeks, the first prototype was delivered. Six months from the date of contract award, the first six production units were delivered.

In addition to being wakeless, electric torpedoes such as the Mk 18 required only about 70 percent of the labor required to manufacture a torpedo with thermal propulsion. The electric torpedo differed from its predecessors in that the air flask was replaced by a battery compartment which housed the energy source batteries.

The engine and its accessories were replaced by an electric motor, and with electrical power available, electric controls were generally used. In the Mk 18, the climate of war urgency dictated the use of tried and proven pneumatic controls, with the high-pressure air stored in air bottles in the afterbody.

The electric torpedoes used in World War II utilized lead-acid secondary batteries as a power source. These batteries required periodic maintenance, i. One of the main problems with use of the submarine torpedoes was that battery maintenance had to be performed in the torpedo room while on patrol. On the other hand, the aircraft torpedo was returned to a base, carrier, or tender if not launched, and could be broken down to perform the necessary battery maintenance.

To facilitate maintenance, the battery compartments of submarine torpedoes were provided with handholes which permitted access to the batteries and provided a means of purging the compartment of hydrogen which was formed during the changing process or simply by the self discharge of the cells while standing idle. Intelligence community, and in , the NDRC sponsored a project to develop an acoustic homing torpedo. Engineering development of the torpedo, Mine Mk 24 mine being a misnomer for security reasons , was assigned to Western Electric Co.

Engineering and Consulting Laboratories, Schenectady, N. Following successful evaluation of the prototypes, production was started in Western Electric Co. Approximately 10, units were ordered, but the order was reduced due to the high effectiveness of the weapon. The Mine Mk 24 was also known by the code name "Fido".

The Mine Mk 30 was unique in that it was only 10 inches in diameter and weighed only pounds including a pound warhead. It was nearly identical to Torpedo Mk 43 Mod 1 which was to follow a decade later except that the Mine Mk 30 employed passive acoustic bearing system rather than the active acoustic homing system of the Torpedo Mk 43 Mod 1.

Development was successfully completed in , but was not produced since Mine Mk 24 had demonstrated satisfactory performance late in Two hundred-four of these were against submarine targets with the following results:. Number of U-boats sunk - 37 18 percent , 3. Number of U-boats damaged - 18 9 percent.

A comparison of the effectiveness of Mine Mk 24 with aircraft-launched depth charges indicate that when depth charges were used, 9. In approximately the same time frame, engineering development was started at Western Electric on an electric anti-escort torpedo.

About Torpedoes Mk 27 Mod 0 were fired during World War II, with 33 hits 31 percent resulting in 24 ships sunk and 9 ships damaged. Based on an analysis of salvo firing of nonhoming torpedoes against escort-type ships, a single Torpedo Mk 27 achieved the same results against escorts as a salvo of the larger nonhoming torpedoes. In the departure from the practice of the time for the purpose of obtaining a quiet launching, Torpedo Mk 27 was started while still in the torpedo tube and swam out under its own power, requiring 8 to 10 seconds to clear the tube.

The noisy ejection of the conventional torpedo was thus eliminated. With successful application of the passive homing feature to "mission kill" or crippling weapons characterized by small warheads, application to large antisurface ship weapons logically followed, thus, the development of Torpedo Mk 28 by Westinghouse Electric Corp.

The Mk 28 was a full-size inch diameter by foot length , electrically-propelled submarine torpedo, with a speed of 20 knots and a range of approximately yards. This torpedo was also gyro-controlled on a preset course for the first yards, at which point the acoustic homing system was activated.

The explosive charge was also increased to approximately pounds. Since this torpedo was made available late in the war without adequate training in its tactical use, the number of hits was not as large as expected.

The tendency to regard the acoustic homing torpedo as a device that could correct for any kind of fire control error was a factor in its low success rate. Nevertheless, the Mk 28 demonstrated that it was possible to successfully include acoustic homing in a full-size, submarine-launched torpedo. This technique, while far more effective than any preceding it, had limitations against a ship at slow speed, a submarine running deep, a submarine sitting on the bottom, or a ship employing countermeasures such as a stream of bubbles or a noisemaker.

Investigation of the use of echo-ranging equipment or an "active" homing torpedo system was initiated under the auspices of NDRC in at the G. Research Laboratory, Schenectady, N. Active homing differs from passive homing in that, with active homing, the torpedo steers on the basis of the signal returned by the target through reflection of the torpedo's own transmitted signal. In mid, G. By mid, the program had progressed through the successful prototype stage, and due to the saturation of G.

About ten units were completed when World War II ended, and the project was deactivated until when Torpedo Mk 32 Mod 2 was produced in quantity by the Philco Corp. Originally intended as an aircraft-launched torpedo, the Mk 32 Mod 2 finally saw service use as a destroyer-launched ASW torpedo until replaced by Torpedo Mk Early experiments resulted in issuance of two patents to Mr.

Kasley, assigned to BuOrd, covering the employment of liquid, solid, and gaseous fuels for the purpose of sustaining exothermic heat-producing reactions for the propulsion of torpedoes. The cost of the early experiments was borne by WECO, but later about it was put on a contractural basis and continued until late In August , NRL recommended that the WECO approach be abandoned and proposed that increased output of torpedo power plants be achieved by development of an "oxygen" torpedo use of oxygen in place of air for combustion.

In , the development of an oxygen torpedo was authorized. By , successful dynamometer tank tests had been completed. The torpedo was then. If the oxygen torpedo was to become a reality, attention had to be focused on supplying oxygen to ships. This was done with limited success. After an initial flurry of activity, the Navy Department lost interest in the oxygen torpedo but maintained an interest in the development of some kind of chemical torpedo, since it offered promise of tripling the energy output over the steam torpedo with greater flexibility in range, speed, and warhead size.

From on, NRL studied various chemical sources of energy for torpedoes. In , "Navol" concentrated hydrogen peroxide H 2 O 2 was selected as the proper medium. In , experimentation started with Torpedo Mk 10 as a vehicle using a Navol power plant. The use of Navol increased the range of the standard Torpedo Mk 10 by percent from yards to approximately yards.

This demonstration convinced BuOrd that serious consideration should be given to the use of Navol in torpedoes. NRL was then tasked to apply the principle to Torpedo Mk After a number of successful dynamometer tank runs, the torpedo was run on the range where it made a run of 16, yards at 46 knots standard Mk 14 performance was yards at 46 knots.

In July , an NRL representative was transferred to Newport on a full-time basis, and the Torpedo Station was authorized to start development of a destroyer-launched, knot torpedo with a range of 16, yards and a pound warhead.

The end objective was to manufacture 50 torpedoes to be designated as the Mk After the attack on Pearl Harbor, pressure to produce Torpedo Mk 13 and Torpedo Mk 14 to satisfy immediate Fleet needs was so great that BuOrd postponed the planned manufacture of the Mk 17 even though committed as armament for new construction destroyers.

The program was dormant until when it was determined that there was not enough Navol production capability available to satisfy the Navy need if the Navol torpedo was to become a reality. After a long delay, construction was started on a Navol production facility at Dresden, N. The main objectives were to increase the efficiency of Navol through studies of its decomposition and combustion, to learn how best to handle it, and optimize the torpedo power plant for its use.

A knot, yard range submarine torpedo, the Mk 16 was to be the same weight and envelope as Torpedo Mk In , the range specification was changed to 11, yards and the new torpedo was designated Torpedo Mk 16 Mod 1 figure In , production of the Mk 17 was resumed. Neither Torpedo Mk 16 nor Mk 17 was fully developed at this time, and it was realized that production units of both torpedoes would probably require extensive changes subsequent to production.

This eventuality was acceptable to BuOrd, and a total of Torpedo Mk 16's and Torpedo Mk 17's were produced prior to the end of the war. Neither type, however, was used in combat. Its heavy topside weight on destroyers, similarity to Torpedo Mk 16, and the emerging role of destroyers as an antisubmarine warfare ASW platform were factors contributing to its early demise. This preference was intensified by the low-altitude, slow-speed tactics required for torpedo launch.