The torpedo – more than just a weapon

The British design which went on to influence the development of the destroyer and empowered the submarine.

It was in 1866 that Englishman Robert Whitehead (1823 – 1905) perfected the first self-propelled locomotive torpedo, as it was called initially, based on a rough design by Giovanni Luppis, of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Whitehead, who worked in France and Italy and developed his invention in Trieste, could not have conceived the impact it would have over the next 160 years. Naval tactics and strategy would be affected and even politics influenced, and the effect would continue right up to the present day – for example, all submarines are still armed with torpedoes as one of their main weapons even if cruise and ballistic missiles have been added to some. The torpedo would also become a vital airborne weapon. 

Even in its earliest days the torpedo would revolutionise naval vessel design and lead to the development of new vessel types such as the destroyer, while it would also help to make the submarine an effective new warship.

Robert Whitehead (1823 – 1905) who perfected the so-called locomotive torpedo. Credit: US Naval Underwater Museum

The Jeune École revolution

The first torpedoes were driven by a three-cylinder compressed-air engine invented, designed, and produced by Peter Brotherhood. French and German versions of the torpedo soon followed. Many naval services procured these weapons during the 1870s to equip small, fast craft – torpedo boats. These became one of the key elements in France’s “jeune école” school of naval strategy. This proposed that the day of the large battleship could be challenged by a fleet of small torpedo boats together with a number of large commerce raiding cruisers. 

The leading proponent was Admiral Théophile Aube who was appointed Minister of Marine in the coalition government of Charles de Saulces de Freycinet, which took office in January 1886. Freycinet was replaced by René Goblet in December that year, but Aube remained as Minister of Marine until the Goblet cabinet was replaced in May 1887. During his term in office Aube was determined to impose the views of the jeune école and change the composition of the French fleet. He stopped the construction of four battleships and concentrated on cheaper vessels, with a construction programme that included 16 cruisers, 100 torpedo boats and 20 larger ones for combating enemy torpedo boats. 

The destroyer emerges

With the increasing threat posed by these small torpedo boats to major units such as battleships and cruisers, counter measures were needed by leading naval powers. One development was the adoption of anti-torpedo nets which would be deployed round the hulls of larger vessels such as battleships while at rest, but these did not provide protection while underway.  

To counteract the threat while steaming, so-called torpedo gunboats were initially developed in the UK. Rather like small cruisers, they proved to be far too slow to catch the torpedo boats due to machinery problems, so, as in France, an enlarged version of the torpedo boat was designed, the torpedo boat destroyer (TBD). These were developed largely at the behest of the legendary “Jackie” Fisher, who had become the Royal Navy’s Controller and Third Sea Lord in 1892. The first TBDs comprised two vessels each from shipbuilders Thornycroft and Yarrow, who had developed the small, fast, torpedo-armed craft in the 1860s at their yards on the river Thames. These two companies built the Daring and Decoy, and Havock and Hornet, respectively, all completed by 1895. They could reach around 26 knots and were still armed with torpedo tubes but carried a more powerful gun armament to challenge the smaller torpedo boats. 

From now on the destroyer would become a vital part of a fleet mix and take on an increasing number of roles such as screening the battle fleet from torpedo boat attack and taking on including anti-submarine tasks against the torpedo’s other main user, the submarine. 

This early submarine, the Delfin commissioned in 1903, was Russia’s first combat-capable version. She was 19.6m long and armed with two external 15 in torpedo tubes. Source: defencedefined.com.cy

Power emerges

It would be the torpedo that would make the submarine the all-powerful weapon it became. 

Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt built the first submarine to be equipped with torpedoes. This was the 19.5m Nordenfelt I of 1885 which was armed with a single torpedo and was purchased by Greece. In 1886 Nordenfelt then had the Barrow shipyard in England build the Nordenfelt II (Abdül Hamid), followed by the Nordenfelt III (Abdül Mecid) of 1887. Both were equipped with two 14 in torpedo tubes and the Abdü Hamid would become the first submarine in history to fire a torpedo while submerged.  

John Barnes is a journalist and author and former editor of Marine Engineers Review.