Not long afterward the idea of contra-rotating propellers was introduced, to avoid the need for the vane. Naval strategy at the time was to use torpedoes, launched from submarines or warships, against enemy warships in a fleet action on the high seas. Germany, Britain and the U.S. independently devised ways to do this; German and American torpedoes, however, suffered problems with their depth-keeping mechanisms, coupled with faults in magnetic pistols shared by all designs. In 1895 the gyroscope came into use for directional control. Shore-based steam winches pulled the wires, which spun the drums and drove the propellers. Many classes of surface ships, submarines, and aircraft were armed with torpedoes.

Homing "fire and forget" torpedoes can use passive or active guidance, or a combination of both. Propulsion is usually by battery-powered electric motors. The French Navy followed suit in 1878 with Torpilleur No 1, launched in 1878 though she had been ordered in 1875. For the pre-1900 naval meaning of "torpedo", see, Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran. If conditions are right and the bubble collapses onto the ship's hull, the damage to the ship can be extremely serious; the collapsing bubble forms a high-energy jet that can break a metre-wide hole straight through the ship, flooding one or more compartments, and is capable of breaking smaller ships apart. Germany introduced its first battery-powered torpedo shortly before World War II, the G7e. After building a model of the device, Whitehead rejected the scheme as impracticable and began work on an idea of his own. During the First World War the U.S. Navy evaluated a radio controlled torpedo launched from a surface ship called the Hammond Torpedo. Unreliable torpedoes caused many problems for the American submarine force in the early years of the war, primarily in the Pacific Theater. The air was stored at pressures of up to 2.55 MPa (370 psi) and fed to a piston engine that turned a single propeller at about 100 rpm. A number of navies have launched torpedo strikes since World War II, including: The Whitehead torpedo of 1866, the first successful self-propelled torpedo, used compressed air as its energy source. 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. refers to a minefield laid at Mobile, Alabama. In 1906 Whitehead built torpedoes that could cover nearly 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) at an average speed of 35 knots (65 km/h). [53], The damage that may be caused by a torpedo depends on the "shock factor value", a combination of the initial strength of the explosion and of the distance between the target and the detonation. Torpedoes were used by the Russian Empire during the Crimean War in 1855 against British warships in the Gulf of Finland. The newly appointed Inspector-General of Fortifications in England, Sir Andrew Clarke, appreciated the value of the torpedo and in spring 1883 an experimental station was established at Garrison Point Fort, Sheerness on the River Medway and a workshop for Brennan was set up at the Chatham Barracks, the home of the Royal Engineers. The Victorian era Brennan torpedo could be steered onto its target by varying the relative speeds of its propulsion cables. This drawback was remedied by heating the air with seawater before it was fed to the engine, which increased engine performance further, because the air expanded even more after heating. Faced with such an attack, the prudent thing for a target to do was to turn so as to parallel the course of the incoming torpedo and steam away from the torpedoes and the firer, allowing the relatively short range torpedoes to use up their fuel. The first trials were not successful as the weapon was unable to maintain a course at a steady depth. The experimental G7es, an enhancement of the G7e, used primary cells. [26], An order for ten aircraft was placed, and 936 aircraft were built by ten different British aircraft companies during the First World War. The United States had an electric design, the Mark 18, largely copied from the German torpedo (although with improved batteries), as well as FIDO, an air-dropped acoustic homing torpedo for anti-submarine use. By 1900, 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.[6][7].
Royal Navy Coastal Motor Boats of World War I used a rear-facing trough and a cordite ram to push the torpedoes into the water tail-first; they then had to move rapidly out of the way to avoid being hit by their own torpedo.

In October 2004 the RUM-139C began production with the Mark 54 torpedo. The homing systems for torpedoes are generally acoustic, though there have been other target sensor types used. In fact a submarine-deployed torpedo was used in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy HMS Ramillies while in New London's harbor. [12] On 16 January 1878, 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 1877–78. The structure of the hull is designed to resist downward rather than upward pressure, causing severe strain in this phase of the explosion. Further development languished as Fulton focused on his "steam-boat matters". In larger ships and submarines, fire control calculators gave a wider engagement envelope. In the Battle of the North Cape in December 1943, torpedo hits from British destroyers Savage and Saumarez slowed the German battleship Scharnhorst enough for the British battleship Duke of York to catch and sink her, and in May 1945 the British 26th Destroyer Flotilla (coincidentally led by Saumarez again) ambushed and sank Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro. Length, weight, and other factors also contribute to compatibility. A modern torpedo contains intricate devices to control its depth and direction according to a preset plan or in response to signals received from an outside source, as well as a device that detonates the explosive-filled warhead when it strikes its target or comes close to it. This allowed for the possibility of a small and fast ship that could attack the battleships, at a much lower cost. Assisted torpedoes are the most recent development in torpedo design, and are normally engineered as an integrated package. Smaller vessels such as PT boats carried their torpedoes in fixed deck mounted tubes using compressed air. Although lightweight torpedoes are fairly easily handled, the transport and handling of heavyweight ones is difficult, especially in the small space of a submarine. The largest warship sunk by torpedoes from small craft in World War II was the British cruiser Manchester, sunk by Italian MAS boats on the night of 12/13 August 1942 during Operation Pedestal. Passive acoustic torpedoes home in on emissions from a target. These were the 1960 Mk 32 torpedo launcher in the US and part of STWS (Shipborne Torpedo Weapon System) in the UK. [2], The vertical launch missile first became operational in 1993, with more than 450 having been produced by 2007. Control surfaces are essential for a torpedo to maintain its course and depth.

[10], The torpedo attained a speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) using a wire 1.0 millimetre (0.04 in) in diameter but later this was changed to 1.8 mm (0.07 in) to increase the speed to 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph). The torpedoes were originally ejected from the tubes by compressed air but later slow burning gunpowder was used. The first torpedo boats were built at the shipyards of Sir John Thornycroft, and gained recognition for their effectiveness. Such systems were used for coastal defence of the British homeland and colonies from 1887 to 1903 and were purchased by, and under the control of, the Army as opposed to the Navy. Two steel drums were mounted one behind the other inside the torpedo, each carrying several thousands yards of high-tensile steel wire. By that point, his torpedo had grown to a diameter of 18 inches with a maximum speed of 30.5 knots (56.5 km/h; 35.1 mph) with a warhead weighing 170 pounds (77 kg). [30] Two Royal Italian Navy torpedo boats scored a success against an Austrian-Hungarian squadron, sinking the battleship SMS Szent István with two torpedoes. Whitehead also opened a factory at St Tropez in 1890 that exported torpedoes to Brazil, The Netherlands, Turkey and Greece. Between 1883 and 1885 the Royal Engineers held trials and in 1886 the torpedo was recommended for adoption as a harbour defence torpedo. Active-acoustic torpedoes generate sound signals similar to sonar and home in on the echo received from the target. Both the Navy Bureau of Ordnance and the United States Congress were too busy protecting their own interests to correct the errors, and fully functioning torpedoes only became available to the USN twenty-one months into the Pacific War.[35]. Torpedoes such as the U.S. Mark 48 can operate in a variety of modes, increasing tactical flexibility. Torpedo, cigar-shaped, self-propelled underwater missile, launched from a submarine, surface vessel, or airplane and designed for exploding upon contact with the hulls of surface vessels and submarines. At the same time inventors were working on building a guided torpedo. However, the Brennan required a substantial infrastructure and was not suitable for shipboard use. Historically, it was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive or fish torpedo; colloquially called a fish.

On 12 August 1915 one of these, piloted by Flight Commander Charles Edmonds, was the first aircraft in the world to attack an enemy ship with an air-launched torpedo. Among the crew, fragmentation wounds are the most common form of injury. Early spar torpedoes were created by the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel in the employ of King James I of England; he attached explosives to the end of a beam affixed to one of his own submarines and they were used (to little effect) during the English expeditions to La Rochelle in 1626.[3]. Similarly, squadrons of torpedo boats and torpedo bombers would attack together, creating a "fan" of torpedoes across the target's course. Destroyers could be found with two or three of these mounts with between five and twelve tubes in total. These were either aligned to fire forward or at an offset angle from the centerline. [8] Whitehead went on to develop more efficient devices, demonstrating torpedoes capable of 18 knots (33 km/h) in 1876, 24 knots (44 km/h) in 1886, and, finally, 30 knots (56 km/h) in 1890. [16], The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) was the first great war of the 20th century. In 1893, RN torpedo production was transferred to the Royal Gun Factory. Modern electric torpedoes such as the Mark 24 Tigerfish or DM2 series commonly use silver oxide batteries that need no maintenance, so torpedoes can be stored for years without losing performance. In addition, they are supplied with Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be fitted with conventional or nuclear warheads. A light torpedo used primarily as a close attack weapon, particularly by aircraft.