The Battle of Jutland 1916 by George Bonney

Author:George Bonney
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752495842
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

The torpedo

It was the work of an Englishman, Robert Whitehead . . . that led to the development of the submarine weapon

During the assault on Mobile in 1864, in the American Civil War, Rear-Admiral Farragut spoke one of the most enduring throwaway lines of the United States Navy: ‘Damn the torpedoes. Captain Drayton, go ahead!’ The ‘torpedoes’ of those days were floating explosive devices, not the auto-dirigible self-propelling weapons (‘locomotive torpedoes’) of today. It was the work of the Englishman Robert Whitehead with the Austrian Navy that led to the development of the submarine weapon carrying an explosive warhead, powered by compressed air and fitted with mechanisms to maintain depth and direction that in the twentieth century has done so much damage to ships and those who serve in them. Initially, torpedoes were fired from shore stations or from fast torpedo-boats designed to approach an enemy at high speed, if necessary behind a smokescreen. The development of the submarine produced the vessel ideally suited for the use of the weapon: it could in theory approach the target unseen and attack after sighting through a periscope (Fig 9.1). Later still, of course, the torpedo-carrying aircraft was developed into a weapon more formidable still.

At the time of Jutland the torpedo was an effective though occasionally unreliable missile, the principal weapon of the submarine and the torpedo-boat. Its effective range was about 5,000 yards (4,500 metres), though that might be stretched to 10,000. Both British and German capital ships of the period were fitted with torpedo tubes, but few encounters were so close that these could be used with much hope of success. Some German capital ships did in fact fire torpedoes at Jutland, but none hit. The only instance of one battleship torpedoing another occurred twenty-five years later, when the Rodney, completed in 1927, hit the Bismarck with a torpedo fired at a range of 3,000 yards (2,700 metres).

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