A torpedo ram is a type of torpedo boat combining a ram with torpedo tubes. Incorporating design elements from the cruiser and the monitor, it was intended to provide small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other littoral combat.
Like a monitor, torpedo rams operated with very little freeboard, sometimes with only inches of hull rising above the water, exposing only their funnels and turrets to enemy fire. In addition to the guns in their turrets, they also were equipped with torpedoes. Early designs incorporated a spar torpedo that could be extended from the bow and detonated by ramming a target. Later designs used tube-launched self-propelled torpedoes, but retained the concept of ramming, resulting in designs like HMS Polyphemus, which had five torpedo tubes, two each port and starboard and one mounted in the center of her reinforced ram bow. [1] [2]
The torpedo ram concept came about at a time when the self-propelled torpedo, pioneered by Robert Whitehead, had only just been invented. The earliest self-propelled torpedoes were obviously very powerful weapons, but were very short-ranged and incapable of reaching speeds greater than 10 knots, making them useless against anything but stationary targets. Another result of this was that for a time there was much confusion in naval circles about how best to employ the torpedo. [2] [3] During the 1870s a large number of proposals emerged for torpedo-carrying warships. [4]
The torpedo ram, like most of the early torpedo-carrying warship designs, was intended to attack enemy warships while they were still at anchor in harbor. The torpedo ram's low profile and high speed were to make discovery and interception harder, [5] as was the commonly stated intent for their attacks to take place at night. [4] Once it reached the harbor, the torpedo ram was to smash its way through any seaward harbor defenses and make straight for the ships lying at anchor, launching its torpedoes before they could get underway. Once this was done, the torpedo ram would exit the harbor and make a high-speed escape to waiting friendly forces.
It soon became clear that the proposition of attacking enemy ships in harbors was not a practical one. Because of this, torpedo rams were never particularly popular, and the design was largely abandoned by the end of the 19th century as other, more practical, classes of torpedo-carrying warships emerged. Only a handful were built. The best remembered examples of the type were the aforementioned Polyphemus and the United States Navy's USS Intrepid. Neither saw a great deal of active service and they were mostly used for torpedo trials, although Polyphemus did demonstrate the potential damage she could inflict when she was used to demolish a harbor defense boom via ramming. [3]
While never popular with the naval services that created them, the torpedo ram can be said to have caught public attention in a manner which far exceeded its utility as a concept for a fighting ship. The heroic HMS Thunder Child in H. G. Wells' science fiction novel The War of the Worlds is a torpedo ram; she destroys two Martian Tripods before being sunk. [6]
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were originally concieved in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War.
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such a device was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive, or fish torpedo; colloquially a fish. The term torpedo originally applied to a variety of devices, most of which would today be called mines. From about 1900, torpedo has been used strictly to designate a self-propelled underwater explosive device.
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes.
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in November 1859 – narrowly pre-empting the British Royal Navy.
A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are typically faster and more maneuverable than merchant ships. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries only weapons, ammunition and supplies for its crew. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations.
A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.
USS Katahdin, a harbor-defense ram of innovative design, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for Mount Katahdin, a mountain peak in Maine.
Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for more specialized roles in surface warfare such as naval gunfire support (NGFS) and anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) engagements. The term generally refers to powder-launched projectile-firing weapons and excludes self-propelled projectiles such as torpedoes, rockets, and missiles and those simply dropped overboard such as depth charges and naval mines.
A gun turret is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in some degree of azimuth and elevation.
The third HMS Polyphemus was a Royal Navy torpedo ram, serving from 1881 until 1903. A shallow-draft, fast, low-profile vessel, she was designed to penetrate enemy harbours at speed and sink anchored ships. Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby primarily as a protected torpedo boat, the ram was provided very much as secondary armament.
HMS Hotspur was a Victorian Royal Navy ironclad ram – a warship armed with guns but whose primary weapon was a ram.
HMS Inflexible was a Victorian ironclad battleship carrying her main armament in centrally placed turrets. The ship was constructed in the 1870s for the Royal Navy to oppose the perceived growing threat from the Italian Regia Marina in the Mediterranean.
HMS Hero was the second and final Conqueror-class battleship. She was an ironclad who served in the Victorian Royal Navy.
A ram was a weapon fitted to varied types of ships, dating back to antiquity. The weapon comprised an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between 2 and 4 meters (6–12 ft) in length. This would be driven into the hull of an enemy ship to puncture, sink or disable it.
Two Ferret-class destroyers served with the Royal Navy. Ferret and Lynx were built by Laird, displaced 280 tons and were 199 feet (61 m) in overall length.
SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia was an armored cruiser used by the imperial Austro-Hungarian Navy from 1895 to 1917; she was the first ship of that type built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The ship was a unique design, built by the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste; she was laid down in July 1891, launched in April 1893, and completed in November 1894. Armed with a main battery of two 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns and eight 15 cm (5.9 in) guns, the ship provided the basis for two subsequent armored cruiser designs for the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
The two British Devastation-class battleships of the 1870s, HMS Devastation and HMS Thunderer, were the first class of ocean-going capital ship that did not carry sails, and the first which mounted the entire main armament on top of the hull rather than inside it.
The Zara class was a class of three torpedo cruisers built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the late 1870s and early 1880s; they were the first large torpedo-armed warships built by Austria-Hungary. The class comprised three ships, Zara, Spalato, and Sebenico; the last vessel was built to a slightly different design, and is sometimes not counted as a member of the class. The design was prepared by Josef von Romako, the Chief Constructor of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, after a lengthy design process throughout the 1870s. The first two ships were armed with deck-mounted torpedo tubes, while Sebenico received an experimental tube in her bow, submerged below the waterline.
HMS Vesuvius was an experimental torpedo-armed warship of the British Royal Navy. Built by Pembroke Dockyard in 1873–1874, she was the first purpose-designed torpedo vessel built for the Royal Navy. Vesuvius was intended for night attacks against enemy harbours, and was armed with a single tube for Whitehead torpedoes in her bow. She was used for experimental and training purposes, and was not disposed of until 1923.