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107-557: The A244/S is an Italian lightweight, fire-and-forget torpedo employed for anti-submarine warfare . It can be launched from surface vessels or aircraft and locates the target using an acoustic seeker. The torpedo body conforms to the NATO 12.75-inch (323.8 mm) standard and is compatible with USN Mark 32 torpedo tubes. The A244 was initially conceived in 1968 as a replacement for the USN Mark 44 Mod 2 and shares many design similarities with

214-416: A Selenia Elsag AG70 seeker, work on CIACIO began in 1964, resulting in a 60 kHz CIACIO 60 seeker in 1966 and a 30 kHz CIACIO 30 seeker in 1968. The final version, CIACIO-S, originally appeared in 1972 with laboratory trials in 1973 and static sea trials in 1974, followed by live trials using Mark 44 torpedoes equipped with the new seeker in 1975. Shallow water trials were carried out in 1977-1978. A244/S Mod 1

321-414: A differential gear to twin contra-rotating propellers. If one drum was rotated faster than the other, then the rudder was activated. The other ends of the wires were connected to steam-powered winding engines, which were arranged so that speeds could be varied within fine limits, giving sensitive steering control for the torpedo. The torpedo attained a speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) using

428-478: A "torpedo" is an underwater self-propelled explosive, but historically, the term also applied to primitive naval mines and spar torpedoes . These were used on an ad hoc basis during the early modern period up to the late 19th century. In the early 17th century, the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel , in the employ of King James I of England , invented the spar torpedo; he attached explosives to the end of

535-455: A CIACIO-S seeker, consisting of an acoustic homing head containing the transducer assembly, transmitter, and related beamforming circuits, and a frame housing all the remaining electronic components. The seeker head contains 36 transducers in an 6x6 array, capable of generating eight acoustic beams. The homing head is capable of active, passive, and mixed modes for closing onto its target. It can also discriminate between decoys and real targets in

642-431: A batch of 50 as torpedo production at home and Rijeka could not meet demand. By World War I, Whitehead's torpedo remained a worldwide success, and his company was able to maintain a monopoly on torpedo production. 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). Whitehead faced competition from

749-731: A beam affixed to one of his submarines. These were used (to little effect) during the English expeditions to La Rochelle in 1626. The first use of a torpedo by a submarine was in 1775, by the American Turtle , which attempted to lay a bomb with a timed fuse on the hull of HMS  Eagle during the American Revolutionary War , but failed in the attempt. In the early 1800s, the American inventor Robert Fulton , while in France, "conceived

856-447: A cotton manufacturer and early socialist . Owen agreed to finance the development and promotion of Fulton's designs for inclined planes and earth-digging machines; he was instrumental in introducing the American to a canal company, which awarded him a sub-contract. But Fulton was not successful at this practical effort and he gave up the contract after a short time. As early as 1793, Fulton proposed plans for steam-powered vessels to both

963-624: A demonstration in late 1869, and in 1870 a batch of torpedoes was ordered. In 1871, the British Admiralty paid Whitehead £ 15,000 for certain of his developments and production started at the Royal Laboratories in Woolwich the following year. In the 1880s, a British committee, informed by hydrodynamicist Dr. R. E. Froude , conducted comparative tests and determined that a blunt nose, contrary to prior assumptions, did not hinder speed: in fact,

1070-604: A depth just beneath the ship, relying on a magnetic exploder to activate at the appropriate time. 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. 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

1177-524: A factory at St Tropez in 1890 that exported torpedoes to Brazil, The Netherlands, Turkey, and Greece. Whitehead purchased rights to the gyroscope of Ludwig Obry in 1888 but it was not sufficiently accurate, so in 1890 he purchased a better design 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 1885, Britain ordered

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1284-462: A night-time approach so that the target ship would be less able to defend itself. 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 1,500 to 2,000 yards (1,400 to 1,800 m) from

1391-472: A pair of 24.5-inch torpedoes from her port-side tube and claimed one hit. According to Ludovic Kennedy , "if true, [this is] the only instance in history of one battleship torpedoing another". The Royal Navy continued the development of oxygen-enriched air torpedoes with the 21 in. Mk. VII of the 1920s designed for the County-class cruisers although once again these were converted to run on normal air at

1498-580: A production facility at the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory, Greenock , in 1910. These are now closed. Whitehead opened a new factory adjacent to Portland Harbour , England, in 1890, which continued making torpedoes until the end of World War II . Because orders from the RN were not as large as expected, torpedoes were mostly exported. A series of devices was produced at Rijeka, with diameters from 14 in (36 cm) upward. The largest Whitehead torpedo

1605-627: A radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, it intended to use frequency-hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers . As radio guidance had been abandoned some years earlier, it was not pursued. Although the US Navy never adopted the technology, it did, in the 1960s, investigate various spread-spectrum techniques. Spread-spectrum techniques are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi . This work led to their induction into

1712-448: A scientifically curious mind, and the two men decided to collaborate on building a steamboat and to try operating it on the Seine. Fulton experimented with the water resistance of various hull shapes, made drawings and models, and had a steamboat constructed. At the first trial the boat ran perfectly, but the hull was later rebuilt and strengthened. On August 9, 1803, when this boat was driven up

1819-594: A steamboat in America had been made by inventor John Fitch , on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787. William Symington had successfully tried steamboats in 1788, and it seems probable that Fulton was aware of these developments. In Britain, Fulton met the Duke of Bridgewater, Francis Egerton , whose canal, the first to be constructed in the country, was being used for trials of a steam tug. Fulton became very enthusiastic about

1926-594: A submarine; he then produced Nautilus , the first practical submarine in history. Fulton is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the Royal Navy . Fulton became interested in steam engines and the idea of steamboats in 1777 when he was around age 12 and visited state delegate William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania , who was interested in this topic. Henry had learned about inventor James Watt and his Watt steam engine on an earlier visit to England . Robert Fulton

2033-537: A success against an Austrian-Hungarian squadron , sinking the battleship SMS  Szent István with two torpedoes. The Royal Navy had been experimenting with ways to further increase the range of torpedoes during World War 1 using pure oxygen instead of compressed air, this work ultimately leading to the development of the oxygen-enriched air 24.5 in. Mk. I intended originally for the G3-class battlecruisers and N3 class battleships of 1921, both being cancelled due to

2140-595: A torpedo against the Ottoman cruiser "Medjidieh". The end of the Russo-Japanese War fuelled new theories, and the idea of dropping lightweight torpedoes from aircraft was conceived in the early 1910s by Bradley A. Fiske , an officer in the United States Navy . Awarded a patent in 1912, Fiske worked out the mechanics of carrying and releasing the aerial torpedo from a bomber , and defined tactics that included

2247-584: 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 modern self-propelled torpedo, officially presented to the Austrian Imperial Naval commission on 21 December 1866. The first trials were not successful as the weapon was unable to maintain a course at a steady depth. After much work, Whitehead introduced his "secret" in 1868 which overcame this. It

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2354-503: A variety of homosexual and polyamorous relationships. Famous among them was a ménage à trois with noted philanthropist couple Ruth and Joel Barlow while living in Paris with them for six years. Letters between them reveal a sexual relationship among all three, including notes from American Revolutionary and patriot Joel Barlow requesting in baby-talk language for him "to have a wonderful summer of sexual pleasure with his wife" while he

2461-501: 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 torpedo was fitted with elevators controlled by a depth-keeping mechanism, and the fore and aft rudders operated by the differential between the drums. Brennan traveled to Britain, where the Admiralty examined the torpedo and found it unsuitable for shipboard use. However,

2568-512: Is still in limited service in the 21st century. The improved Mark VIII** was used in two particularly notable incidents; on 6 February 1945 the only intentional wartime sinking of one submarine by another while both were submerged took place when HMS Venturer sank the German submarine U-864 with four Mark VIII** torpedoes and on 2 May 1982 when the Royal Navy submarine HMS  Conqueror sank

2675-466: 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. These devices were very primitive and apt to prematurely explode. They would be detonated on contact with the ship or after a set time, although electrical detonators were also occasionally used. USS  Cairo

2782-573: The Battle of Tsushima , Admiral Rozhestvensky 's flagship , the battleship Knyaz Suvorov , had been gunned to a wreck by Admiral Tōgō 's 12-inch gunned battleline . With the Russians sunk and scattering, Tōgō 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. Knyaz Suvorov

2889-609: The Battle of the Atlantic and the Pacific War. Torpedo boats, such as MTBs , PT boats , or S-boats , enabled the relatively small but fast craft to carry enough firepower, in theory, to destroy a larger ship, though this rarely occurred in practice. The largest warship sunk by torpedoes from small craft in World War II was the British cruiser Manchester , sunk by Italian MAS boats on

2996-607: 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 . During World War II , Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed

3103-569: The British Empire for more than fifteen years. The Royal Navy frigate HMS  Shah was the first naval vessel to fire a self-propelled torpedo in anger during the Battle of Pacocha against rebel Peruvian ironclad Huáscar on 29 May 1877. The Peruvian ship successfully outran the device. 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

3210-530: The First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. At this time torpedo attacks were still very close range and very dangerous to the attackers. Several western sources reported that the Qing dynasty Imperial Chinese military, under the direction of Li Hongzhang , acquired electric torpedoes, which they deployed in numerous waterways, along with fortresses and numerous other modern military weapons acquired by China. At

3317-587: The Louisiana Territory from France . These rivers were not well settled, mapped, or protected. By achieving this first breakthrough voyage and also proving the ability of the steamboat to travel upstream against powerful river currents, Fulton changed the entire trade and transportation outlook for the American heartland. Fulton was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814. Prior to his marriage in 1808, Robert Fulton had

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3424-559: The National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. Because of improved submarine strength and speed, torpedoes had to be given improved warheads and better motors. During the Cold War torpedoes were an important asset with the advent of nuclear-powered submarines , which did not have to surface often, particularly those carrying strategic nuclear missiles . Robert Fulton Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815)

3531-620: The Tientsin Arsenal in 1876, the Chinese developed the capacity to manufacture these "electric torpedoes" on their own. Although a form of Chinese art, the Nianhua , depict such torpedoes being used against Russian ships during the Boxer Rebellion , whether they were actually used in battle against them is undocumented and unknown. The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) was the first great war of

3638-668: The Trinity Church Cemetery for Trinity Church (Episcopal) at Wall Street in New York City, near other notable Americans such as former U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury , Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin . His descendants include Cory Lidle , a former Major League Baseball pitcher. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania donated a marble statue of Fulton to the National Statuary Hall Collection in

3745-634: The United States Capitol . Fulton was also honored for his development of steamship technology in New York City's Hudson-Fulton Celebration of the Centennial in 1909. A replica of his first steam-powered steam vessel, Clermont , was built for the occasion. Five ships of the United States Navy have borne the name USS  Fulton in honor of Robert Fulton. Fulton Hall at the United States Merchant Marine Academy houses

3852-724: The War Office proved more amenable, and in early August 1881, a special Royal Engineer committee was instructed to inspect the torpedo at Chatham and report back directly to the Secretary of State for War, Hugh Childers . The report strongly recommended that an improved model be built at government expense. In 1883 an agreement was reached between the Brennan Torpedo Company and the government. The newly appointed Inspector-General of Fortifications in England, Sir Andrew Clarke , appreciated

3959-622: The War of 1812 broke out, the Royal Navy established a blockade of the East Coast of the United States . During the war, American forces unsuccessfully attempted to destroy the British ship of the line HMS Ramillies while it was lying at anchor in New London, Connecticut 's harbor with torpedoes launched from small boats. This prompted the captain of Ramillies , Sir Thomas Hardy, 1st Baronet , to warn

4066-529: The Washington Naval Treaty . Initially, the Imperial Japanese Navy purchased Whitehead or Schwartzkopf torpedoes but by 1917, like the Royal Navy, they were conducting experiments with pure oxygen instead of compressed air. Because of explosions they abandoned the experiments but resumed them in 1926 and by 1933 had a working torpedo. They also used conventional wet heater torpedoes. In

4173-496: The inter-war years , financial stringency caused nearly all navies to skimp on testing their torpedoes. Only the British and Japanese had fully tested new technologies for torpedoes (in particular the Type 93 , nicknamed Long Lance postwar by the US official historian Samuel E. Morison ) at the start of World War II. Unreliable torpedoes caused many problems for the American submarine force in

4280-605: The 1968 and 1969 series he was played by Robert Cawdron . A Robert Fulton cartoon character appears in the 1955 Casper the Friendly Ghost short film Red, White, and Boo . Author James McGee used Fulton's experiments in early submarine warfare (against wooden warships) as a major plot element in his 2006 novel Ratcatcher . Invasion (2009), the tenth novel in the "Kydd" naval warfare series by Julian Stockwin , uses Fulton and his submarine as an important plot element. Until 2016, Disney Springs at Walt Disney World had

4387-536: The 20th century. During the war the Imperial Russian and Imperial Japanese navies launched nearly 300 torpedoes at each other, all of them of the "self-propelled automotive" type. The deployment of these new underwater weapons resulted in one battleship, two armored cruisers, and two destroyers being sunk in action, with the remainder of the roughly 80 warships being sunk by the more conventional methods of gunfire, mines, and scuttling . On 27 May 1905, during

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4494-584: The American Lieutenant Commander John A. Howell , whose design , driven by a flywheel , was simpler and cheaper. It was produced from 1885 to 1895, and it ran straight, leaving no wake. A Torpedo Test Station was set up in Rhode Island in 1870. The Howell torpedo was the only United States Navy model until an American company, Bliss and Williams secured manufacturing rights to produce Whitehead torpedoes. These were put into service for

4601-661: The Americans to cease using this "cruel and unheard-of warfare" or he would "order every house near the shore to be destroyed". The fact that Hardy had been previously so lenient and considerate to the Americans led them to abandon such attempts with immediate effect. Torpedoes were used by the Russian Empire during the Crimean War in 1855 against British warships in the Gulf of Finland . They used an early form of chemical detonator. During

4708-735: The Argentine cruiser ARA  General Belgrano with two Mark VIII** torpedoes during the Falklands War . This is the only sinking of a surface ship by a nuclear-powered submarine in wartime and the second (of three) sinkings of a surface ship by any submarine since the end of World War II). The other two sinkings were of the Indian frigate INS  Khukri and the South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonan . Many classes of surface ships, submarines, and aircraft were armed with torpedoes. Naval strategy at

4815-608: The British government to employ his 'catamaran' against the French. An April 1804 torpedo attack on French ships anchored at Boulogne, and a follow-up attack in October, produced several explosions but no significant damage and the weapon was abandoned. Fulton carried out a demonstration for the US government on 20 July 1807, destroying a vessel in New York's harbor. Further development languished as Fulton focused on his "steam-boat matters". After

4922-455: The Department of Marine Engineering and included laboratories for diesel and steam engineering, refrigeration, marine engineering, thermodynamics, materials testing, machine shop, mechanical engineering, welding, electrical machinery, control systems, electric circuits, engine room simulators and graphics. Bronze statues of Fulton and Christopher Columbus represent commerce on the balustrade of

5029-563: The River Seine, it sank. The boat was 66 feet (20 m) long, with an 8-foot (2.4 m) beam, and made between 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 and 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 knots (5 and 6 km/h) against the current. In 1804, Fulton switched allegiance and moved to Britain, where he was commissioned by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger to build a range of weapons for use by the Royal Navy during Napoleon's invasion scares. Among his inventions were

5136-603: The U.S. Navy in 1892. Five varieties were produced, all 18-inch diameter. The Royal Navy introduced the Brotherhood wet heater engine in 1907 with the 18 in. Mk. VII & VII* which greatly increased the speed and/or range over compressed air engines and wet heater type engines became the standard in many major navies up to and during the Second World War. Ships of the line were superseded by ironclads , large steam-powered ships with heavy gun armament and heavy armor, in

5243-506: The U.S. are named for Robert Fulton, including: 20th Century-Fox 's 1940 film, Little Old New York , based on a 1920 play by Rida Johnson Young , is a fictionalized version of Fulton's life from his arrival in New York to the first sailing of Clermont . British actor Richard Greene starred as Fulton with Brenda Joyce as Harriet Livingston. Alice Faye and Fred MacMurray played wharf friends who help Fulton overcome problems to realize his dream. A fictionalized account of Fulton's role

5350-545: The USN twenty-one months into the Pacific War. British submarines used torpedoes to interdict the Axis supply shipping to North Africa , while Fleet Air Arm Swordfish sank three Italian battleships at Taranto by a torpedo and (after a mistaken, but abortive, attack on Sheffield ) scored one crucial hit in the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck . Large tonnages of merchant shipping were sunk by submarines with torpedoes in both

5457-507: The United States and British governments. The first steamships had appeared considerably earlier. The earliest steam-powered ship, in which the engine moved oars, was built by Claude de Jouffroy in France. Called Palmipède , it was tested on the Doubs in 1776. In 1783, de Jouffroy built Pyroscaphe , the first paddle steamer, which sailed successfully on the Saône . The first successful trial run of

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5564-467: The blunt nose provided a speed advantage of approximately one knot compared to the traditional pointed nose design. This discovery allowed for larger explosive payloads and increased air storage for propulsion without compromising speed. In 1893, RN torpedo production was transferred to the Royal Gun Factory . The British later established a Torpedo Experimental Establishment at HMS  Vernon and

5671-494: The canals, and wrote a 1796 treatise on canal construction, suggesting improvements to locks and other features. Working for the Duke of Bridgewater between 1796 and 1799, Fulton had a boat constructed in the Duke's timber yard, under the supervision of Benjamin Powell. After installation of the machinery supplied by the engineers Bateman and Sherratt of Salford, the boat was duly christened Bonaparte in honour of Fulton having served under Napoleon . After expensive trials, because of

5778-434: The configuration of the design, the team feared the paddles might damage the clay lining of the canal and eventually abandoned the experiment. In 1801, Bridgewater instead ordered eight vessels for his canal based on Charlotte Dundas , constructed by Symington. In 1797, Fulton went to Paris , where he was well known as an inventor. He studied French and German , along with mathematics and chemistry. Fulton also exhibited

5885-497: The construction of the first purpose-built operational torpedo aircraft, the Short Type 184 , built-in 1915. An order for ten aircraft was placed, and 936 aircraft were built by ten different British aircraft companies during the First World War . The two prototype aircraft were embarked upon HMS  Ben-my-Chree , which sailed for the Aegean on 21 March 1915 to take part in the Gallipoli campaign . On 12 August 1915 one of these, piloted by Flight Commander Charles Edmonds ,

5992-577: The daughter of Walter Livingston and niece of Robert R. Livingston , prominent men in the Hudson River area, whose family dated to the colonial era . During his marriage, he proposed a foursome with himself, his wife, and Ruth and Joel Barlow in Washington, DC, but Harriet rejected the offer. Harriet, who was nineteen years his junior, was well educated and was an accomplished amateur painter and musician. Together, they had four children: Fulton died in 1815 in New York City from tuberculosis (then known as "consumption"). He had been walking home on

6099-452: The early years of the war, primarily in the Pacific Theater . One possible exception to the pre-war neglect of torpedo development was the 45-cm caliber, 1931-premiered Japanese Type 91 torpedo , the sole aerial torpedo ( Koku Gyorai ) developed and brought into service by the Japanese Empire before the war. The Type 91 had an advanced PID controller and jettisonable, wooden Kyoban aerial stabilizing surfaces which released upon entering

6206-486: The enthusiasm of the "Canal Mania". In 1793 he began developing his ideas for tugboat canals with inclined planes instead of locks. He obtained a patent for this idea in 1794, and also began working on ideas for the steam power of boats. He published a pamphlet about canals and patented a dredging machine and several other inventions. In 1794, he moved to Manchester to gain practical knowledge of English canal engineering. While there he became friendly with Robert Owen ,

6313-403: The factory was exporting torpedoes to ten other countries. The torpedo was powered by compressed air and had an explosive charge of gun-cotton . 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. Royal Navy (RN) representatives visited Rijeka for

6420-434: The first panorama painting to be shown in Paris, Pierre Prévost 's Vue de Paris depuis les Tuileries (1800), on what is still called Rue des Panoramas (Panorama Street) today. While living in France, Fulton designed the first working muscle-powered submarine, Nautilus , between 1793 and 1797. He also experimented with torpedoes. When tested, his submarine operated underwater for 17 minutes in 25 feet of water. He asked

6527-477: The first practical guided missile was patented by Louis Brennan , an emigre to Australia, in 1877. It was designed to run at a consistent depth of 12 feet (3.7 m), and was fitted with an indicator mast that just broke the surface of the water. At night the mast had a small light, only visible from the rear. Two steel drums were mounted one behind the other inside the torpedo, each carrying several thousand yards of high-tensile steel wire. The drums connected via

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6634-425: The first self-propelled torpedo. Torpedo-like weapons were first proposed many centuries before they were successfully developed. For example, in 1275, Arab engineer Hasan al-Rammah – who worked as a military scientist for the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt – wrote that it might be possible to create a projectile resembling "an egg", which propelled itself through water, whilst carrying "fire". In modern language,

6741-400: The frozen Hudson River when one of his friends, Thomas Addis Emmet , fell through the ice. In rescuing his friend, Fulton got soaked with icy water. He is believed to have contracted pneumonia . When he got home, his sickness worsened. He was diagnosed with consumption and died at 49 years old. After his death, his widow remarried to Charles Augustus Dale on November 26, 1816. He is buried in

6848-466: The galleries of the Main Reading Room in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. They are two of 16 historical figures, each pair representing one of the 8 pillars of civilization. The Guatemalan government in 1910 erected a bust of Fulton in one of the parks of Guatemala City . In 2006, Fulton was inducted into the " National Inventors Hall of Fame " in Alexandria, Virginia . Many places in

6955-414: The government to subsidize its construction, but he was turned down twice. Eventually, he approached the Minister of Marine and, in 1800, was granted permission to build. The shipyard Perrier in Rouen built it, and the submarine sailed first in July 1800 on the Seine River in the same city. In France, Fulton met Robert R. Livingston , who was appointed U.S. Ambassador to France in 1801. He also had

7062-433: The idea of destroying ships by introducing floating mines under their bottoms in submarine boats". He employed the term "torpedo" for the explosive charges with which he outfitted his submarine Nautilus . However, both the French and the Dutch governments were uninterested in the submarine. Fulton then concentrated on developing the torpedo-like weapon independent of a submarine deployment, and in 1804 succeeded in convincing

7169-407: The maiden voyage included a lawyer Jones and his family from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania . His infant daughter Alexandra Jones later served as a Union nurse on a steamboat hospital in the American Civil War . The Clermont was the first successful steamboat in America. While it was being built people called it "Fulton's Folly". The Clermont had sails as well as a steam engine. At each end of the boat

7276-451: The mid 19th century. Ultimately this line of development led to the dreadnought category of all-big-gun battleships, starting with HMS  Dreadnought . Although these ships were incredibly powerful, the new weight of armor slowed them down, and the huge guns needed to penetrate that armor fired at very slow rates. The development of torpedoes allowed for the possibility that small and fast vessels could credibly threaten if not sink even

7383-422: The most powerful battleships. While such attacks would carry enormous risks to the attacking boats and their crews (which would likely need to expose themselves to artillery fire which their small vessels were not designed to withstand) this was offset by the ability to construct large numbers of small vessels far more quickly and for a much lower unit cost compared to a capital ship. The first boat designed to fire

7490-449: The need of large guns, though sometimes at the risk of being hit by longer-range artillery fire. Modern torpedoes are classified variously as lightweight or heavyweight; straight-running, autonomous homers, and wire-guided types. They can be launched from a variety of platforms. In modern warfare, a submarine-launched torpedo is almost certain to hit its target; the best defense is a counterattack using another torpedo. The word torpedo

7597-554: The next twenty years. He left for England in the autumn of 1786, carrying several letters of introduction to Americans abroad from prominent individuals he had met in Philadelphia . He already corresponded with artist Benjamin West ; their fathers had been close friends. West took Fulton into his home, where Fulton lived for several years and studied painting. Fulton gained many commissions painting portraits and landscapes, which allowed him to support himself. He continued to experiment with mechanical inventions. Fulton became caught up in

7704-423: The night of 12/13 August 1942 during Operation Pedestal . Destroyers of all navies were also armed with torpedoes to attack larger ships. In the Battle off Samar , destroyer torpedoes from the escorts of the American task force "Taffy 3" showed effectiveness at defeating armor. Damage and confusion caused by torpedo attacks were instrumental in beating back a superior Japanese force of battleships and cruisers. In

7811-516: The older versions used a lead-acid battery power source and carried a 45.4 kg (100 lb) warhead. The present-day version is the A244/S Mod 3, manufactured by Leonardo . The A244/S Mod 3 was announced in October 1998. The Mod 3 was engineered by retrofitting the MU90 torpedo, particularly its guidance system. The power source was re-engineered to use a silver oxide battery . The Mod 3 torpedo uses

7918-506: The older weapon. A244 entered service in 1971 although development continued through 1973, and mass production began in 1975. The weapon was superseded by A244/S which entered service in 1984. Whereas the A244 used a monotone (single frequency) seeker, the A244/S uses triple frequency pulses and a programmable seeker which can follow search patterns and perform standard maneuvers. Originally equipped with

8025-545: The plans of the Salvacoste ("Coastsaver"), a floating weapon driven by ropes from the land that had been dismissed by the naval authorities due to the impractical steering and propulsion mechanisms. In 1866, Whitehead invented the first effective self-propelled torpedo, the eponymous Whitehead torpedo , the first modern torpedo. French and German inventions followed closely, and the term torpedo came to describe self-propelled projectiles that traveled under or on water. By 1900,

8132-556: The presence of heavy reverberations especially emitted pulses and signal processing. Signal processing is digital, utilizing FFT . Torpedo While the 19th-century battleship had evolved primarily with a view to engagements between armored warships with large-caliber guns , the invention and refinement of torpedoes from the 1860s onwards allowed small torpedo boats and other lighter surface vessels , submarines / submersibles , even improvised fishing boats or frogmen , and later light aircraft , to destroy large ships without

8239-625: The problems. In the United States Navy (USN), 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. Both the Navy Bureau of Ordnance and the United States Congress were too busy protecting their interests to correct the errors, and fully functioning torpedoes only became available to

8346-493: The self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was HMS  Lightning , completed in 1877. The French Navy followed suit in 1878 with Torpilleur No 1 , launched in 1878 though she had been ordered in 1875. The first torpedo boats were built at the shipyards of Sir John Thornycroft and gained recognition for their effectiveness. At the same time, inventors were working on building a guided torpedo. Prototypes were built by John Ericsson , John Louis Lay , and Victor von Scheliha, but

8453-428: The start of World War II. Around this time too the Royal Navy were perfecting the Brotherhood burner cycle engine which offered a performance as good as the oxygen-enriched air engine but without the issues arising from the oxygen equipment and which was first used in the extremely successful and long-lived 21 in. Mk. VIII torpedo of 1925. This torpedo served throughout WW II (with 3,732 being fired by September 1944) and

8560-502: The target. Fiske reported in 1915 that, using this method, enemy fleets could be attacked within their harbors if there was enough room for the torpedo track. Meanwhile, the Royal Naval Air Service began actively experimenting with this possibility. The first successful aerial torpedo drop was performed by Gordon Bell in 1914 – dropping a Whitehead torpedo from a Short S.64 seaplane . The success of these experiments led to

8667-693: The tender Velikiy Knyaz Konstantin under the command of Stepan Osipovich Makarov during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 . In another early use of the torpedo, during the War of the Pacific , the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar commanded by captain Miguel Grau attacked the Chilean corvette Abtao on 28 August 1879 at Antofagasta with a self-propelled Lay torpedo only to have it reverse course. The ship Huascar

8774-435: 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. 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

8881-537: The time was to use torpedoes, launched from submarines or warships, against enemy warships in a fleet action on the high seas. There were concerns 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

8988-556: The tug. Without the weight of the torpedo Dacre was able to take off and return to Ben-My-Chree . Torpedoes were widely used in World War I , both against shipping and against submarines. Germany disrupted the supply lines to Britain largely by use of submarine torpedoes, though submarines also extensively used guns. Britain and its allies also used torpedoes throughout the war. U-boats themselves were often targeted, twenty being sunk by torpedo. Two Royal Italian Navy torpedo boats scored

9095-572: 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. Between 1883 and 1885 the Royal Engineers held trials and in 1886 the torpedo was recommended for adoption as a harbor defense torpedo. It was used throughout

9202-476: The water, making it a formidable anti-ship weapon; Nazi Germany considered manufacturing it as the Luftorpedo LT 850 after August 1942 . The Royal Navy's 24.5-inch oxygen-enriched air torpedo saw service in the two Nelson class battleships although by World War II the use of enriched oxygen had been discontinued due to safety concerns. In the final phase of the action against Bismarck , Rodney fired

9309-536: The weapon was apt to cause as much harm to its user as to its target. Rear Admiral David Farragut 's famous/apocryphal command during the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, " Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! " refers to a minefield laid at Mobile, Alabama . On 26 May 1877, during the Romanian War of Independence , the Romanian spar torpedo boat Rândunica attacked and sank the Ottoman river monitor Seyfi . This

9416-413: The world's first modern naval "torpedoes" (modern "mines"). These were tested, along with several other of his inventions, during the 1804 Raid on Boulogne , but met with limited success. Although Fulton continued to develop his inventions with the British until 1806, the crushing naval victory by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar greatly reduced the risk of French invasion . Fulton

9523-528: Was 160 tons. Fulton received two patents for his steamboat, one in 1809 and the other in 1811. From 1811 until his death, Fulton was a member of the Erie Canal Commission , appointed by the Governor of New York . Fulton's final design was the floating battery Demologos . This, the first steam-driven warship in the world, was built for the United States Navy for the War of 1812 . The heavy vessel

9630-493: Was 18 in (46 cm) in diameter and 19 ft (5.8 m) long, made of polished steel or phosphor bronze , with a 200-pound (91 kg) gun-cotton warhead. It was propelled by a three-cylinder Brotherhood radial engine, using compressed air at around 1,300  psi (9.0  MPa ) and driving two contra-rotating propellers, and was designed to self-regulate its course and depth as far as possible. By 1881, nearly 1,500 torpedoes had been produced. Whitehead also opened

9737-514: Was a mechanism consisting of a hydrostatic valve and pendulum that caused the torpedo's hydroplanes to be adjusted to maintain a preset depth. After the Austrian government decided to invest in the invention, Whitehead started the first torpedo factory in Rijeka. In 1870, he improved the devices to travel up to approximately 1,000 yards (910 m) at a speed of up to 6 knots (11 km/h), and by 1881

9844-453: Was a short mast with a small square sail that could be unfurled when needed. The engine was in the center of the boat and was surrounded by cord wood. The engine was 24-horsepower. Above the engine was a tall and slender smoke stack. On each side was a big paddle wheel that was open and uncovered. The diameter of the paddle wheels was 15 feet (4.6 m). The boat itself was 136 feet (41 m) long and 18 feet (5.5 m) wide. Its displacement

9951-494: Was able to send money home to help support his mother. In 1785, Fulton bought a farm at Hopewell Township in Washington County near Pittsburgh for £80 (equivalent to $ 13638 in 2018), and moved his mother and family into it. In early 1786, Fulton developed symptoms of tuberculosis and was advised by an eminent doctor to take an ocean voyage for the benefit of his health. Fulton traveled to Europe, where he would live for

10058-686: Was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the world's first commercially successful steamboat , the North River Steamboat (also known as Clermont ). In 1807, that steamboat traveled on the Hudson River with passengers from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of 300 nautical miles (560 kilometers), in 62 hours. The success of his steamboat changed river traffic and trade on major American rivers. In 1800, Fulton had been commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte , leader of France, to attempt to design

10165-445: Was away, and, importantly, that "he must not let...his beautiful body be deranged, and if he does anything wrong, he'll come and cut off his penis." After he left Paris, he lived for two years at the castle of William Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon , a known homosexual, although there is no confirmed epistolary evidence of an explicit sexual relationship between them On January 8, 1808, Fulton married Harriet Livingston (1783–1826),

10272-596: Was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania , on November 14, 1765. His father, Robert Fulton, married Mary Smith, daughter of Captain Joseph Smith and sister of Col. Lester Smith, a comparatively well off family. He had three sisters, Isabella, Elizabeth, and Mary, and a younger brother, Abraham. For six years, he lived in Philadelphia , where he painted portraits and landscapes, drew houses and machinery, and

10379-524: Was built, with stops at Wheeling, West Virginia ; Cincinnati, Ohio ; past the " Falls of the Ohio " at Louisville, Kentucky ; to near Cairo, Illinois , and the confluence with the Mississippi River; and down past Memphis, Tennessee , and Natchez, Mississippi , to New Orleans some 90 miles (140 km) by river from the Gulf of Mexico coast. This was less than a decade after the United States had acquired

10486-527: Was first used as a name for electric rays (in the order Torpediniformes ), which in turn comes from the Latin word torpēdō ("lethargy" or "sluggishness"). In naval usage, the American inventor David Bushnell was reported to have first used the term as the name of a submarine of his own design, the "American Turtle or Torpedo." This usage likely inspired Robert Fulton 's use of the term to describe his stationary mines , and later Robert Whitehead 's naming of

10593-515: Was increasingly sidelined as a result. In 1806, Fulton returned to the United States. In 1807, he and Robert R. Livingston built the first commercially successful steamboat, North River Steamboat (later known as Clermont ). Livingston's shipping company began using it to carry passengers between New York City and up the Hudson River to the state capital Albany . Clermont made the 150-nautical-mile (280 km) trip in 32 hours. Passengers on

10700-458: Was not completed until after Fulton's death and was named in his honor. From October 1811 to January 1812, Fulton, along with Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt (1767–1854), worked together on a joint project to build a new steamboat, New Orleans , sturdy enough to take down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans , Louisiana. It traveled from industrial Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , where it

10807-474: Was produced by BBC television during the 1960s. In the first serial, Triton (1961, re-made in 1968 ), two British naval officers, Captain Belwether and Lieutenant Lamb, are involved in spying on Fulton while he is working for the French. In the sequel, Pegasus (1969), they are surprised to find themselves working with Fulton after he changed sides. In the 1961 series, Fulton was played by Reed De Rouen , in

10914-424: Was ready for delivery in 1987. Mod 0 (intended for torpedo tube launch) and Mod 1 (intended for helicopter launch) had an endurance of 6,500 m (3.5 nmi) at 37 kn (69 km/h), a length of 2.70 m (8.9 ft), and a unit mass of 221 kg (487 lb). Mod 2 (intended for fixed-wing aircraft launch) had a length of 2.75 m (9.0 ft) and an endurance of 6,000 m (3.2 nmi). All of

11021-541: Was saved when an officer jumped overboard to divert it. The Chilean ironclad Blanco Encalada was sunk on 23 April 1891 by a self-propelled torpedo from the Almirante Lynch , during the Chilean Civil War of 1891 , becoming the first ironclad warship sunk by this weapon. The Chinese turret ship Dingyuan was purportedly hit and disabled by a torpedo after numerous attacks by Japanese torpedo boats during

11128-484: Was set upon by 17 torpedo-firing warships, ten of which were destroyers and four torpedo boats. Twenty-one torpedoes were launched at the pre-dreadnought , and three struck home, one fired from the destroyer Murasame and two from torpedo boats No. 72 and No. 75 . The flagship slipped under the waves shortly thereafter, taking over 900 men with her to the bottom. On December 9, 1912, the Greek submarine "Dolphin" launched

11235-471: Was the first aircraft in the world to attack an enemy ship with an air-launched torpedo. On 17 August 1915 Flight Commander Edmonds torpedoed and sank an Ottoman transport ship a few miles north of the Dardanelles. His formation colleague, Flight Lieutenant G B Dacre, was forced to land on the water owing to engine trouble but, seeing an enemy tug close by, taxied up to it and released his torpedo, sinking

11342-518: Was the first instance in history when a torpedo boat sank its targets without also sinking. A prototype of the self-propelled torpedo was created on a commission placed by Giovanni Luppis , an Austro-Hungarian naval officer from Rijeka (modern-day Croatia ), at the time a port city of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Robert Whitehead , an English engineer who was the manager of a town factory. In 1864, Luppis presented Whitehead with

11449-472: Was the first warship to be sunk in 1862 by an electrically-detonated mine. Spar torpedoes were also used; an explosive device was mounted at the end of a spar up to 30 feet (9.1 m) long projecting forward underwater from the bow of the attacking vessel, which would then ram the opponent with the explosives. These were used by the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley to sink USS  Housatonic although

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