Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TORPEDO CRAFT. 419 Every Power with naval aspirations, the United States excepted, was now feverishly constructing torpedo boats. The possibilities of the torpedo were perhaps even overesti- mated ; and the boats, moreover, were cheap and easy to build. Speed was increasing annually, and 24 knots had frequently been reached and surpassed ; moreover, the greater efficiency of the torpedo itself, and its longer range and higher velocity, removed much of the necessity for keeping its mother boat small. Hence designers, realizing that im- provement in sea-keeping qualities, speed, engines, and armament meant a correspond- ing increase in displacement, were rapidly reaching the hundred tons. The obvious menace to a battle fleet in narrow seas from the swarms of these craft that might conceivably be hurled at it pro- The Torpedo Gunboat. duced, in the first place, the torpedo net, a crinoline under- water defence for large ships ; and, secondly, the almost in- evitable torpedo catcher, or torpedo gunboat. This was a vessel of a displacement ranging from 500 to 1,000 tons, and possessing a nominal speed of 19 to 22 knots, and an armament of one or two heavy quick-firers of 4-7-inch calibre, several lighter weapons, and a few deck torpedo tubes. As a type it failed entirely to fulfil expectations, whether built for us or for foreign nations. It lacked speed, and even its greater displacement did not give it great stability in a sea-way. The failure had this much of good in it, however—it necessitated a change of policy along more The “ Destroyer.” practical lines. The British Admiralty at once took a wise course, and, bridging the evolution of, may be, a dozen years, placed their first order for “ destroyers ” (the name that has clung to the type ever since) in 1893. These craft, though but a quarter the size of the “ ocean-going ” de- stroyers of to-day, were yet more than twice