Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I
Forfatter: Archibald Williams
År: 1945
Serie: Engineering Wonders of the World
Forlag: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Sted: London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York
Sider: 456
UDK: 600 eng - gl.
Volume I with 520 Illustrations, Maps and Diagrams
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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