Spar torpedo
The spar torpedo was a forerunner of what is now understood as " torpedo ". It was developed by the American engineer EC Singer (a nephew of Isaac Merritt Singer , the inventor of the sewing machine), who worked on secret weapons projects for the southern states during the American Civil War of 1861/65 . Since it seemed as if the modern ship armor were superior to the common artillery projectiles, he saw a possibility of overcoming the armor by bringing a large explosive charge directly to the enemy ship using a rod ( spar ). The functional principle corresponded roughly to that of the petard .
The spar torpedo consisted of an explosive charge at the tip of a long spar, usually about 20 to 25 feet in length (6.09-7.62 meters) attached to the bow or side of a boat and loaded with gun cotton . In versions in the American Civil War, the spars were up to 30 meters in length.
The torpedo boat had to ram the torpedo into the side of the opposing ship. Barbs at the tip were intended to hold the explosive charge on the enemy (wooden) hull until the crew of the retreating boat triggered the detonation using a line. The southern states built a class of small boats, the David class , that were armed with spar torpedoes.
The first successful use of a submarine was in the American Civil War on February 17, 1864. The CSS HL Hunley sank the USS Housatonic , a warship of the Union fleet that blocked the port of Charleston, off Charleston with a spar torpedo . The Hunley sank immediately after the attack due to the fatal injuries of the crew caused by the explosion.
The only success of the northern states with a spar torpedo was the sinking of the iron-armored Confederate ship CSS Albemarle on the night of October 27-28, 1864.
In late 1864, the Union built the first of a group of innovative semi-submersible spar torpedo boats, the USS Spuyten Duyvil . These boats could be lowered by partial flooding at the bow so that they could place their explosive charges on extendable rods under the hull of the enemy ship before the detonation was triggered. However, the boats came too late to be used against the Southern Navy and were mainly used to clear wrecks during river campaigns.
Spier torpedoes on small wooden boats were used until the last quarter of the 19th century, but were replaced by screw-powered torpedoes beginning in the 1870s.
The last significant use of spar torpedoes in large numbers took place in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78 , when the Russian naval officer (and later admiral) Stepan Makarov was able to sink or damage several Turkish ships with this weapon and was promoted twice for it.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Communications from the field of maritime affairs , Volume 30 Verlag C. Gerold's Sohn in Vienna, 1902.
- ^ K. Werner, Das Buch von der Deutschen Flotte , reprint of the original edition from 1898, Verlag BoD - Books on Demand, 2012, page 275, ISBN 978-3-86444-810-2 .
- ↑ Lance RM, Stalcup L, Wojtylak B, Bass CR: Air blast injuries killed the crew of the submarine HL Hunley . In: PLoS ONE . tape 12 (8) , e0182244, 2017, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0182244 .