The Howell Automobile Torpedo was the first self-propelled

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

produced in quantity by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

, which referred to it as the Howell Mark I torpedo. It was conceived by Lieutenant Commander John A. Howell,

, in 1870, using a 60 kg (130 lb)

flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device that uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy, a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, a ...

spun at a very high speed (10,000 to 12,000 rpm) to store energy and drive

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Design

Because it had no complicated

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

and fuel system, the Howell was much cheaper and easier to build than its main competitor, the Whitehead. In addition, unlike the Whitehead, the Howell was wakeless, not giving away the position of the firing vessel; its flywheel was, however, very noisy. It did demand a steam turbine to "spin up" the flywheel (a complication inherent to the design). Also unlike the contemporary Whitehead, the Howell kept running in a straight line, due to the gyroscopic effect of the flywheel. A wave coming from one side would tend to roll the Howell rather than deviate it. The roll was easily corrected by the rudders. Depth control was regulated by a pendulum as in the 'secret' pioneered by Robert Whitehead. The Howell was the first torpedo to use the gyroscope effect, which Howell patented. When, in an attempt to improve directional stability, Whitehead (using a Ludwig Obry design) adopted the gyroscope in 1895, Howell sued for

patent infringement A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

Production

Hotchkiss Ordnance Co advertisement clipping for Howell torpedoes 11-24-1888

Torpedo Boat Stilletto launching a Howell torpedo ca 1890

After very protracted developmentthe product of a paucity of funds, the novelty of the torpedo as a weapon, and

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of the Navy's senior officersfifty Howell Torpedoes Mark 1 were ordered (from

Hotchkiss Ordnance Company The Hotchkiss Ordnance Company was an English armaments manufacturer founded by American ordnance engineer Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. History In the 1850s, Hotchkiss was employed as a gunsmith in Hartford, working on Colt revolvers and Winches ...

of Providence,

Rhode Island Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...

) in 1889. This was 14.2 in (36 cm) diameter, 129.75 in (330 cm) long, with a 96 lb (43.5 kg) warhead and a range of 400 yd (365 m) at 25 knots (46 km/h). Contemporary Whiteheads, built by E. W. Bliss Company, had superior performance, and greater growth capacity. These fifty would be the only production examples, as the Howell was superseded by a rapidly improving Whitehead in 1892; as a consequence, the Howell's drawbacks were never cured. It is, therefore, impossible to know if quieting would have mitigated any loss of surprise to noise (as sometimes suggested). A contemporary account of an operational test carried out on a Howell torpedo described its performance, where it "ran along the surface at a very fast but very regular speed for four minutes" and that there was "no horizontal deviation and the run was fully 900 yards".

Surviving examples

In May 2013, a Howell torpedo was discovered in two pieces on the seabed by US Navy-trained dolphins, near

Coronado, California Coronado (Spanish language, Spanish for "Crowned") is a resort town, resort city in San Diego County, California, United States, across San Diego Bay from downtown San Diego. It was founded in the 1880s and incorporated in 1890. Its population ...

. Prior to this discovery, only two Howell torpedoes were known to exist: one at the Naval Undersea Museum and the other at the Naval War College Museum in Newport, R.I.

Citations

General and cited references

* Blair, Clay. ''Silent Victory''. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975 * "Howell torpedo", in ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', Sixth Edition, online * Fitzsimons, Bernard, general editor. "Howell", in ''The Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Weapons and Warfare''. London: Phoebus/BBC, 1978. Volume 13, page 1371. * Kirby, Geoff. "A History of the Torpedo The Early Days", in ''The Journal of the Royal Navy Scientific Service'', Vol 27 No 1. * Milford, Frederick J. "US Navy Torpedoes--Part One: Torpedoes through the thirties", in ''The Submarine Review'', April 1996. (a quarterly publication of the Naval Submarine League, Annandale, VA)

External links