![]() In a clever feat of engineering, the flywheel powered the torpedo and provided a gyroscopic stabilizing effect. The most innovative aspect of the Howell torpedo was a 132-pound flywheel (highlighted at left) located in the weapon’s midsection. ![]() Range: 400–800 yards Innovative Propulsion The Howell matched the Whitehead in speed and range, but was smaller, lighter, more accurate, carried more explosives, and cost half the cost to manufacture, operate, and maintain.Ĭlick any image to view at a larger size. Most naval technology historians believe that the Howell torpedo was equal or superior to the Whitehead torpedo, despite the latter’s success. John Howell’s design for his eponymous torpedo (below) was innovative and sophisticated, especially for a nineteenth-century torpedo. As ships’ torpedo tubes were relocated below the water, the launch of Howell torpedoes from steam turbine-powered torpedo tubes became prohibitive, and the Howell fell out of use by the late 1890s and early 1900s. The same year Howell torpedoes joined the Fleet, Whitehead torpedoes did too. The Navy had contracted for 100 Whitehead torpedoes in 1892, concerned they might fall behind the many foreign navies who had previously adopted the Whitehead. By 1898, thirty-five Navy torpedo boats had been commissioned to carry and fire self-propelled torpedoes, most of which were Howell torpedoes. Howell torpedoes entered service in 1895. The Navy added an additional 20 torpedoes to the contract in 1894, for a total of 50 Howell torpedoes purchased. The Navy ordered the manufacture of 30 Howell torpedoes in January 1889, but it would be almost three years before Hotchkiss delivered the first ten Howell torpedoes. In 1888, John Howell sold his torpedo patent rights to the Hotchkiss Ordnance Company, based in Providence, Rhode Island. A member of the Bureau of Ordnance testified before the Senate Committee on Ordnance and Warships later that year, calling the Howell torpedo the “most valuable American torpedo that has yet been invented for naval use.” By July 1886, the weapons were operating consistently and successfully during test runs. Howell’s torpedo was the only one chosen for further consideration.įollowing additional testing over the next few years, the Navy established a test program for Howell torpedoes. John Howell presented his torpedo (left) before the Torpedo Board in December 1883, competing against two surface-running, rocket-propelled torpedoes put forward the American Torpedo Company and a private inventor, Asa Weeks. A letter issued by the Torpedo Board described the qualities desired in the winning torpedo, including “accuracy, range, velocity, certainty of handling, destructiveness.” In 1883, Congress appropriated $100,000 for the purchase and manufacture of torpedoes “after full investigation and test” before a “Torpedo Board” of naval officers. Over the next ten years, John Howell refined and tested his torpedo until he achieved an improved working model in 1881. The design of Howell’s torpedo centered on a flywheel inside the torpedo that provided propulsion while stabilizing the torpedo in the water, an idea he patented in 1871. John Howell (left) began designing a torpedo in his spare time. In 1870, while heading the Department of Astronomy and Navigation at the U.S. Between 18, Torpedo Station engineers and other American inventors produced designs for a handful of unsuccessful torpedoes such as the Torpedo Station’s “Fish” torpedo (left), the rocket-propelled Barber torpedo, the chemically-propelled Lay torpedo, and the compressed-air Ericsson torpedo. ![]() At Porter’s orders, the Bureau of Ordnance established a Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1869 to develop an American torpedo. ![]() David Porter, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Whitehead’s torpedo caught the attention of Vice Adm. Both performed similarly, running at 8–10 knots with a range of 200 yards. By 1868, Whitehead had refined his design and began selling two sizes of his MK 1 torpedo to navies around the world: an 11-foot, 8-inch model with a 40-pound guncotton explosive and a larger, 14-foot model with a 60-pound guncotton explosive. Robert Whitehead developed the first experimental model of an automobile torpedo in 1866. Propelled by a two-cylinder, compressed-air engine, this early version could travel 200 yards at a speed of 6.5 knots. John Howell in the 1870s and 1880s, after English engineer Robert Whitehead debuted the world’s first successful torpedo in 1866.Ĭlick any image to view at a larger size. The Howell torpedo was the first self-propelled torpedo developed by the United States and used in service in the U.S. The Invention and History of the Howell Torpedo ![]()
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