Soon, several seemingly simple but more practical and effective designs appeared. The first one is Tuo Lei, which is Tuo Lei. The design idea is simple. Warships tow mines with ropes. When encountering an enemy ship, by adjusting the course, the mine towed far behind the stern will hit the enemy ship, thus achieving the purpose of attack. At first, only 1 rope was tied to Tuo Lei at the stern of the warship. Later, it developed into two ropes, each at an angle of 30 degrees with the warship, which was better than the rope tied to 1. Another design is to install an 8-9-meter-long iron bar on a small steam sampan, and tie a small mine to the head of the iron bar. At ordinary times, the iron bar is retracted in the boat and suddenly stretched out when approaching the target in order to attack the enemy ship. This explosive weapon is called a rod mine, and the dinghy carrying the rod mine is called a rod mine boat. After many tests, it is found that Tuo Lei boat has some negative factors, such as difficulty in use, low success rate and high risk factor, so it has not been widely adopted and used. In the early days, only some countries, such as Russia, were equipped, and the rod mine boat was more reliable than the Tuo Lei boat. However, if this small boat wants to attack enemy ships, it must rush to a very close distance from the target in front of bullets, which is very dangerous. Moreover, due to the limited collision length of the rod-mine boat, the huge aftermath caused by the explosion caused by the rod-mine is likely to spread to the boat close at hand. "The length of the staff is limited, which can cover up the attack, so it is equivalent to a suicide weapon. Therefore, navies of various countries have different degrees of reservations about such things that may cause crashes and burns. Tuo Lei and rolling thunder, two immature naval weapons, can be regarded as the beginning of the development of modern underwater self-propelled explosive weapons. Soon, a special mine which occupies an important position in the history of weapons appeared.
Robert whitehead, the son of a British cotton bleaching worker, has a natural interest in mechanical equipment since he was a child. /kloc-when he was 0/4 years old, he was an apprentice with an engineer and traveled around Europe to promote textile machinery, which opened his eyes. From 1856, I worked as an engineer and manager in an Austrian machinery company. During the Italian-Austrian War, the company was ordered to provide a large number of naval machinery and equipment for the Austrian Navy, so Whitehead began to set foot in the field of naval technology. 1866, inspired by my friend, Austrian Navy Captain Giovanni Lupis, Whitehead successfully manufactured and tested the world's first self-propelled mine in Feixiongmen, Austria (now the Croatian port city of Rijeka). According to eyewitness records, this slender steel mine is very sharp at both ends and looks very much like a dolphin or a fish. At that time, China named this fish-shaped mine torpedo, so the Chinese word torpedo was born. Later, in the textbook of torpedo major of Tianjin Beiyang Naval Academy, there is a wonderful description of the reason for this naming, "... it has a round body, a pointed front and rear body, a round mouth on its head and two wheels behind it, which can be driven." Like a fish with wings and tails, it can sail from top to bottom in the water, swim like a fish, have the shape of a fish, have the power of thunder, have fierce speed and speed, and can sink enemy ships, so it is called a torpedo. " Now, it seems that this kind of torpedo, which was trial-produced in Whitehead Sea at that time, has initially possessed many important characteristics of modern torpedoes. The torpedo's head can be trained by using a warhead filled with explosives or a torpedo operating head filled with gravel (later improved internally into a discus and wooden frame structure). The middle part of the torpedo is the compressed air cabin, which is called the weather cabin in China. The compressed air with a stored pressure of 370 pounds per square inch is driven by a two-cylinder V-shaped engine. Only one propeller blade is driven to rotate (later models of torpedoes began to use * * * axis reversal double propellers, that is, two wheels), so as to achieve the effect of self-propulsion. Although the range of this torpedo is only about 200 meters, there are many shortcomings in the design of depth setting and course control. After all, this is the first time in the history of underwater weapons development, which has fulfilled the dream of autonomous navigation weapons for thousands of years. This special mine, which can sail by itself and attack the enemy actively, makes. Because torpedoes can directly threaten the underwater part of the weakest warship at that time, the ship design, tactical thinking and combat style of the world navy began to change dramatically.
Whitehead literally translates into Chinese, which means Whitehead, so Whitehead Torpedo is also called Whitehead Torpedo in China. Through the continuous improvement of the original model, the design of Baishi torpedo is gradually mature. 1872, Whitehead opened a special torpedo factory in Feixiongmen, Austria, and began mass production of torpedoes. Whitehead's motherland, the United Kingdom, also spared no expense in purchasing patents and manufacturing Whitehead torpedoes in ulrich Arsenal. Russia, France and other countries also saw the prospect of torpedo weapons, bought them in succession and began to imitate them themselves. Among various pirated and pirated models of bald torpedoes in various countries, Germany is the most effective one. At the beginning of design and manufacture, the shell of the white-headed torpedo was made of steel. Although this kind of steel is hard, it is not resistant to corrosion. If it is often immersed in water, the shell will be corroded. This defect is a headache for torpedoes that need to practice launching and recovering in water frequently. At that time, Germany, which was famous for its metallurgical industry in the world, could not catch up with other countries in metal casting and processing technology. Based on the analysis and imitation of white-headed torpedoes, schwarzkopf Factory changed the material of the torpedo shell, abandoned the steel that is easy to rust, and tried to replace it with a special material-phosphor copper, that is, phosphorus green was added to the gun copper produced by Krupp Company, thus removing the impurities in the copper. It makes copper more durable and corrosion resistant. This manufacturing method of phosphor copper is secret in Germany, which seems to correspond to the British torpedo called Baishi. In China's historical records, the reliable and durable German brush-time Kauff phosphorus-copper torpedo has a slightly odd name, the blackhead torpedo. Whitehead and Blackhead have become the two most prestigious torpedoes in the modern world. Since then, they have been competing on torpedo performance, which greatly promoted the development of torpedo weapons.
Soon after the birth of torpedo, it attracted the attention of all countries and began to enter the navies of various countries in large numbers. At first, torpedoes were mostly used to set launch slots on the ship's surface, or directly thrown into the sea with the help of the original torpedo launcher, or even thrown into the sea after the engine was driven by people. Later, tube launchers, that is, torpedo tubes, were gradually adopted. 1876, Britain built the world's first warship with torpedo as the main weapon-Lightning, a small boat with a displacement of only 32.5 tons, which created a new type of warship in the history of warships-torpedo boat. Lightning is 25.76 meters long and 3.28 meters wide, using cars. It had a surprisingly high speed of 19 knots in the navy at that time. This high-speed design has the same characteristics as modern torpedo boats in the19th century, which is closely related to the tactics of torpedo boats. When attacking, it can attack at high speed and avoid the enemy's fire. Because the torpedo boat has a single weapon, in case it misses the target, it needs a very high speed when retreating. From the appearance, the hull of this boat is a luxurious motorboat. However, a seemingly weird torpedo tube appeared on the bow deck, and there was a strange little command tower behind the torpedo boat. On the middle sides of the boat, there are two torpedo transport vehicles in the open air. When loading, the torpedo car is pushed behind the torpedo tube along the track for loading. Obviously, the design of "Lightning" is not suitable for actual combat, because it is extremely dangerous to erect torpedo transport vehicles on the open deck. When sailing at high speed, people working on the ship's surface will be threatened by wind and waves and enemy gunfire. In fact, "Lightning" is just a verification ship of a new type of torpedo boat, which belongs to a conceptual weapon. On this basis, in 1878, Britain's first mature torpedo boat was born, and then France, Russia, Italy and other traditional naval powers built and equipped torpedo boats in succession. /kloc-torpedo boats that appeared after the middle of the 0/9th century are mainly divided into two types: large boats and small boats. Large boats have a large tonnage. In addition to torpedo launchers, they are generally equipped with several small-caliber rapid-fire guns as self-defense weapons. One of the boats has gradually evolved into a modern destroyer, while the small torpedo boat has a small tonnage, limited coal load and is not resistant to wind and waves, so it is usually attached to large warships or special barges.
With the appearance of torpedoes and torpedo boats, the world's oceans began to be more lively. However, it should be noted today that although the torpedo weapon at that time was powerful, its reliability was not optimistic, and it was not uncommon to deviate from the course. Even in the 1879 naval battle between Chile and Argentina, there was a bizarre incident in which the launched torpedo turned around and ran home to set an own goal. Moreover, the range of early torpedoes was generally short, about 2 or 300 meters at high speed and 500 meters at low speed. In the rain of bullets, launching torpedoes at such close range obviously requires high psychological quality of the launcher. The Charter of the British Navy clearly stipulates that "torpedo boats must use people who dare to die." In addition to short range and inaccurate heading, the torpedo depth determination at that time was extremely complicated, and it was necessary to determine the depth in the maintenance workshop before loading the ship. It is impossible to adjust the depth in the operation, which also affects the torpedo hit accuracy to some extent. Although there are many shortcomings, torpedoes, as the latest and strongest weapon of the navy in the19th century, have been widely used, posing a challenge to traditional maritime weapons.