TORPEDO BOAT. A small war vessel fitted to use the torpedo as its primary weapon of at tack. The principal requirements of a torpedo boat are high speed, efficient means of launching torpedoes, handiness, and fair seaworthiness. To attain these essentials the boats are long, slender, very lightly built, and low in the water. The torpedo tubes are pivoted on deck—on small boats on the fore-and-aft midship line; on huger boats, near the side. Modern torpedo boats be long to four classes: (a) torpedo boat destroyers; (b) sea-going boats; ( c ) harbor boats; and (d) portable boats carried by men-of-war. Tor pedo boat destroyers are here classed with torpedo boats because of similarity in general design and because they will undoubtedly be used for torpedo attack in the same manner as the smaller craft— from which they differ little except in size and the possession of a battery sufficiently powerful to quickly sink and destroy boats of the lesser dimensions. They vary in size from 250 to GOO tons. The torpedo boat proper carries very few and very small guns. Sea-going boats are of 100 to 250 tons; harbor boats (capable of going to sea in moderate weather) of 30 to 100 tons; and portable boats of from 5 to 15 tons. The speeds are in somewhat similar ratio, destroyers having 26 to 35 knots; sea-going boats, about 25 knots; harbor boats, 20 to 25 knots; and port able boats, 13 to 17 knots.
Torpedo boats can only hope to be successful when attacking under cover of night or of thick fog, and several should attack a ship simultane ously and from different directions. The defense against them consists of picket boats, torpedo nets (q.v.), rapid-firing guns (q.v.), and search lights (q.v.). Although it is difficult to sink a well-built modern battleship by torpedo attack, it is always possible, and the knowledge of this fact exercises a great moral effect. All maritime nations possess torpedo boats. (See NaviEs.) In 1903 the United States boats were, with one or two exceptions, quite new, and averaged much larger than those of the same class in foreign navies. The American destroyers are much more heavily armed than the foreign ones. Sixteen of them carry two 3-inch guns and five 6-pounders, and the other four have four to seven 6-pounders. Many of the foreign destroyers carry only five or six 1-pounders or 3-pounders; while, aside from a few of the latest British boats, none car ries more than one 3-inch.
In its earliest form the torpedo boat contained merely a large quantity of powder and was it self destroyed by the explosion. Craft of this type were used by Gianibelli at Antwerp in 1585. (See TORPEDO.) The first evolutionary step de veloped boats which carried torpedoes that were designed to be attached to the bottom of the enemy's ship. All of this type were submarine.
(See TORPEDO BOATS, SUBMARINE.) The first surface boats appeared during the American Civil War and the first partial success was achieved (October, 1863) in an attack by a Con federate boat on the Federal armorclad New Ironsides, in which the latter was slightly in jured. Practically all of the torpedo boats of the war used 'spar' torpedoes. which were carried at the end of a long spar or boom rigged out be yond the bow: and nearly all were ordinary steam launches or pulling boats. though the boat which attacked the Neic Ironsides and one or two others were specially built craft with nearly sub merged hulls. In 1873 the first fast (speed, 15 knots) specially designed torpedo boat was built by Thornycroft of Chiswick, England, for the Norwegian Government and was fitted for using the Harvey towing torpedo, then in much favor. In the next year both Thornycroft and Yarrow (of Poplar, near London) constructed boats for various foreign governments, and they built sev eral in the ensuing year, but none for Great Britain. About the same time Herreshoff com pleted a very fast boat for the United States Navy. In 1877 Herreshoff brought out the first boat fitted to use Whitehead torpedoes, and al though many subsequent boats were designed to carry spar torpedoes, the Whitehead rapidly made its way, so that by 1880 it had practically dis placed all rivals except the Howell and Schwartz kopf, which were of somewhat similar type.
The advent of the 'destroyer' class of boat was brought about by the realization of the inade quacy of the existing means of defense against torpedo attack. The first boat was completed for the British Navy in 1893. Experience with these craft demonstrated their value both as scouts and picket boats against torpedo boat at tack, and also showed that under many circum stances they were available and desirable as tor pedo boats.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. For further information, conBibliography. For further information, con- sult: Sleeman, Torpedoes and Torped-o Warfare (2d ed., Portsmouth, England, 1889) ; Arm strong, Torpedoes and Torpedo Vessels (2d ed., London, 1902) ; Johnson, Defense of Charleston Harbor (Charleston, 1890) ; Scharf, History of the Confederate Navy (New York, 18S7) ; An vual of the Office of Naval Intelligence (United States Navy Department, Washington, current) ; Brassey, Naval Annual (Portsmouth, annual) ; Buchard, Torpilles et torpilleurs (Paris, 1889). See also articles On TORPEDO; TORPEDO BOAT, SUBMARINE; and TORPEDO NET.