Torpedo Boats
Torpedo Boats.Functionally descended from Federico Gianibelli's sixteenth‐century fireships, torpedo boats first emerged in the United States as semisubmersible bearers of “infernal machines,” directed by David Bushnell's Turtle and Robert Fulton's Mute against British blockaders during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Advances in spar torpedo technology during the Civil War spawned additional craft. Their capabilities were demonstrated in the historic attack by the Confederate submersible H. L. Hunley against the USS Housatonic off Charleston, and by Lt. W. B. Cushing's sinking of CSS Albemarle with a picket boat carrying a spar torpedo.
Commercial introduction of the Whitehead self‐propelled torpedo in 1875 triggered rapid development of coastal and seagoing torpedo boats in...
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