Self-propelled torpedo
Torpedo autopropulsado
- Date
- 1866 · confidence high
- Place
- Fiume (Rijeka), Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Croatia)
- Credited to
- Robert Whitehead (developing Giovanni Luppis's idea)
- People
- 👤 Robert Whitehead1823–1905
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A submarine projectile self-propelled by compressed air, with a hydrostatic depth regulator, capable of striking a ship hundreds of metres away. It gave small boats and submarines the power to sink ironclads.
Luppis conceived a cable-guided explosive boat; Whitehead completely redesigned it at his factory in Fiume in 1866.
What it led to
- Torpedo boats, destroyers and submarines
- Submarine warfare in the world wars
- The vulnerability of battleships and naval doctrine
- The control gyroscope (Obry, 1895)
Built on
- Bushnell's Turtle (combat submarine)1775-1776
- Centrifugal governor1788
- Naval contact mine (Jacobi)1853-1855
- Naval mine and spar torpedo
- Compressed-air engine
Made possible
- Anti-ship missile (P-15 Termit / Styx) and the sinking of Eilat21 de octubre de 1967
- Torpedo boat
- Attack submarine
- Gyroscopic autopilot