The Bliss-Leavitt torpedo was a
torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, s ...
designed by
Frank McDowell Leavitt
Frank McDowell Leavitt (1856–1928) was an American engineer and inventor. Leavitt devised one of the earliest machines for manufacturing tin cans and later invented the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo, the chief torpedo used by United States Navy in ...
and manufactured by the
E. W. Bliss Company of
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
It was put into service by the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
in 1904 and variants of the design would remain in its inventory until the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
History
The
E. W. Bliss Company secured manufacturing rights to the
Whitehead torpedo
The Whitehead torpedo was the first self-propelled or "locomotive" torpedo ever developed. It was perfected in 1866 by Robert Whitehead from a rough design conceived by Giovanni Luppis of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in Fiume. It was driven by a th ...
in 1892 and thereafter supplied the US Navy with this weapon. In 1904, an engineer with E. W. Bliss, Frank M. Leavitt, designed a torpedo with a "single-stage vertical
turbine engine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directi ...
"
that utilized
compressed air
Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air is an important medium for transfer of energy in industrial processes, and is used for power tools such as air hammers, drills, wrenches, and o ...
preheated by alcohol. This design became the
Bliss-Leavitt Mark 1 torpedo
The Bliss-Leavitt Mark 1 torpedo was a Bliss-Leavitt torpedo adopted by the United States Navy for use in an anti-surface ship role after the E. W. Bliss Company of Brooklyn, New York, which had been building Whitehead torpedoes for the US Navy ...
, the first non-Whitehead design after the
Howell torpedo
The Howell Automobile Torpedo was the first self-propelled torpedo produced in quantity by the United States Navy, which referred to it as the Howell Mark I torpedo. It was conceived by Lieutenant Commander John A. Howell, United States Navy, in ...
.
The Mark 1 had a tendency to roll, affecting its
directional stability
Directional stability is stability of a moving body or vehicle about an axis which is perpendicular to its direction of motion. Stability of a vehicle concerns itself with the tendency of a vehicle to return to its original direction in relation ...
. This was remedied by Lieutenant
Gregory C. Davison who proposed a two-stage turbine design that drove
contra-rotating propellers
Aircraft equipped with contra-rotating propellers, also referred to as CRP, coaxial contra-rotating propellers, or high-speed propellers, apply the maximum power of usually a single piston or turboprop engine to drive a pair of coaxial propell ...
. This cancelled the torque effect of the single-stage design, improving directional stability. All Bliss-Leavitt variants after the Mark 1 would carry this design feature.
E. W. Bliss ceased production of the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo during the 1920s after the completion of the
Mark 9
Mark 9 is the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins with Jesus' prediction that "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see
that the kingdom of God h ...
project.
Design
Previous torpedoes were driven by radial engines powered by compressed air. Leavitt's idea was to use steam turbines to drive the torpedo. In 1904 Leavitt designed a new class of torpedoes, manufactured by his employer the E. W. Bliss Company. The first model of the inventor's new torpedo was called the
Bliss-Leavitt Mark 1. The weapon was powered by a single-stage, vertical
turbine engine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directi ...
, fueled by alcohol used to heat the air before entering the engine.
The design was seen as groundbreaking in the armaments race. "New, Deadlier Torpedo", headlined ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in a front-page story on the development. "Missiles Equipped with Turbine Engines the Navy's Latest Acquisition". In the story that followed, the ''Times'' noted that "the United States Government is supplying its Navy with a new engine of destruction which will be a deadly step in the evolution of modern warfare. ... The new invention is known as the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo." The new devices, the newspaper noted, would cost the government $4,000 to $6,000 apiece.
The design was revolutionary, because of their larger warheads and much longer range, but not without problems. The single-stage turbine engine drove a single propeller, which had a tendency to develop unbalanced torque and thus to roll in the water, throwing off its accuracy. The manufacturer and its inventor Leavitt corrected the problem in subsequent models of the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo by using a twin-turbine engine driving contra-rotating twin propellers, thus steadying the armament's waterborne trajectory. The Bliss-Leavitt
Mark 2
Mark 2 is the second chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. In this chapter, the first arguments between Jesus and other Jewish religious teachers appear. Jesus heals a paralyzed man and forgives his sins, m ...
and
Mark 3
Mark 3 is the third chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It relates a conflict over healing on the Sabbath, the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, a conflict with scribes and a meeting of Jesus with h ...
models of the weapon incorporated improvements to the design by Lieutenant Davison. Ultimately, the Brooklyn manufacturing company introduced a Bliss-Leavitt
Mark 4
Mark 4 is the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It tells the parable of the Sower, with its explanation, and the parable of the Mustard Seed. Both of these parables are paralleled in Matthew ...
model, an 18-inch torpedo used in the torpedo boats and
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
s of the era.
The E. W. Bliss Company had long enjoyed a close relationship with the United States Navy, acting as virtually the sole supplier of torpedoes. But an English competitor emerged,
Whitehead, and the competition between the two firms subsequently drove torpedo technology forward, resulting in a flurry of new models following the turn of the twentieth century. In short order the E. W. Bliss Company turned out its
Mark 6
Mark 6 is the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. In this chapter, Jesus goes to Nazareth and faces rejection by his own family. He then sends his Apostles in pairs to various cities in the region wh ...
model, which used horizontal turbines and could be launched above-water (but with limited range of 2,000 yards). A subsequent
Mark 7
Mark 7 is the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. This chapter explores Jesus' relationships with both fellow Jews and Gentiles. Jesus speaks with the Pharisees and scribes, and then with his discipl ...
was the next great leap of technology, utilizing a water spray into the engine's combustion chamber to create a steam-powered torpedo.
Significance
![A-2 torpedo loading](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/A-2_torpedo_loading.png)
"In 1912, the E. W. Bliss Company produced its finest torpedo to date, the Bliss-Leavitt Mark 7", writes Anthony Newpower in his authoritative ''Iron Men and Tin Fish''. "This innovative design featured the use of steam, generated from water sprayed into the combustion pot along with the fuel. The resulting mixture dramatically boosted the efficiency of the torpedo, leading to markedly improved performance."
The Bliss-Leavitt Mark 7 was so cutting-edge that its design changed the face of naval warfare. Building on inventor Frank M. Leavitt's initial design, and incorporating his later improvements, the Mark 7 had a range of 6,000 yards at a brisk clip of 35 knots. The torpedo carried 326 pounds of
TNT
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...
or
TPX explosive. The Bliss-Leavitt Mark 7 was introduced into the United States Navy Fleet in 1912, and the design proved so resilient and far-sighted that it remained in use for an unprecedented 33 years – up to and including service in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. (During WW II, the Mark 7 was used to arm reactivated World War I destroyers still carrying 18-inch torpedo tubes. Also pressed into service during the conflict was the last model of the Bliss-Leavitt, the
Mark 9
Mark 9 is the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins with Jesus' prediction that "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see
that the kingdom of God h ...
, and the first US torpedoes to be designed totally within the Navy without industry collaboration, the Mk 11 and Mk 12).
[Gannon, Robert (1996)]
''Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II''
Penn State Press.
![US21in batlshp torp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/US21in_batlshp_torp.jpg)
The Navy considered the new weapon so essential to its arsenal that it sued in federal court in 1913 to prevent the E. W. Bliss Company from revealing any details of its manufacture to foreign countries. In its petition asking an injunction preventing company officials from telling British officials the technical details of the revolutionary torpedo, Assistant United States Attorney General Malcolm A. Coles told a U.S. District Court Judge that the court must "protect the right arm of the nation's defense" – the Navy – by granting a U.S. government request for an injunction preventing Bliss from revealing the technical specifications of the weapon to a British company.
During WW I, most United States Navy ships were still functioning chiefly as anti-submarine escorts, and the use of torpedoes as offensive weapons was limited. On May 21, 1917, the
destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...
USS ''
Ericsson
(lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...
'' reportedly fired a single torpedo at a German
U-boat
U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...
.
[Newpower, Anthony (2006)]
''Iron Men and Tin Fish: The Race to Build a Better Torpedo During World War II''
Greenwood Publishing Group.
See also
*
Howell torpedo
The Howell Automobile Torpedo was the first self-propelled torpedo produced in quantity by the United States Navy, which referred to it as the Howell Mark I torpedo. It was conceived by Lieutenant Commander John A. Howell, United States Navy, in ...
*
Whitehead torpedo
The Whitehead torpedo was the first self-propelled or "locomotive" torpedo ever developed. It was perfected in 1866 by Robert Whitehead from a rough design conceived by Giovanni Luppis of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in Fiume. It was driven by a th ...
*
Type 93 torpedo
The was a -diameter torpedo of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), launched from surface ships. It is commonly referred to as the Long Lance by most modern English-language naval historians, a nickname given to it after the war by Samuel Eliot Mori ...
References
{{US Navy torpedoes
Unmanned underwater vehicles
Torpedoes of the United States
Bliss-Leavitt torpedoes