The Whitehead Mark 3 torpedo was a

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 ...

adopted 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 ...

for use in an anti-surface ship role after the

E. W. Bliss Company The E. W. Bliss Company is a manufacturer of machine tools founded by Eliphalet Williams Bliss. The company was based in Brooklyn, New York and is now based in Hastings, Michigan as BCN Technical Services. BCN is owned by Schuler Group. History ...

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 ...

secured manufacturing rights in 1892. The primary difference between the Mark 3 and the previous versions of the 3.55-meter Whiteheads was the inclusion of the Obry steering

gyro Gyro may refer to: Science and technology * GYRO, a computer program for tokamak plasma simulation * Gyro Motor Company, an American aircraft engine manufacturer * ''Gyrodactylus salaris'', a parasite in salmon * Gyroscope, an orientation-stabi ...

for

azimuth An azimuth (; from ar, اَلسُّمُوت, as-sumūt, the directions) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. More specifically, it is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north. Mathematicall ...

control. This device reduced the maximum deviation right or left of the target from 24 to 8 yards. About 100 Mark 3s were purchased from the

; in 1913, these were redesignated Torpedo Type A. They were used on submarines of the A, B, C and D classes. These were withdrawn from service use in 1922 when all torpedoes designed before the

Bliss-Leavitt Mark 7 torpedo The Bliss-Leavitt Mark 7 torpedo was a Bliss-Leavitt torpedo developed and produced by the E. W. Bliss Company and the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island in 1911. History The Mark 7 was a major step in the evolution of the modern torp ...

were condemned.

Characteristics

Obry gyroscopic gear installed in Whitehead torpedoes

The Mark 3 was ordinarily assembled into three sections: the warhead, the air flask and the after-body. The warhead's charge of wet

guncotton Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...

weighed 118 pounds. The Mark 3 was what was known as a "cold-running" torpedo. The three-cylinder engine ran on cold,

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 ...

which was stored in the air flask. The after-body carried the engine and the tail, which contained the

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

s. The Mark 3 was launched from

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

s and

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of se ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehead Mark 3 torpedo Torpedoes Torpedoes of the United States Unmanned underwater vehicles Whitehead torpedoes

Characteristics

See also

References