The Whitehead Mark 2 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 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 ...

secured manufacturing rights in 1892. It was identical to the

Whitehead Mark 1 torpedo The Whitehead Mark 1 torpedo was the first Whitehead 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 secured manufacturing rights in 1892. The US Navy made an ini ...

, except for some mechanical details.

Characteristics

The Mark 2 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 2 was what was known as a "cold-running" torpedo. The three-cylinder

reciprocating engine A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...

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, which had a capacity of 7.154

cubic feet Cubic may refer to: Science and mathematics * Cube (algebra), "cubic" measurement * Cube, a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex ** Cubic crystal system, a crystal system ...

at 1350 pounds per square inch. 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 2 guidance component included the

Pendulum-and-hydrostat control Pendulum-and-hydrostat control is a control mechanism developed originally for depth control of the Whitehead torpedo. It is an early example of what is now known as proportional and derivative control. The hydrostat is a mechanism that senses pr ...

device which was called the "Whitehead Secret". This version of the Whitehead torpedo lacked the

gyroscope A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...

gear designed by

Ludwig Obry Ludwig Obry was an Austrian engineer and naval officer of the Austrian Navy who invented a gyroscopic device for steering a torpedo in 1895. The gyroscope was invented by Leon Foucault in 1851 but industry ignored the device for nearly 50 years ...

, which was incorporated in another Whitehead model, the Mark 3. The Mark 2 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 ...

s. The first commissioned U.S. Navy submarine, USS ''Holland'', was armed with three Mark 2 torpedoes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehead Mark 2 torpedo Torpedoes Torpedoes of the United States Unmanned underwater vehicles Whitehead torpedoes

Characteristics

See also

References