Torpedo ram
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A torpedo ram is a type of
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 ...
combining a
ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
with
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, su ...
tubes. Incorporating design elements from the
cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several roles. The term "cruiser", which has been in use for several hu ...
and the
monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West ...
, it was intended to provide small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other
littoral The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas ...
combat.


Overview

Like a monitor, torpedo rams operated with very little freeboard, sometimes with only inches of hull rising above the water, exposing only their funnels and turrets to enemy fire. In addition to the guns in their turrets, they also were equipped with torpedoes. Early designs incorporated a
spar torpedo A spar torpedo is a weapon consisting of a bomb placed at the end of a long pole, or spar, and attached to a boat. The weapon is used by running the end of the spar into the enemy ship. Spar torpedoes were often equipped with a barbed spear at ...
that could be extended from the bow and detonated by ramming a target. Later designs used tube-launched self-propelled
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, su ...
es, but retained the concept of ramming, resulting in designs like HMS ''Polyphemus'', which had five torpedo tubes, two each port and starboard and one mounted in the center of her reinforced ram bow. The torpedo ram concept came about at a time when the self-propelled torpedo, pioneered by
Robert Whitehead Robert Whitehead (3 January 1823 – 14 November 1905) was an English engineer who was most famous for developing the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo. Early life He was born in Bolton, England, the son of James Whitehead, ...
, had only just been invented. The earliest self-propelled torpedoes were obviously very powerful weapons, but were very short-ranged and incapable of reaching speeds greater than 10
knots A knot is a fastening in rope or interwoven lines. Knot may also refer to: Places * Knot, Nancowry, a village in India Archaeology * Knot of Isis (tyet), symbol of welfare/life. * Minoan snake goddess figurines#Sacral knot Arts, entertainme ...
, making them useless against anything but stationary targets. Another result of this was that for a time there was much confusion in naval circles about how best to employ the torpedo. During the 1870s a large number of proposals emerged for torpedo-carrying warships. The torpedo ram, like most of the early torpedo-carrying warship designs, was intended to attack enemy warships while they were still at anchor in harbor. The torpedo ram's low profile and high speed were to make discovery and interception harder, as was the commonly stated intent for their attacks to take place at night. Once it reached the harbor, the torpedo ram was to smash its way through any seaward harbor defenses and make straight for the ships lying at anchor, launching its torpedoes before they could get underway. Once this was done, the torpedo ram would exit the harbor and make a high-speed escape to waiting friendly forces.


Abandonment and legacy

It soon became clear that the proposition of attacking enemy ships in harbors was not a practical one. Because of this, torpedo rams were never particularly popular, and the design was largely abandoned by the end of the 19th century as other, more practical, classes of torpedo-carrying warships emerged. Only a handful were built. The best remembered examples of the type were the aforementioned ''Polyphemus'' and the United States Navy's USS ''Intrepid''. Neither saw a great deal of active service and they were mostly used for torpedo trials, although ''Polyphemus'' did demonstrate the potential damage she could inflict when she was used to demolish a harbor defense boom via ramming. While never popular with the naval services that created them, the torpedo ram can be said to have caught public attention in a manner which far exceeded its utility as a concept for a fighting ship. The heroic HMS ''Thunder Child'' in
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''
The War of the Worlds ''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by ''Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and by ''Cosmopolitan (magazine), Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US. The novel's first appear ...
'' was a torpedo ram, and she destroyed two Martian Tripods before being sunk by a Martian
Heat Ray The Martians, also known as the Invaders, are the fictional race of extraterrestrials from the H.G. Wells 1898 novel ''The War of the Worlds''. They are the main antagonists of the novel, and their efforts to exterminate the populace of the Ear ...
. However, not being a naval person Wells may have been using the term loosely, assuming that all ram-bowed vessels were called torpedo rams. This is likely given that the fictional ship does not match the other particulars, such as number of funnels, size and weaponry, of HMS ''Polyphemus''.


See also

*
Torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...
*
Torpedo 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 ...


References

{{Reflist Ship types Torpedo boats Steam rams