Torpedo - Wikipedia. The modern torpedo is a self- propelled weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with its target or in proximity to it. Historically, it was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive or fish torpedo; colloquially called a fish. The term torpedo was originally employed for a variety of devices, most of which would today be called mines. From about 1. 90. The original torpedo is a kind of fish: an electric ray. While the battleship had evolved primarily around engagements between armoured ships with large- caliber guns, the torpedo allowed torpedo boats and other lighter surface ships, submersibles, even ordinary fishing boats or frogmen, and later, aircraft, to destroy large armoured ships without the need of large guns, though sometimes at the risk of being hit by longer- range shellfire. Today's torpedoes can be divided into lightweight and heavyweight classes; and into straight- running, autonomous homers, and wire- guided. They can be launched from a variety of platforms. Etymology. In naval usage, the American Robert Fulton introduced the name to refer to a towed gunpowder charge used by his French submarine. Nautilus (first tested in 1. History. In 1. 27. Hasan al- Rammah described . These were used on an ad hoc basis during the early modern period up to the late 1. Early spar torpedoes were created by the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel in the employ of King James I of England; he attached explosives to the end of a beam affixed to one of his own submarines and they were used (to little effect) during the English expeditions to La Rochelle in 1. However, both the French and the Dutch governments were uninterested in the submarine. Fulton then concentrated on developing the torpedo independent of a submarine deployment. Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Jump to: navigation, search. Subscribe to our free daily email and get a new idiom video every day!
On 1. 5 October 1. England, Fulton put on a public display of his . However, the British government refused to purchase the invention, stating they did not wish to . Further development languished as Fulton focused on his . During the War of 1. British vessels and protect American harbors. In fact a submarine deployed torpedo was used in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy HMS Ramillies while in New London's harbor. This prompted the British Capt. Hardy to warn the Americans to cease efforts with the use of any . They used an early form of chemical detonator. During the American Civil War, the term torpedo was used for what is today called a contact mine, floating on or below the water surface using an air- filled demijohn or similar flotation device. These devices were very primitive and apt to prematurely explode. They would be detonated on contact with the ship, or after a set time, although electrical detonators were also occasionally used. USS Cairo was the first warship to be sunk in 1. Spar torpedoes were also used; an explosive device was mounted at the end of a spar up to 3. These were used by the Confederate submarine H. Hunley to sink the USS Housatonic although the weapon was apt to cause as much harm to its user as to its target. On 2. 6 May 1. 87. Romanian War of Independence, the Romanian spar torpedo boat R. French and German inventions followed closely, and the term torpedo came to describe self- propelled projectiles that traveled under or on water. By 1. 90. 0, the term no longer included mines and booby- traps as the navies of the world added submarines, torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers to their fleets. In 1. 86. 4, Luppis presented Whitehead with the plans of the salvacoste (coastsaver), a floating weapon driven by ropes from the land that had been dismissed by the naval authorities due to the impractical steering and propulsion mechanisms. Whitehead was unable to improve the machine substantially, since the clockwork motor, attached ropes, and surface attack mode all contributed to a slow and cumbersome weapon. However, he kept considering the problem after the contract had finished, and eventually developed a tubular device, designed to run underwater on its own, and powered by compressed air. The result was a submarine weapon, the Minenschiff (mine ship), the first modern self- propelled torpedo, officially presented to the Austrian Imperial Naval commission on December 2. The first trials were not successful as the weapon was unable to maintain a course on a steady depth. After much work, Whitehead introduced his . It was a mechanism consisting of a hydrostatic valve and pendulum that caused the torpedo's hydroplanes to be adjusted so as to maintain a preset depth. Production and spread. Pictured examining a battered test torpedo in Fiume c. After the Austrian government decided to invest in the invention, Whitehead started the first torpedo factory in Fiume. In 1. 87. 0, he improved the devices to travel up to approximately 1,0. The torpedo was powered by compressed air and had an explosive charge of gun- cotton. In 1. 87. 1, the British Admiralty paid Whitehead . In 1. 89. 3, RN torpedo production was transferred to the Royal Gun Factory. The British later established a Torpedo Experimental Establishment at HMS Vernon and a production facility at the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory, Greenock in 1. These are now closed. Whitehead opened a new factory near Portland Harbour, England in 1. Second World War. Because orders from the RN were not as large as expected, torpedoes were mostly exported. A series of devices was produced at Fiume, with diameters from 1. The largest Whitehead torpedo was 1. It was propelled by a three- cylinder Brotherhood engine, using compressed air at around 1,3. MPa) and driving two contra- rotating propellers, and was designed to self- regulate its course and depth as far as possible. By 1. 88. 1, nearly 1. Whitehead also opened a factory at St Tropez in 1. Brazil, Holland, Turkey and Greece. Whitehead purchased rights to the gyroscope of Ludwig Obry in 1. Schwartzkopff in Germany also produced torpedoes and exported them to Russia, Japan and Spain. In 1. 88. 5, Britain ordered a batch of 5. Fiume could not meet demand. By WW1, Whitehead's torpedo remained a worldwide success, and his company was able to maintain a monopoly on torpedo production. By that point, his torpedo had grown to a diameter of 1. Whitehead faced competition from the American Lieutenant Commander. John A. Howell, whose own design, driven by a flywheel, was simpler and cheaper. It was produced from 1. A Torpedo Test Station was set up on Rhode Island in 1. The Howell torpedo was the only USN model until Whitehead torpedoes produced by Bliss and Williams entered service in 1. Five varieties were produced, all 1. The United States Navy started using the Whitehead torpedo in 1. American company, E. W. Bliss, secured manufacturing rights. Ultimately this line of development led to the dreadnought category of all- big- gun battleship, starting with HMS Dreadnought. Although these ships were incredibly powerful, the new weight of armour slowed them down, and the huge guns needed to penetrate that armour fired at very slow rates. This allowed for the possibility of a small and fast ship that could attack the battleships, at a much lower cost. The introduction of the torpedo provided a weapon that could cripple, or sink, any battleship. The first boat designed to fire the self- propelled Whitehead torpedo was HMS Lightning, completed in 1. The French navy followed suit in 1. Torpilleur No 1, launched in 1. The first torpedo boats were built at the shipyards of Sir John Thornycroft, and gained recognition for their effectiveness. At the same time inventors were working on building a guided torpedo. Prototypes were built by John Ericsson, John Louis Lay, and Victor von Scheliha, but the first practical guided missile was patented by Louis Brennan, an emigre to Australia, in 1. At night the mast had a small light, only visible from the rear. Two steel drums were mounted one behind the other inside the torpedo, each carrying several thousands yards of high- tensile steel wire. The drums connected via a differential gear to twin contra- rotating propellers. If one drum was rotated faster than the other, then the rudder was activated. The other ends of the wires were connected to steam- powered winding engines, which were arranged so that speeds could be varied within fine limits, giving sensitive steering control for the torpedo. The torpedo was fitted with elevators controlled by a depth- keeping mechanism, and the fore and aft rudders operated by the differential between the drums. However, the War Office proved more amenable, and in early August 1. Royal Engineer committee was instructed to inspect the torpedo at Chatham and report back directly to the Secretary of State for War, Hugh Childers. The report strongly recommended that an improved model be built at government expense. In 1. 88. 3 an agreement was reached between the Brennan Torpedo Company and the government. The newly appointed Inspector- General of Fortifications in England, Sir Andrew Clarke, appreciated the value of the torpedo and in spring 1. Garrison Point Fort, Sheerness on the River Medway and a workshop for Brennan was set up at the Chatham Barracks, the home of the Royal Engineers. Between 1. 88. 3 and 1. Royal Engineers held trials and in 1. It was used throughout the British Empire for more than fifteen years. The Peruvian ship successfully outran the device. In another early use of the torpedo, Chilean frigate Blanco Encalada was sunk on April 2. Almirante Lynch, during the 1. Chilean Civil War. The Chinese turret ship. Dingyuan was purportedly hit and disabled by a torpedo after numerous attacks by Japanese torpedo boats during the First Sino- Japanese War in 1. At this time torpedo attacks were still very close range and very dangerous to the attackers.
0 Comments
Crystal Clouds 12th Birthday Event. Celebrating 12 amazing years in trance, Crystal Clouds continues to enjoy supporting one of the finest music genres in the world. Watching both the website and genre grow and expand over. In this game you have to move words around to make a sentence. You can practice English grammar by rearranging words to make a complete sentence. The sentences get more complicated as you progess. Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts. 8 tornadoes carved through Indiana, thousands in Kokomo without power 12:49 PM update: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence says it is a miracle that no one was killed or badly hurt by a tornado that hit the city of Kokomo, The Associated. Venus' surface revealed through the clouds. Schematic illustration of the proposed behaviour of gravity waves in the vicinity of mountainous terrain on Venus. Winds pushing their way slowly across the mountainous slopes on the surface generate gravity waves - an atmospheric phenomenon also often seen in mountainous parts of Earth's surface. These waves form when air ripples over bumpy surfaces. The waves then propagate vertically upwards, growing larger and larger in amplitude until they break just below the cloud- top, like sea waves on a shoreline. As the waves break, they push back against the fast- moving high- altitude winds and slow them down. The background is an artist's impression of the surface of Venus beneath the cloud tops. Credit: European Space Agency. Using observations from ESA's Venus Express satellite, scientists have shown for the first time how weather patterns seen in Venus' thick cloud layers are directly linked to the topography of the surface below. Rather than acting as a barrier to our observations, Venus' clouds may offer insight into what lies beneath. Official site of Rocky Mountaineer. Book train tours and vacations on Journey Through the Clouds route traveling to Vancouver, Kamloops, and Jasper. Ritewing Zephyr II - First flight through clouds (1700masl) - EPIC - Pablo Legarreta - FullHD - Duration: 9:25. Pablo Legarreta 11,914 views. The climate at the surface is oppressive; as well as being hot, the surface environment is dimly lit, due to a thick blanket of cloud which completely envelops the planet. Ground- level winds are slow, pushing their way across the planet at painstaking speeds of about 1 metre per second – no faster than a gentle stroll. However, that is not what we see when we observe our sister planet from above. Spend the day at Castle in the Clouds, The Lucknow Estate touring the architecture, strolling through the beautiful gardens & examining local artists' work. On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space when the space shuttle Challenger launched on mission STS-7 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. One of her jobs was to call out 'Roll program' seven. Astronomy & Space; Space Exploration; July 18, 2016; What lies beneath: Venus' surface revealed through the clouds July 18, 2016. Instead, we spy a smooth, bright covering of cloud. This cloud forms a 2. Celsius – similar to temperatures found at the cloud- tops of Earth. The upper cloud layer also hosts more extreme weather, with winds that blow hundreds of times faster than those on the surface (and faster than Venus itself rotates, a phenomenon dubbed 'super- rotation'). While these clouds have traditionally blocked our view of Venus' surface, meaning we can only peer beneath using radar or infrared light, they may actually hold the key to exploring some of Venus' secrets. Scientists suspected the weather patterns rippling across the cloud- tops to be influenced by the topography of the terrain below. They have found hints of this in the past, but did not have a complete picture of how this may work – until now. Scientists using observations from ESA's Venus Express satellite have now greatly improved our climate map of Venus by exploring three aspects of the planet's cloudy weather: how quickly winds on Venus circulate, how much water is locked up within the clouds, and how bright these clouds are across the spectrum (specifically in ultraviolet light). Bertaux and colleagues studied Venus' cloud- tops in the infrared part of the spectrum, allowing them to pick up on the absorption of sunlight by water vapour and detect how much was present in each location at cloud- top level (7. They found one particular area of cloud, near Venus' equator, to be hoarding more water vapour than its surroundings. This 'damp' region was located just above a 4. Aphrodite Terra. This phenomenon appears to be caused by water- rich air from the lower atmosphere being forced upwards above the Aphrodite Terra mountains, leading researchers to nickname this feature the 'fountain of Aphrodite'. They found the clouds downstream of the 'fountain' to reflect less ultraviolet light than elsewhere, and the winds above the mountainous Aphrodite Terra region to be some 1. The image was captured from a distance of 3. December 2. 01. 1. The VMC was designed and built by a consortium of German institutes lead by the Max- Planck Institute for Solar System Research in G. Credit: European Space Agency. All three of these factors can be explained by one single mechanism caused by Venus' thick atmosphere, propose Bertaux and colleagues. Crudely speaking, they form when air ripples over bumpy surfaces. The waves then propagate vertically upwards, growing larger and larger in amplitude until they break just below the cloud- top, like sea waves on a shoreline. The wind circulation creates an upwards motion in Venus' atmosphere that carries water- rich air and ultraviolet- dark material up from below the cloud- tops, bringing it to the surface of the cloud layer and creating both the observed 'fountain' and an extended downwind plume of vapour. This finding reveals that the amount of water and ultraviolet- dark material found in Venus' clouds is also strongly enhanced at particular places around the planet's equator. This is the first time that this connection has been shown clearly on Venus – it's a major result. The data used in this study were collected over many years. Influence of Venus topography on the zonal wind and UV albedo at cloud top level: The role of stationary gravity waves, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2. DOI: 1. 0. 1. 00. JE0. 04. 95. 8Provided by: European Space Agency. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |