 Looked upon as an "Equalizer" weapon in the 1870s-80s, the torpedo boat (TB) combined speed and stealth to mount solo or massed attacks on capital ships of the enemy fleet. The torpedo boat evolved from the ship's cutter -- a 20-30 foot steam launch -- but the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s-70s and the installation of specialized equipment to launch it, soon set the TB apart from an ordinary ship's boat. Small, maneuverable, and relatively cheap to manufacture (tens of thousands of pounds vs. upwards of £1M apiece for a battleship), they inspired hope in second- and third-place navies. The construction of state-of-the-art torpedo craft became a niche market for shipbuilders in the period, and lucrative contracts often fell to yards specializing in the manufacture of high-speed engines and boilers, such as Thornycroft and Yarrow in Britain. With the development of tube launching of torpedoes in the 1880s, and the improvement in performance of the Whitehead torpedo itself, the torpedo-boat became a threat no navy could afford to ignore. The TB squadrons of the Japanese Navy proved a key ingredient in Japan's naval victories over the Chinese in 1894-95 and the Russian Empire in 1904-05. The torpedo boat indeed became one of the pillars of the jeune école strategy in France, which de-emphasized battleship construction for the better part of 10 years in favor of light, maneuverable craft. At the same time, the navy most invested in the armored battleship -- the Royal Navy of Great Britain -- announced that its Admiral class would be the last battleships ever built in Britain.
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 Although this was patent nonsense, starting in the 1880s battleships and cruisers mounted batteries of quick-firing guns to defend against torpedo attack: the 6" QF BLR was a principal weapon of this type, while various combinations of 6-pdr, 9pdr, and 12-pdr QF guns were common. As time went by, 3", 4.1", 5", 6", and 7" were mounted in many combinations. But starting in the mid-1880s, fast vessels, larger and better armed than the torpedo boats and of comparable speed, also were introduced to defend the friendly fleet. Known as Torpedo Boat Catchers (TBC) or Torpedo Gun Boats (TGB) in the RN, they were down-sized cruisers with TB-style machinery; unfortunately with inadequate boilers and machinery, they ended up slower than the TBs they were supposed to catch. Starting about the same time, enlarged TBs with the same purpose were first developed in Britain and Spain. These were adopted by the Royal Navy and eagerly sought by all the major fleets. These speedy interceptors were dubbed Torpedo Boat Destroyers by Jacky Fisher, commander of HMS Vernon, the Royal Navy Torpedo School; they were known as contre-torpilleurs in France's Marine Nationale and contratorpederos in the Spanish Navy. This was soon shortened to "destroyers." Initially powered by high-speed triple-expansion marine engines, these 250-350-ton vessels were capable of 26-30 kts, (rising rapidly to 30-35 kts after turbine engines were adopted post 1900 -- again at Fisher's insistence). At right, plan of the Spanish destroyer Furor, built 1896 in Scotland. Furor was destroyed in the Battle of Santiago, after joining her squadron in Cuba in 1898.
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 Torpedo boats and destroyers vied with each other for record speeds at trials, but were seldom able to maintain or equal these speeds once in service. That is, until the adoption of the turbine engine. Following Charles Parsons' audacious demonstration of turbine power at the Spithead fleet review in 1897, the Royal Navy began serious talks with the inventor on application of turbines to swift destroyers. The result was HMS Viper (above), the first turbine-powered destroyer. She was capable of 33 kts, an astounding speed in 1899. Unlike her piston-powered rivals, moreover, she was capable of sustained high speeds without terrific noise and vibration. Although Viper was wrecked after only 8 months in service, her phenomenal performance had set the bar for her successors: from then on all British destroyers would rely on Parsons turbines. Moreover, after cautious testing, it was decided to go forward with turbine power for Britain's groundbreaking new all-big-gun battleship, HMS Dreadnought of 1906.
 As can be seen (right), Viper was a low-freeboard craft with little more than a catwalk around the funnels and boiler room vents aft of the diminutive bridge. Far at the stern was a flat deck mounting several 6-pdr guns. At 210' x 21' x 7', Viper displaced 340 tons. Typically for her time, she had a whaleback fo'c'sle deck; this feature and her great speed guaranteed a wet ship, like all early TBs and TBDs. She mounted one QF 12-pdr and five 6-pdr QF guns. Her pair of 18" torpedo tubes was aligned above the rails, one to a side. In her way, Viper was as revolutionary a ship as the later Dreadnought.
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 In the 1890s, having decided on a practicable design and committed to the TBD as its principal anti-TB weapon, the British outbuilt everyone in this category, producing more than 100 destroyers in less than a decade. The last of these were enlarged by some 100 tons and adopted a built-up forecastle deck (left) for improved seakeeping -- a feature actually copied from the most recent destroyers in the German Navy. With the advent of the British River class incorporating these features (1903-4), the modern destroyer type was plainly emerging. Ship sizes had doubled in 10 years, to 550 tons with the first Rivers. The combination of great speed with markedly improved seaworthiness made the new destoyer a clear winner; and the navies of Europe, Japan, South America, and the U.S. soon followed the British lead. The Germans continued to favor somewhat smaller ships through the First World War and the French stuck with their beloved torpilleurs, delaying a bit before joining the stampede to TBDs. German destroyers retained a small well deck between the forecastle head and the bridge (below right); had a stumpy foremast and a much taller main. These features provided immediate visual distinction between German and British destroyers during the impending conflict.
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At right you can appreciate the gap between forecastle and bridge on a pre-WWI German destroyer, referred to above. A glance at the bridgeworks will confirm that this is a much burlier vessel than the Viper. One of her two 3" guns is visible on the forecastle. The torpedo tubes can be seen along both rails, just abaft the #1 funnel. This photo is part of an excellent series of photos from the 1900s by sailors from the XI German destroyer flotilla, now made available online. This series is notable not just for its fine views of the destroyer flotilla and the pre-dreadnought German battle fleet (see below), but for its revealing glimpses into German mariners' daily life.
In addition to torpedo duties with the Fleet, destroyers were unceremoniously tapped for miscellaneous duties during wartime. They soon proved adaptable, well-balanced warships, usually with the speed to escape superior force. Destroyers were soon in use as high-speed minelayers and antisubmarine escort ships. In fact, the speedy torpedo vessels saw more action from day to day than the huge dreadnoughts, which spent much of the War confined to base by fear of submarines and mines. American four-pipers and British "V" and "W" class destroyers became welcome shepherds for the great convoys of merchant ships which cossed the U-boat-infested Atlantic in the later years of WWI (a system successfully instituted by Sir John Jellicoe after his retirement from command of the Grand Fleet). Many of these escort vessels reprised their rôles 20-some years later in the opening phase of WWII, until enough of the newer Fletchers, River class frigates, sub chasers, escort destroyers, and other antisubmarine warfare (ASW) vessels could be built to take their places. |
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A Portfolio of Early Destroyer Photos |
USS Cushing, classic torpedo boat of the 1880s, seen on her trials off Newport, R.I. For an enlarged image, click here.
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IJN Otaka, said to be the first true TBD, built in Britain. Photo is dated 1887.
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HMS Havock, built by Yarrow in 1893, was one of 4 prototype TBDs in the British fleet. They were widely imitated in other navies. The bow tube stands out clearly in this backlit photo. 185' x 18.5' x 7'3", 275 tons; 26 kts. (1) 12-pdr, (3) 6-pdr, (3) 18" torpedo tubes (bow plus 2 deck).
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A typical French torpilleur of the 1890s, easing into a charming Riviera cove near France's great naval base at Toulon. Early French destroyers looked nearly identical to this craft, only about 1/3 larger, with slightly enlarged bridgeworks and a planked flying deck installed some 4 feet above the gunwale, from bridge to stern.
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Artist's conception of destroyers mixing it up during the first months of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904.
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HMS Ranger, early turbine destroyer, photographed at Portsmouth. She shows the clear influence of the Viper; only the placement of the mast and size of the funnels appear different.
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German destroyers practice a high-speed attack run, 1907. The German ships' tall mizzen and stump foremast provided immediate visual distinction from British destroyers.
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Now that's what I call a tight formation! This shot brings to mind eyewitness accounts of masterful maneuvering at breakneck speed when the 2 fleets' scouting forces collided at Jutland; "There was handling of ships in those ten minutes such as never had been dreamed of by seamen before."
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The "tin fish:" The destroyer's deadly weapon being loaded in the torpedo tube. An 18" fish carried a 200-lb warhead of wet guncotton (pyroxylene). Driven by compressed air, the torpedo had an exhaust port in the center of its two counter-rotating propellers.
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Torpedo launched! The exhaust is clearly visible exiting the port amid the cluster of already-spinning propellers. A Type VI weapon of 1906 had a range of 1000 yds (730 m) at 35 kts, and up to 4000 yds (3660 m) at gradually decreasing speed.
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Cutaway diagram of a WWI-era German torpedo.
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Excellent rendering of the WWI German destroyer V-108, as shown on the Digital Navy.com website (recommended browsing!). Schichau class destroyers measured appr. 266' x 29' x 8', carried two 3.5" guns and 8 torpedoes; were capable of 36.5 kts at full throttle.
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Flotilla Leaders |
HMS Swift, 1907: an experimental flotilla leader, or super-destroyer. Displacing 2,170 tons, she mounted four 4" guns and two 18" torpedo tubes; was capable of 35 kts. A one-off, Swift was the size of a medium WWII destroyer (354'9" x 34'2" x 10'6"), but did demonstrate the feasibility of very high speeds using turbine engines. She relied on twin screw while earlier turbine destroyers (from Viper onwards) had all been triple-screw. These features were soon adapted into smaller and more affordable boats, mass-produced in the Royal Navy's buildup for WWI.
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HMS Laertes, c. 1915: a flotilla leader of the L class, brand-new at the time of Jutland. 260' long and 27' wide, she displaced 807 tons; mounted three 4" guns and four 18" torpedo tubes. In action she led a swarm of 22 destroyers. Laertes was in the thick of it during the Battle of Heligoland Bight on August 28, 1914: while leading her flotilla in to attack SMS Mainz, she bore the brunt of a deadly accurate broadside from the German light cruiser's 4.1" guns. Though Mainz was eventually finished off by Adm. Sir Wlliam Goodenough's Town class cruisers, Laertes was hors de combat. After affecting makeshift repairs, she limped home to Harwich for a lengthy stay in the dockyard refitting.
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Advertisement
 Building destroyers was a lucrative specialty business. Yards like Thornycroft and Yarrow provided a very large percentage of the world's destroyers in the pre-dreadnought era. Lesser yards like J.S. White's (above) made a good living from niche marketing. Nor was this pattern limited to Britain: the Italian ad below, typical for its time, gives more than a hint of megalomania as it lines up all ships built and building to make an impressive show. These vintage adverts (and others scattered throughout the site) were originally produced for Jane's Fighting Ships, 1914 edition.
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