A Turbine Torpedo.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 10, 1 August 1906, Page 271

A Turbine Torpedo.

The application of the turbine principle to the propulsion of torpedoes has apparently been effected with great success in the Bhss-Leavitt invention, which is to supersede the Howell and the Whitehead torpedoes m the United States Navy. In its general form and arrangement the BhssLeavitt torpedo is very like the Whitehead. Its distinguishing features are the use of the turbine principle, not only in the propelling engine, but also in the gear for steering by the vertical rudders. The main engine is a compound air turbine, running at a much higher rate of speed and developing higher power than the old reciprocating torpedo engine. The iBin. Whitehead has a speed of twenty-seven to twenty-eight knots at 1,200 yards' range, falling to about twenty-two at 2,000, which is near the limit of its effective range. The BlissLea vitt has a speed of thirty-six knots at 1,200 yards, and still has a speed of twenty-eight at 3,500. Up to this range it can make good practice, which means that a ship armed with this torpedo could sink an enemy about 2 miles away, fart of this great increase in speed and range is due to a device for increasing the working tension of the compressed air by heating it. This is effected by means of a spirit lamp or stove, which is lighted automatically in the air chamber the moment the torpedo is discharged. There are two main types of turbines. In one, the most usual kind, the steam, air, or water acts by impinging upon blades attached to the shaft that is to be rotated. The other depends upon reaction. Its oldest form is Hero of Alexandria's little engine revolving under the backward drive of jets of steam escaping from points on its'circumference. There is a remarkable application of the second kind of turbine in the Bliss-Leavitt. In the Whitehead the rudder is controlled by! the Obry gyrostat gear. The gyrostat, a heavy wheel revolving at high speed, and always keeping the same plane of direction, is set running by the release of a powerful coiled spring at the moment when the torpedo is discharged.

iB,ooo Revolutions .a Minute. "In the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo the gyrostat principle is also used to control the steering, but there is no spring to start the revolving disc or wheel. The disc is hollow, and has a number of small nozzles opening from its circumference, each nozzle being at the end of a tube which projects like the spokes of a wheel, but in the line of tangent to the circumference, or forming a right angle with the radius. Compressed air passes into the interior of the disc and escapes m jets from the nozzles, and the result is that the disc is driven round in the reverse direction to the escape of the air. It is claimed that its velocity rises to 18,000 revolutions per minute. The device may be called a turbine-gyrostat, and will doubtless have other useful applications found for it. Driven at this high speed the revolving disc would require an enormous force to divert it from its original course. After prolonged tests at Newport News, earned out so secretly that even the übiquitous Yankee reporter heard nothing of them, the United States Navy adopted the Bliss-Leavitt as its service torpedo. Two hundred are now being manuffactured, half of them of the 18m. diameter type, and the rest of 2iin. diameter. The largest torpedoes in our navy are the 18m Whiteheads. The 21m. Bliss-Leavitt carrying an increased charge of guncotton, will be the most powerful torpedo in any navy. Its guaranteed range is 3,500 yards, but it has been run .over 4,000 m the test trials. The only torpedoes above 18m. in diameter that have yet been made /anywhere were a .set of ten 24m. Whiteheads manufactured for the Japanese Government just before the war. But it is believed that these were intended to be discharged from tubes mounted on land m connection with the defences at the narrow entrance to 'the Island Sea. The 21 in. Bliss-Leavitt is apparently intended for use on shipboard. As no naval Power will allow another to get ahead of it in armaments we may be sure that we shall soon hear of an increase in the size of the Whitehead in European navies, even if they do not follow the example of the United States and try to obtain a weapon like the Bliss-Leavitt.