LOL! Good sleuthing--but that is me! And the description of the "bolt" in that nascent article (when I had far less info) I now recognize as totally incorrect. I actually need to yank that offline.
Here are two images that may help clarify my descriptions. The 1873 torpedo has very deep grooves and prominent lands--almost to the point of looking like twisted rope. It measures seven feet in length, which will give an idea of the size of its twin exhaust vents. The 1862 torpedo probably used...
Unfortunately not. That would be an indication of how much gas was being allowed to escape. Patents of other torpedoes, strangely, have what look like excellent engineering drawings--but which carry no hint of scale! Eyeballing suggests a 1" exhaust. Best I can do is wait for a contact at the...
Welcome to the mystery! Regarding nomenclature, this is a time when the standard phrases were not yet fixed and old words were being used in a new way. "Torpedo" had been static, and mostly was during the Civil War, but the original use (in the 1810s) was a sea mine detonated by electricity...
The torp is launched underwater from a preflooded tube, loaded with rocket composition. This is very much like modern model rocket solid fuel (just black powder packed to double density). It doesn't explode, just burns slowly to generate loads of gas (16.5 cubic inches per gram)--about 471 times...
12" diameter, nose rounded or half ovoid; no taper, no fins. Body of torpedo was grooved or channeled with six helical flat surfaces designed to maintain spin as water flowed past; initial spin (in the tube) was via a half dozen lateral vents. No pictures exist . . .
Baluncore: You won;t find much about this in print until I finish the book! The inventor was Major Edward B. Hunt, an accomplished and much-respected scientist before and during the war. His overall weapons "system" was called a "Sea Miner," and launched a solid-nosed, non-explosive kinetic...
The inventor himself never made such a claim, as he died in the final stage of trials. The claim was made by fellow scientists who had worked with him. These were not your typical Civil War era crackpots, but among the most respected scientists in the US at the time (Twining and Trowbridge). The...
OK, humanities guy here trying to puzzle out some possibilities for a forgotten weapon from 1863. I have an early brass torpedo measuring 72" long and, after boring out the inside, carving some channels in the outside and hollowing out part of the nose, weighs in at 480 lbs (with fuel; 274 lbs...