The bows, waterline and bulkheads were riddled. A real torpedo boat would most likely have been driven under by the force of incoming water. The two shots which pierced the hull, all the bulkheads and the boiler plate show how vulnerable these frail craft were, and each of these two hits would have led to the loss of a real boat through boiler explosion. Grusonwerke, in their printed report of the trials, commented that this was the result of just one gun firing. In battle the torpedo boat would have come under a hail of fire from an entire battery of quick-firers ranged on the broadside of the target vessel. And Gruson offered two bigger quick-firers to customers who demanded even more.
A large replica of a torpedo boat was built at Shoeburyness and in 1889 and then again in 1894/5 was used as a target for various calibres. The conclusions drawn from these trials were:
1pdr shells were found ineffective;
3pdr shells were ineffective in bows-on shots, often glancing off, or bursting long before they reached a vital area;
6pdr rounds did better, but only the 12pdr could be relied upon to stop a torpedo boat with one hit.
In 1906 the old destroyer Skate was used as a target. With the larger target vessel it was found that at least a 4in gun, with its 25lb shell, was needed to guarantee stopping an attacker.
SEARCHLIGHTS
At night, at anchor, or in poor visibility, the advantage could swing decisively in favour of the determined crew of a torpedo boat. In such circumstances, active lookouts or patrolling picket boats could help warn of the approach of an enemy torpedo boat. Fending it off, however, would remain difficult if not impossible, and the target vessel would be forced to rely on its passive defences. Early torpedo craft were traditionally painted black, for protection at night. Ironically, this paint scheme, under certain conditions of half-light or moonlight, tended to make them stand out more clearly than a vessel painted in grey, and grey paint tended to replace black in most navies during the First World War.
Searchlights were first used in action when the French flotilla repelled an attack by Chinese spar torpedo boats on the night of 23/24 August 1884 off Foochow. The use of searchlights offered possibilities but also severe disadvantages. If the night was very dark, unmasking a searchlight would serve to pinpoint the vessel being stalked by torpedo craft. Not unmasking would rob one’s gunners of the ability to riposte accurately. Searchlight discipline was therefore of crucial importance, and was eventually brought to a fine art in the German and Japanese navies: the Imperial Russian navy was sadly lacking in this respect and paid heavily. An accurately aimed searchlight beam could blind the crew of an attacking torpedo boat, but then the attackers could try to shoot out the searchlight with one of their own machine guns.
Ironically, the torpedo boat builders’ preoccupation with speed was of less value at night, when a boat coming in at more than 20 knots would betray her presence, if not by her bow wave and the noise of her high-revving engines, then by the huge glow from her funnel(s).
EFFECTIVE ANTI-TORPEDO BOAT GUN CALIBRES
As torpedo boats were supplanted by torpedo boat destroyers, it was felt that a larger gun than the 12pdr was necessary, so the anti-torpedo boat armament of capital ships and cruisers was upped to 4in calibre (105mm in German ships) and to the 5in/51 in USN vessels.
Even this calibre was felt inadequate during the First World War, and super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy and German navy opted for the large 6in or 5.9cm guns respectively. This weapon was at the limit of quick-firing by hand loading, and the weight of the gun necessitated mounting them relatively low on the broadside, limiting their effectiveness in anything but calm seas. The French, and the Russian navy who copied the French example, were the first to mount their 5.5in and 6in guns in turrets, but the Tsesarevich and the Russian copies of the Borodino class carried their 3in anti-torpedo boat guns far too low in the hull.
During the Second World War there was a reversion to smaller quick-firers to deal with the high speed German S-boats (or E-boats as they were known in Britain, standing for ‘enemy motor boats’) and Italian MAS boats. The much-maligned 2pdr anti-aircraft gun was felt to be ideal for the task, and it was even fitted to single power-operated mountings.
For the British the anti-torpedo boat armament par excellence, however, must have been the twin 6pdr, an army twin mounting for coastal defence, which had wrought such havoc on Decima MAS during their attack on Grand Harbour, Malta. These 57mm guns had a high rate of fire of eighteen rounds per minute apiece, and their high explosive shells were quite adequate for disabling or destroying an S-boat. Several complete army mountings were fitted to old ‘V’ and ‘W’-class escort destroyers and two destroyer leaders, in place of ‘A’ gun, to counter E-boats in the North Sea and the east coast.
ESCORT VESSELS
The best active defence against the torpedo boat was, of course, a similar vessel but bigger and better-armed than the torpedo boat, to protect the capital ship from its tiny adversary by keeping the latter outside of torpedo-firing range. The first developments of this nature were the ‘torpedo boat catchers’, basically a diminutive of the cruiser type. When armed with torpedo tubes of their own they were reclassified as ‘torpedo gunboats’ (or even ‘torpedo cruisers’), and they appeared in the early 1890s in several navies. These handy vessels were well armed, with guns up to 4.7in (12cm), but with one exception — the appropriately named HMS Speedy built by Thornycroft in 1893 — none managed more than 19 knots. In this the RN boats were misconstrued as needing the speed to chase torpedo boats, and were therefore prejudged as failures — whereas, in fact, their extra size and increased freeboard meant they could fulfil their planned role, of keeping the seas in bad weather to blockade French ports which were nests for the French torpedo boats. Most were later converted to minesweepers or depot ships.
Eventually, of course, it was realised that — just as the best gamekeeper is an ex-poacher — the best defence against the torpedo boat was one of its own kind, but larger and even faster. Thus was born the ‘torpedo-boat destroyer’, which was soon shortened to simply ‘destroyer’.
These powerful vessels were multi-tasked, being able to fend off attacking torpedo craft, but also to carry out torpedo attacks of their own on the enemy battle line. Their tasks were later expanded to try to counter the threat of the submarine, although their specialisation as highspeed torpedo attack vessels detracted from their effectiveness in the latter role, which was best left to specialised anti-submarine vessels such as sloops, corvettes and frigates.
