Torpedo nets

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Torpedo net placed on an Austrian battleship.

Torpedo nets were a passive naval warship defensive device against Torpedoes, whose use was common practice during a short period from 1890 to 1916 during the battleship era.

1 Origins
2 Design and use
3 Decline
4 References

[edit] Origins

Following the introduction of the Whitehead Torpedo, in 1873 and later the development of the Torpedo boat, new means were sought to protect Capital ships against attack by this new weapon. In 1876 the British Admiralty Torpedo Committee came up with a number of recommendations for combatting torpedoes which included "... nets of galvanised iron hung around each battleship from projecting 40ft spars" ^[1]. Experiments were conducted in 1877 with HMS Thunderer being the first operational ship to be fitted with the nets.

The early nets referred to as the "Bullivant type" after the London based company that produced them were constructed from six and half inch diameter (150 mm) steel hoops linked by smaller hoops to form a mesh, with a weight of approximately one pound per square foot (5 kg/m²). These were projected out from the sides of the ship on forty foot long (12 m) wooden poles. Extensive tests were conducted, with the nets proving capable of stopping the contemporary 14 inch (350 mm) diameter torpedo without being damaged. A 16 inch torpedo with a 91 pound warhead (41 kg) proved capable of causing limited damage to the net.

A heavier net was introduced in 1894 with consisting of two and a half inch (63 mm) hoops with a weight of five pounders per square foot (25 kg/m²).

The adoption of these nets resulted in the introduction of the Torpedo net cutter to the nose of torpedoes, either in the form of scissors in Japanese designs or a French pistol powered version. However later heavier, denser nets used by the German and British navies were regarded as "torpedo proof".

[edit] Design and use

In addition to new tactical measures (e.g., greater harbor security and rotation of moored vessels out to sea), beginning in 1904 major navies sought a device for protection against torpedo boat attack. Torpedo nets were the favored solution. These were heavy steel mesh nets that could be hung out from the defending ship, when moored or otherwise stationary in the water, on multiple horizontal steel booms. Each boom was fixed to the ship at on one end, and booms were so fixed at intervals at or below the edge of the main deck, by steel pins that permitted the booms to be swung against the ship and secured when the ship sailed. When the ship was moored, the free ends of the booms could be swung out, with the net hung on the outer ends, thus suspending the net at a distance from the ship equal to the length of the boom, all around the ship. With the net mounted, a torpedo aimed at the ship would hit the mesh net on the way to the ship and explode at a sufficient distance from the hull to avoid serious explosion damage to the ship.

[edit] Decline

Torpedo nets were largely abandoned after the 1916 Battle of Jutland (known in Germany as the Battle of the Skaggerak) in World War I showed that they could get tangled in the propellor when damaged by naval artillery fire. Also, major navies had already begun deploying a new class of warship named the torpedo boat destroyer (later shortened to simply "destroyer"). After the destroyer's successes against torpedo boats and the latter's demise as a tactical weapon, destroyers were primarily targeted against submarines, the use for which they are best known today.