Torpedo

Katherine C. Epstein

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780674727403
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

When President Eisenhower referred to the "military–industrial complex" in his 1961 Farewell Address, he summed up in a phrase the merger of government and industry that dominated the Cold War United States. In this bold reappraisal, Katherine Epstein uncovers the origins of the military–industrial complex in the decades preceding World War I, as the United States and Great Britain struggled to perfect a crucial new weapon: the self-propelled torpedo.Torpedoes epitomized the intersection of geopolitics, globalization, and industrialization at the turn of the twentieth century. They threatened to revolutionize naval warfare by upending the delicate balance among the world's naval powers. They were bought and sold in a global marketplace, and they were cutting-edge industrial technologies. Building them, however, required substantial capital investments and close collaboration among scientists, engineers, businessmen, and naval officers. To address these formidable challenges, the U.S. and British navies created a new procurement paradigm: instead of buying finished armaments from the private sector or developing them from scratch at public expense, they began to invest in private-sector research and development. The inventions emerging from torpedo R&D sparked legal battles over intellectual property rights that reshaped national security law.Blending military, legal, and business history with the history of science and technology, Torpedo recasts the role of naval power in the run-up to World War I and exposes how national security can clash with property rights in the modern era.

1

AMERICA’S WEAPONS OF THE WEAK

“The torpedo has become so excessively complicated, that any effort to simplify it must commend itself to all Naval men.”

—BRADLEY FISKE, 1901

Most histories of the US Navy in the 1890s emphasize two events: the publication of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Seapower upon History in 1890 and the Spanish-American War in 1898. The former called for command of the sea through battleship fleets, and the latter demonstrated the ability of heavy naval guns to win an empire at Manila Bay and Santiago Bay. Both fit neatly into a broader narrative that draws a straight line from the emergence of the so-called New Navy of steel vessels in the early 1880s to Woodrow Wilson’s famous call for “a navy second to none” in 1916. If the key props in this story are battleships, then the most important actors are the entities who rationalized information and administration on land just as battleship fleets concentrated power at sea: the Secretary of the Navy, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Naval War College, and the many boards (e.g., First Naval Advisory Board, Second Naval Advisory Board, Naval War Board, Strategy Board, and General Board) that serve as convenient signposts on the Navy’s whiggish march to administrative centralization in most surveys of the subject. This naval narrative has become a staple in broader histories of the period.¹

The story looks very different from the perspective of torpedo development. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Mahan’s book is a footnote at best, and the Spanish-American War might as well not have happened. Battleships play only a supporting role, and the stars are midlevel officers in the Bureau of Ordnance—one of the eight bureaus often cast as enemies of administrative rationalization—who would, in a later time, be called a technocratic elite. The issues confronting them required more technical knowledge than their professional or civilian superiors possessed, but their decisions were not narrowly technical. On the contrary, they had important legal consequences and fundamentally altered the relationship between the American state and society for the purposes of weapons procurement. Of course, the decision makers did not know at the time that they were inventing the modern military-industrial complex. They were just trying to get better torpedoes.

Between 1889 and 1896, two types of torpedo entered the US Navy’s arsenal. In 1889, the Navy ordered fifty Howell torpedoes, required to have a range of 400 yards and a speed of 22.5 knots, from the Hotchkiss Ordnance Company, located in Providence, Rhode Island, which owned the rights.² In 1890 and 1891, the Navy arranged to have a US company, the E. W. Bliss Company of Brooklyn, New York, buy torpedo manufacturing rights from the Whitehead Company. An alternative to purchasing directly from Whitehead, the purpose of this licensing arrangement was to build up a domestic capability to manufacture the torpedoes.³

Why Bliss? The roots of the company went back to the machine-tool industry of New England, and its specialty was metal pressing—excellent preparation for torpedo production. The owner was Eliphalet Williams Bliss. Born in 1836 in Oswego County, New York, he worked for decades in Connecticut’s machine-tool industry before establishing sole ownership of his own firm in Brooklyn in 1885 with $100,000 in capital (4,000 shares at $25 each). After taking over a press-making firm based in Meriden, Connecticut, in 1890, the Bliss Company drew attention from British investors, who purchased a controlling interest, until Bliss bought it back in 1893. The exact timing of the British purchase is unclear, but it almost certainly occurred before the Bliss Company signed its first torpedo contract with the US Navy in May 1891. Thus, even though the Navy acquired torpedoes of domestic manufacture, they were originally manufactured by a foreign-owned company. The Bliss Company may have been right to claim that “What Ford was to the automobile, Bell to sound, Edison to electricity and Carnegie to steel, Bliss was to the Pressed Metal Industry,” but in this case, US industry did not happen without British money, and national security ran up against transnational capital flows.⁴

Torpedoes were not Bliss’s only product, nor indeed his only product for the Navy. In the late 1890, while he negotiated the torpedo contracts, he won a contract to build artillery shells. To carry it out, he incorporated a new firm called the United States Projectile Company, initially capitalized at $500,000 ($125,000 was needed for the new plant alone); it was absorbed by the Bliss Company in 1902. The Bliss Company also turned out a wide array of goods for civilian use, ranging from heavy machinery for industry to utensils for consumers.⁵

After a slow start, US torpedoes developed rapidly during the 1890s. During the first half of the decade, the 200 torpedoes in the Navy’s arsenal changed little. The fifty Howell torpedoes all had a diameter of 14.2 inches and a length ranging from 9.6 feet to 12 feet; the 150 Whitehead torpedoes all had a diameter of 45 centimeters (roughly 18 inches) and a length of 3.55 meters (roughly 12 feet). None of them was required to go more than 800 yards, and their effective range was limited to 500 yards.⁶ In the mid-1890s, however, the Bureau of Ordnance, which had the torpedo portfolio within the Navy Department, began to question whether the United States should continue to manufacture both the Howell and the Whitehead torpedoes, or settle on one. Early in 1896, the chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, W. T. Sampson, turned the question over to the Torpedo Board, a group of officers at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island headed by the commander of the Torpedo Station, George Converse. In reply, the board offered its qualified approval for manufacturing both kinds of torpedo. The Whitehead, it said, was a mature weapon whose only drawbacks were inaccuracy in the horizontal plane and the danger of its air flask exploding; thus the Navy should regard the Whitehead as its standard torpedo. The Howell, in contrast, was not a mature weapon, and it had “serious objectionable features,” primarily the amount of time required to prepare it for launch and the use of steam and exhaust pipes to spin its flywheel. On the plus side, however, the Howell was accurate in the horizontal plane due to the gyroscopic force exerted by its spinning flywheel, and this feature alone was sufficient to warrant its continued manufacture and development, though on a limited basis.⁷

The Torpedo Board further recommended improvements in the performance of the Howell and Whitehead torpedoes, which required larger sizes. The Hotchkiss Ordnance Company, which owned the Howell torpedo, had recently developed an experimental torpedo with an 18-inch diameter, and the board recommended that the bureau manufacture it alone, for use aboard large ships, thus dispensing with the older 14.2-inch model. The board also renewed its recommendation, first made in September 1895, that the bureau begin developing a 5-meter, as opposed to 3.55-meter, Whitehead torpedo for use aboard ships larger than torpedo boats.⁸

The bureau acted quickly on the board’s recommendations. Early in 1896, Sampson began negotiating with the Hotchkiss Ordnance Company for an 18-inch Howell torpedo. Three rounds of tests with the new model revealed a consistent flaw: the motor was unable to spin the flywheel in the required amount of time with the required amount of pressure. Perhaps discouraged by the results, Sampson asked the American Ordnance Company (which had taken over the rights to the Howell torpedo from the Hotchkiss Ordnance Company) to submit a bid for a lot of thirty-five 14.2-inch torpedoes. Specifications were drawn up, and on January 19, 1897, Sampson recommended to the Secretary of the Navy that the department make the purchase. Sampson even sent the contract to the printers.⁹

That was as far as it got. A week later, Secretary of the Navy Hilary Herbert had a conversation with Sampson in which he expressed doubts about the value of the Howell torpedo. “Evidently,” Sampson speculated, “he had been listening to the opinions of some people who were averse to the use of the Howell torpedo.”¹⁰ Sampson urged him to appoint a board to report on the subject, which the secretary promptly did. It became known as the Miller Board, after its president, Merrill Miller, with the commander of the Torpedo Station (Converse) and the chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence serving as the other two members. The mandate of the board was essentially the same as that given to the Torpedo Board by Sampson in January 1896, when the latter board had recommended the continued development of both the Whitehead and the Howell torpedoes.

The Miller Board reached a different conclusion, delivering its report in February 1897. It noted that the time required to spin the flywheel and prepare the Howell for launch constrained its usefulness and that it could not be adapted for submerged discharge. As presently developed, therefore, the Whitehead was superior. Looking to future development, the board focused on the issue of propulsion, arguing that no matter how perfected the method, the Howell’s reliance on the stored energy of the flywheel would limit it far more than the Whitehead’s reliance on compressed air. Moreover, if a new device, the Obry gyroscope proved successful, one of the chief disadvantages of the Whitehead—its lack of accuracy in the horizontal plane—relative to the Howell would disappear, and the Whitehead’s superiority would become even more marked. Based on the board’s recommendations, Herbert ordered Sampson to prepare an order discontinuing the manufacture of Howell torpedoes.¹¹

The Whitehead Torpedo and the Obry Gyroscope

Meanwhile, the Whitehead was running into its own problems, which illustrated the difficulty of procuring rapidly changing technology in a global market. In February 1896, at the same time the Torpedo Board recommended the continued manufacture of both the Howell and Whitehead torpedoes, it also recommended the development of a new, longer (5-meter instead of 3.55-meter) Whitehead torpedo. Within weeks of receiving the report, Sampson negotiated a preliminary deal for 100 “long” Whitehead torpedoes. In June 1896, however, a hitch arose over the speed requirement for the new torpedoes. The Torpedo Board had recommended that the minimum be set at 28.5 knots for 800 yards, but the Bliss Company protested that its information from the Whitehead Company said that the minimum should be a half-knot lower. In August, Sampson proposed an unorthodox compromise: the speed requirement should be set at either the highest obtained by comparable torpedoes abroad or at the average speed of the first five long torpedoes built by the Bliss Company. The company accepted the offer and it was embodied in the specifications. The bureau ordered 100 long torpedoes on October 21, 1896; these became known as the 5-meter Mark I torpedoes. Over the next several months, the bureau purchased an additional fifty-nine short torpedoes, which became known as the 3.55-meter Mark III torpedoes.¹²

Production of these 159 torpedoes intersected with a significant new piece of torpedo technology: the Obry gyroscope (named after its inventor, Ludwig Obry). Just over a month before the bureau ordered the Mark III and Mark I torpedoes, the Whitehead Company sent a circular to the US naval attaché in Berlin announcing that it had acquired the rights to the Obry gyroscope, which allowed accurate shooting up to 2,000 meters. About a week after receiving the letter, the Navy Department ordered a board, which became known as the Fiume Commission, to visit the Whitehead factory at Fiume and report on the gyroscope. Bureau officials alerted the Bliss Company of these developments and notified it that the department might wish to put the gyroscopes in the torpedoes about to be ordered. The company promptly replied that it had written to the Whitehead Company for information, and its chief engineer, F. M. Leavitt, unofficially opined that “[i]f the device pans out as well as the reports seem to show it would appear that it ought to be put in all the torpedoes in the service.” Roughly two weeks after the department had received the Whitehead Company’s offer, the Bliss Company reported that it had secured the rights to manufacture the Obry gyroscope in the United States (although negotiations over the exact terms continued). Buoyed by his correspondence with Leavitt and without waiting for the report of the Fiume Commission, the commander of the Torpedo Station (Converse) recommended that the Navy immediately procure two sample Obry gyroscopes for experimental purposes.¹³

The commission reported enthusiastically on December 10, 1896, that the Obry offered “marked advantages” to torpedoes, increasing their effective range by as much as 50 percent, and repeated Converse’s recommendation that two sample gyroscopes be ordered immediately. A month later, the Torpedo Board endorsed the Fiume Commission’s recommendations. The commission also enclosed a letter from the Whitehead Company dated December 9, 1896, offering three different purchasing arrangements: the Navy could buy the gyroscopes directly from the Whitehead Company at £50 (approximately $250) each, including royalty; it could buy the rights and manufacture them through the Bliss Company for a royalty of £30 (approximately $150) each; or, instead of paying a royalty per gyroscope, it could pay one lump sum for all time of £15,000 (approximately $75,000). The department chose the second option, and it ordered three sample gyroscopes.¹⁴

Both the Bliss Company and the Navy found dealing with the Whitehead Company frustrating. The Navy had been under the impression that if the sample gyroscopes were ordered quickly—as they were, in January 1897—the Whitehead Company could deliver them within ninety days. Ninety days came and went, and from March to May 1897, the correspondence between the bureau and the Bliss Company was peppered with queries by the former about when the sample gyroscopes would arrive and when the negotiations over the precise terms of manufacture would be concluded, and assurances by the latter that it was doing everything it could to hurry the Whitehead Company. Converse speculated that the delay “would indicate that either Mr. Whitehead is unusually slow in perfecting the device or else,” more sinisterly, “he is not in haste to send the apparatus to this country.” A sample finally arrived in mid-July. After familiarizing itself with the gyroscope, the Bliss Company put it in a torpedo, and trials began in early August 1897.¹⁵

In the meantime, a different question had to be settled about the 100 long torpedoes ordered in October 1896: their speed. In December 1896, the Bliss Company asked the bureau for a decision, offering to accept a speed of 26.5 knots, which the bureau’s inspector of ordnance at the company considered reasonable. Sampson referred the question to the Torpedo Board and asked the Office of Naval Intelligence to collect information on what was required of 5-meter torpedoes abroad. That information only confused the situation further, because foreign navies used several different types of 5-meter torpedoes. As for the other way of determining the speed requirement, averaging the speed of the first five 5-meter torpedoes, the Bliss Company was not ready for speed trials until mid-April 1897 because of delays in the procurement of forgings for the torpedo air flasks. Once these trials were concluded, the Torpedo Speed Board—not to be confused with the regular Torpedo Board—delivered its report. Based on information from abroad and from the trials, the Speed Board recommended that the speed requirement be set at 28 knots for 800 yards, and the bureau agreed. Novel (and messy) contracting arrangements were necessary to deal with complex new technology.¹⁶

In another illustration of the same difficulty, just as the speed question was closed, the question of how the Obry gyroscope would affect the specifications and requirements for the 159 long and short torpedoes under contract opened. On June 21, 1897, E. W. Bliss himself wrote to the department to explain his...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Epigraph
• Introduction
• 1. America’s Weapons of the Weak
• 2. Britain’s Weapons of the Strong
• 3. The US Navy and the Emergence of Command Technology
• 4. The Royal Navy and the Quest for Reach
• 5. Command Technology on Trial in the United States
• 6. A Very Bad Gap in Britain
• Conclusion
• Abbreviations
• Archival Sources
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index