US217011A - kka kb - Google Patents

Description

H. F. KNAPP; Marine-Torpedo.

Patented July 1, 1879.,

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Specification fonm ing i'pantof- Lietters Patent N0. 21%";03 1, dalted'd u ly .1, 1879; application *ii-"led April 6, 1878.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY F. KNAPP, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Ofiensive Automatic Torpedoes, of which the following is a specification.

This torpedo is designed'for passing under the guardnetting and booms encircling a warship, and exploding beneath her bottom, and thereby render futile any of the present modes or means for protecting a vessel from torpedoes. This object isaccomplished by the'explosive torpedo sinking beneath the watersurface as soon as the apparatus touches the netting, &c., and as soon as it has passed under the netting it immediately rises with great speed and strikes directly under the ships bottom and explodes, the passage of the netting being effected as it sinks and rises.

For fuller description I will explain by detail, reference being had to the accompanying 7 connected by a light cord of some hundreds of feet in length, so as to embrace a great sweep) against the booms or netting of a ship, when sliding arms H, arranged with the arc of a circle, H, at their outer ends, and also having vertical arms, to insure striking the booms, &c., are made thereby to trip B, and the torpedo T sinks by its own weight toward the bottom.

T represents an explosivetorpedo, to which is firmly attached an air-chamber, O, in which, again, is a compressedair chamber, 0, having a stop-cock, K, which stop-cock is opened by a lever-rod, K, striking on the bed-bottom when the torpedo sinks; or, if the water is of great depth, it is opened by a line attachment 7 raising the rod K, and thereby allows the K" in torpedo T, through which column also passes the rod K.

By the air displacing the water in chamber 0 the apparatus becomes specifically much lighter than water, and consequently immediately rises upward toward the surface with proportionate speed, and by the action of the current drifting it horizontally during its vertical movements it will pass under the netting around a ship, and rise up under the ships bottom, when rod F, arranged in air-tight tube F" of chamber 0, collides with the ships bottom, and is made thereby to pierce percussion F of the torpedo, which explodes at the most fatal part of the ship--viz., directly under her bottom.

It is always best to operate this apparatus in pairs, tied together by a string having a sweep of several hundreds of feet, so that as they move down with the current this string will be most certain to sweep against the an chor-cable of the ship, when the two torpedoes will gradually swing in toward the sides of the ship, when, as before described, catch B is tripped, and the torpedo sinks until the slack is taken out of line D, attached by one end to the float, and by the other end to the rod K, which thereby opens compressed-air cock K, and causes the torpedo to immediately come toward the surface, 850. The drift of these floats may to some extent be controlled by a line in certain cases; also,it might be possible in some cases to discard the float and carry the remaining part of the apparatus on a boat-spar, self-propelling apparatus, 850.

W represents the water-line surface, and the connecting-line, when the apparatus is used in i and hang onto the netting which the apparatus strikes. 7 I

The torpedo apparatus may be worked to advantage in some cases without the float, by being sunk ordeposited on the bottom in a channel-way, and at the proper time the cock of -the compres'serhair chamber may be opened by pulling a line, by electricity, or simi lar means, and thereby cause the torpedo to rise to the surface, as before described.

What I claim, and desire to secure by Let ters Patent, is- I 1. A movable torpedo provided with air compartments, and a chamber of compressed 5. A float carrying a reel of line, in combination with an automatic exploding apparatus, to which the other end of the line is attached, substantiallyas described.

6. The combination of float S, line D, lever K, and compressed-air chamber 0 with the torpedo, substantially as described.

HENRY F. KNAPP.

Witnesses:-

S. FRANK OROCKETT, S. N. SEVERANCE.

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