Torpedo ram

A torpedo ram is a type of torpedo boat combining a ram with torpedo tubes. Incorporating design elements from the cruiser and the monitor, it was intended to provide small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other littoral combat. Like a monitor, torpedo rams operated with very little freeboard, sometimes with only inches of hull rising above the water, exposing only their funnels and turrets to enemy fire. In addition to the guns in their turrets, they also were equipped with torpedoes. Early designs incorporated a spar torpedo that could be extended from the bow and detonated by ramming a target. Later designs used tube-launched self-propelled torpedoes, but retained the concept of ramming, resulting in designs like HMS Polyphemus, which had five torpedo tubes, two each port and starboard and one mounted in the center of her reinforced ram bow. The torpedo ram concept came about at a time when the self-propelled torpedo, pioneered by Robert Whitehead, had only just been invented. The earliest self-propelled torpedoes were obviously very powerful weapons, but were very short-ranged and incapable of reaching speeds greater than 10 knots, making them useless against anything but stationary targets. Another result of this was that for a time there was much confusion in naval circles about how best to employ the torpedo. During the 1870s a large number of proposals emerged for torpedo-carrying warships.