Shipbucket

I've recently begun work on an AU (with some help and advice from a senior SB member) focusing on the late 1870's and early 1880's and which will be progressing along at a rather slow pace reaching the late 40's before it ends. It centers around an independent French Canada taking up most of the current provinces of Labrador, Newfoundland, Quebec and Ontario.

For the earliest ships, I need some good reference drawings on broadside mounts for early breech loading guns and for early torpedo carriages. If anyone has any access to such drawings/photos, I would be greatly appreciative.

There really weren't much to early torpedo launchers. They looked pretty much like their later cousins-
Here's an example of a typical above water tube


Of course there were also a number of interesting methods, mostly used on small craft like this side dropping arrangement.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

I was looking for the very early methods of dropping the torpedoes, much more like the illustration in your post as opposed to the above water tube on the Norwegian (IIRC) torpedo boat. I'm looking for the earliest fixed torpedo launchers that anyone can find info for.

Thanks for that diagram, BTW- that mechanism will show up on some of my small fry!

The earliest launch mechanism would be submerged tubes.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

Is my drawing of a Thornycroft 2nd Cl. Torpedo boat useful? Here's the link:

http://shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Re ... 882-89.png

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

A prime example of the side dropper.
Also, this is how the torpedoes themselves looked in 1875.

As far as I'm aware it's an unmodified Whitehead/Fiume torpedo

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

bezobrazov,
Indeed, it is VERY useful! I'm hoping that some of my research for this leads me to find some drawings of early French torpedo boats, so I can do them while I'm at it.

Thiel,
Thanks for another useful drawing. I've found a couple of sites that show good measurements on the early torps (in their various lengths and diameters), but good illustrations are kind of hard to come by.

It was the first torpedo in RDN service.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

You're welcome, friend! As you may have noticed the drop carriage torpedoes are of the same shape as the Whitehead type, supplied by Thiel.

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

I did something similar to bezobrazov's, the torpedoes are slightly smaller though, these torpedoes where marginally smaller in Real life I believe

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z41 ... sioner.png

also these had really small torpedoes

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/z41 ... Nepean.png

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