Early Steam Powered Torpedo Boats

[CraigH]

With the advent of first the spar torpedo and later, automotive fish torpedo it was theoretically possible for even weak maritime navies to cheaply take on capitol ships. Both the USN and Confederate Navies demonstrated this in combat during the 1860's with some of the earliest versions. Europe watched, learned, and further devoloped these systems for both large ships and small. Later as technologies evolved, the submarine was born.

The Steam Torpedo Boats evolved over time in size, to enhance range, seakeeping, and armament. The first Steam torpedo boats were designed for coastal and harbor defence. Others were designed for deployment from larger ships as a force multiplier. To counter Torpedo Boats, Torpedo Boat Chasers and Destroyers were needed. As the Torpedo Boats increased in size, they evolved into the early "modern" Destroyers (1890's).

This thread will hopefully evolve into a place to deposit and consolidate the pre-WW1 Torpedo Boats, Torpedo Boat Catchers, and Torpedo Boat Destroyers from the 1860's through roughly the end of WW1. The end of the period is defined for torpedo boats with the maturing of the internal combustion engine and the replacement of the steam torpedo boats with Destroyers.

This thread is open to anyone to participate. If anyone feels the urge, add links or repost older artwork.

I'll start with latecomers to the torpedo boat race with the USN.



Craig H

[RegiaMarina1939]

Very very nice work here CraigH. I love old torpedo boats!

[Jackie Treehorn]

Great. Really great. Hope it continues with more T-Boat.

[Rodondo]

OOOOO Once again another treat! I'm not a fan of the colour but I guess it's good camouflague

[Novice]

Oh My!!
Craig you certainly done it, with this awesome thread and excellent drawings
Well done, Sir, and please keep it up, and I urge all, to contribute, please

[BB1987]

May I express a quibble? From an artistic standpoint the drawings are excellent (and we didn't expect any less since your impressive works on Sailing ships and FD subsa and early torpedo boats). However, strictly speaking I do not notice that yout TBDs do not totally abide to shipbucket rules as I do spot many features that are not outlined in black (and some aprts that a first glance appear to be black are not black either), like propeller struts and some portholes.

Do not get me wrong, Its some terrific work and I know that on such small ships outlining very thin features like propeller struts and masts might generate a very "fat" effect like it also happens on sailing ships masts, however I would incourage you trying to achieve a compromise on this matter. After all, Shipbucket is also about challenging ourselves to represent small features while still maintaining our style elements.

[CraigH]

Thanks all! Now to business...

They started off dark gray then back to the drawing board when I found written descriptions (2 of them) indicating green color. A very dark green, probably closer to a black-green. I tend to "scale" colors which lighten them up a lot, they feel more right to my eye than full intensity 1 to 1 color matching.
Note: My color tastes stem from my physical scale modeling background combined with restoring preserved 1800's railroading equipment, combined with 1800's period paint research and paint recreation (from raw materials...don't do it at home, a royal pain). BTW: a LOT of the 1800's paint for railroad equipment was perfect for maritime use.

@BB1987:
I do the black line thing specifically to piss you off Sir!
Actually...I agree with you on the black lines. On all my work I try to use them until the damned things start getting in my way and play havock with structures and proportions.
A problem I run into with a lot of the ships I draw is that they tend toward small ships with a LOT of structures that are less than 3" (7.6cm) thick. I think that was about the dimension of a pixel. This impacts masts, yards, small boat davits, even platforms.
The USN torpedo boats version 1 started off properly outlined. They were barely identifyable uber-green and black blobs. So, I toned down some of the black, omitted some of it so mast tops weren't 23cm in diameter (should be about 7-8cm).


So, I bend drawing rules with care knowing I'll get called on it and that the guys who know the rules also know I know the rules.
Say that really fast, especially if English is not your primary language! Record it and post it on shipbucket!

If anyone has access to drawings for the missing hulls, I'll buy you a beer (or soda if under age, or living in a land that bars booze).
There's some Yarrows and Thornycrofts I want to see. The Germans and French did some cool boats too!

Cheers!

CraigH

[Jackie Treehorn]

Well, I have scanned for hours the net for T-Boat and Destroyer drawings. But, the missing US I also don't have.

In case you start with other Navies, the German ones until the type 1911 are not drawn yet. The boats from type 1911 (V1- S24) to end of WWI are completed by Garlic Design.

[Garlicdesign]

Hi Craig

Style issues aside (I bend the rules whenever I feel like it too), these look excellent. And I am a fan of the green colour. Anything but gray is an aesthetic improvement as far as I am concerned.

The early German TBs are up for grabs, I have no intention to do them anytime soon. Unfortunately, I don't have many drawings of these except very crude ones by Groener (1960s vintage); if it helps, I can scan them.

I also stumbled on a Russian book on British destroyers that contains very detailed line drawings of all different subtypes of the A, B, C and D classes (comprehensive, without exceptions), but the link where scans of all the images are available (a russian site named Wunderwafe.ru) is currently malfunctioning; it was alive and well just yesterday. When (if ever) it's up again, I'll post the link for you; I wanted to draw at least a few of them myself (for a new AU scenario I dreamed up).

Greetings
GD

[odysseus1980]

Like very much to see these early torpedo boats. More please!

BTW checked the site which GD found, seem to be up.