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ORIGIN Major navies adopted torpedo nets following the dramatic success of the Imperial Japanese Navy's torpedo boat attack on the Russian Far East Fleet in Port Arthur (Dairen), China, which launched the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Japanese torpedo boats, relatively small and very fast surface vessels presenting a small silhouette, in a sneak attack entered the harbor and fired torpedoes from deck launchers that destroyed the major ships of the moored Russian Far East Fleet. When the news circulated, the great power navies of the time sought means to protect their warships from such attack. DESIGN AND USE In addition to new tactical measures (e.g., greater harbor security and rotation of moored vessels out to sea), beginning in 1904 major navies sought a device for protection against torpedo boat attack. Torpedo nets were the favored solution. These were heavy steel mesh nets that could be hung out from the defending ship, when moored or otherwise stationary in the water, on multiple horizontal steel booms. Each boom was fixed to the ship at on one end, and booms were so fixed at intervals at or below the edge of the main deck, by steel pins that permitted the booms to be swung against the ship and secured when the ship sailed. When the ship was moored, the free ends of the booms could be swung out, with the net hung on the outer ends, thus suspending the net at a distance from the ship equal to the length of the boom, all around the ship. With the net mounted, a torpedo aimed at the ship would hit the mesh net on the way to the ship and explode at a sufficient distance from the hull to avoid serious explosion damage to the ship. DECLINE Torpedo nets were largely abandoned after the 1916 Battle Of Jutland (known in Germany as the Battle of the Skaggerak) in World War I showed that they could be dangerous when the ship carrying the torpedo nets was bombarded with naval artillery fire. Also, major navies had already begun deploying a new class of warship named the torpedo boat destroyer (later shortened to simply "destroyer"). After the destroyer's successes against torpedo boats and the latter's demise as a tactical weapon, destroyers were primarily targeted against submarines, the use for which they are best known today. |
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