In the early morning of November 1, 1918, the flagship of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the Austro-Hungarian Navy’s flagship "Joint Force" was hit and sunk by a torpedo fired by a former friendly Italy in the port of Bora. Although for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is about to surrender in just three days, the gains and losses of a warship are of little significance at this time, but the attack has opened a prelude to the gradual "growth" of a crazy weapon. It was the manned torpedo known as Leech that attacked the Joint Force, but as the war was about to end, this weapon did not attract enough attention.
torpedo is an underwater weapon that relies on collision with enemy ships to produce explosions. It was invented in 1866. It was recognized as the second main naval weapon after naval guns during World War I. The accuracy of the torpedoes during World War I was poor, and the trajectory of the torpedoes in the water was also easy for the enemy to be spotted and evasive actions were made. In 1918, two Italians removed the warhead of the original torpedo, replaced it with a detachable magnetic warhead, and converted the first manned torpedo. They drove this torpedo and made the first manned torpedo. The result of the battle. However, the operation of this torpedo is very primitive, and the way to adjust the direction is to push it by hand. It is a real "manned" torpedo.
In 1935, two Italian engineers put forward the idea of a large-scale manned torpedo, and in early 1940 they successfully developed the "Pig Root". The sailing speed of the pig can reach 4.5 knots (but the speed is generally kept below 3 knots). Compared with the leech, the driving posture of the pig is more comfortable, and two passengers can ride on the torpedo. The pigs are launched by submarine like ordinary torpedoes, and then the magnetic warhead is installed on the bottom of the ship by the crew to detonate, and the rest of the torpedo will carry the crew to escape.
After four setbacks, the fifth operation of the "Pig" finally achieved results. The three Italian "Pigs" driving group followed the destroyer returning to the port to sneak into Alexandria and follow The principle of "picking a big bomb must not lose money" severely damaged two British naval battleships anchored in Alexandria and sank an oil tanker.
Soon after, the British army developed its own manned torpedo based on the captured "Pigs" and named it "Chariot", hoping to sink the "Lonely Queen of the North" Tirbitz Battleship. The German army made improvements to the manned torpedo, adopting a fully enclosed cockpit, and for the first time successfully allowed the crew to sit in the torpedo to operate the torpedo. However, this torpedo does not reflect the "exquisite German craftsmanship" with a high failure rate. Many German manned torpedoes have a lot of faults and their escape systems have failed, making the manned torpedoes become artificial reefs before they even see the enemy.
Later, the Italian manned torpedo technology spread to Japan, and the meaning of the manned torpedo completely changed. At the end of the road, Japan cancelled the original escape device in the late-type manned torpedo, increased the explosive load to 1 ton, and was named "Huitian". Due to the extremely high charge, the torpedo can only carry one crew member. After departure, the crew member can only rush to the U.S. ship and die with the U.S. military, or die in the sea due to lack of oxygen or starvation. Later, out of "humane" considerations, it is allowed. When the crew ran out of fuel and could not find the US ship, they activated the self-destruct system and died in the sea. However, the end of Japan's failure is the inevitable outcome of history. Whether it is the Kamikaze suicide plane or the Huitian submarine, it is just a dying struggle of militarism, and countless lives have been lost in vain.
Whether it is Italy, the United Kingdom, or Germany, their manned torpedoes are essentially water-borne vehicles transformed from torpedoes. The occupants need to manually install explosives and escape. The manned torpedo in these countries is just an ordinary weapon and cannot be equated to a suicide torpedo. Only in Japan did the manned torpedo become a suicide weapon. (Thanks/flying against the wind)
