Then there's the issue of hit rate. The hit rate of torpedoes fired at 400 meters, at that time the British Navy used still water artillery and torpedoes to shoot fixed targets separately for comparative testing, at a distance of 450 meters, the artillery target hit rate of 40%, at a distance of 225 meters, the hit rate of 100%. At a distance of 450 meters, the hit rate of the torpedo is only 25%, and it will be more difficult to hit if it hits an active target in real combat. The conclusion of the comparison is that even if there is an error of 2 knots in the accuracy of the enemy's ship, the speed of the shells can be estimated to be almost the same because of the very high flight speed of the shells. But the speed of the torpedo in the water is much slower than that of a shell, and the slightest deviation in observation and aiming makes it difficult to hit. In addition to the disadvantages of the short effective range, some scholars have also listed four difficulties in the use of torpedoes in their monographs, believing that the turbulence of the lightning strike ship itself, the surge of wind and waves, the smooth and negative tide, and the swells caused by the enemy ship will all cause the deviation of the torpedo course.

The black-headed torpedoes fired by the "Demolition" mine-strike ship were like a white drill in the sea, speeding straight at the side of "Mt. Fuji." Seeing the torpedoes speeding through the water, many of the Satsuma sailors on the "Mt. Fuji" had a look of horror on their faces.

Many of them had seen a torpedo launch for the first time, and by this time they could already see that their "Mt. Fuji" was already difficult to avoid the speeding torpedo.

But at this time, it was as if Amaterasu was favoring the "Mt. Fuji", and the "Mt. Fuji" suddenly turned sharply in the opposite direction, and turned into a head-on torpedo situation!

This was actually a move by the captain of the "Mt. Fuji" Shichiro Kataoka in a hurry to survive when he saw a torpedo speeding towards him. The "Mt. Fuji" is no longer avoidable. Suddenly rushed into the wheelhouse like crazy. Pushing away the helmsman and turning the rudder at high speed, under his control, the huge rudder blades under the stern of the "Mt. Fuji" struggled to change direction, and the "Mt. Fuji" turned to meet the bow of the torpedo, and the bow of the ship stirred up a large wave of waves.

This is when the miracle happened.

At the moment when the torpedo was about to hit the "Mt. Fuji," it was pushed away by the waves stirred up by the bow of the "Mt. Fuji," and the torpedo fired by the "blasting" quantum was less than 1 meter away from the port side of the "Mt. Fuji."

Heihachiro Togo watched this thrilling scene. A heart almost jumped out of his chest, and all the officers and men of the Satsuma Navy on the deck of the "Mt. Fuji" who witnessed this passage could not help but break out in a cold sweat, because this method of avoiding torpedoes was too risky.

"This is the most dangerous and terrible way to dodge torpedoes...... The slightest mistake in operation will inevitably lead to sinking. Heihachiro Togo later recalled, "When the torpedoes fired by the enemy ship were speeding like a meteor, and when it was about to be shattered by the torpedoes, Captain Kataoka manipulated the 'Mt. Fuji' to turn the bow of the ship to the front, aimed it in the direction from which the torpedo was galloping, and moved forward at full speed. Many people may be very incomprehensible to this scene, on the surface. Captain Kataoka's bold move seemed to hasten his own demise, but in fact it was an extremely clever move to avoid torpedo attacks at close range, and the spray caused by the warship's rapid movement changed the course of the torpedo at the most critical moment, so that our ship could not be hit. ”

There is no obvious discrepancy between the Japanese and Russian historical accounts regarding the torpedo attack. Most of the Japanese historical materials recorded that they witnessed the firing of a torpedo, saying that it was a very clever and clever attack, and they were amazed by the torpedo attack carried out under the command of the famous Russian admiral Makarov, and the Russian historical materials also praised Makarov, saying that this attack was a "masterpiece of genius" and could not be done by Makarov.

And after the firing of the first torpedo, the "Blaster" did not stop there, and fired a second torpedo.

The second torpedo of the "Blast" was fired before the "Mt. Fuji" had yet to turn around, and Makarov's intention was to completely kill the "Mt. Fuji" with two torpedoes.

Due to the small space in the mine-striking ship, there is generally no other preparation except for the torpedoes installed in the torpedo tubes, and there is no possibility of reloading in a short period of time, so it is impossible for the torpedo tubes in the bow of the "blast" ship to attack again after a single shot. However, in the face of the oncoming "Mt. Fuji", the "Blast" showed no signs of retreating, and continued to move forward and continue to shorten the distance.

In a short time, the distance between the "Demolition" and the "Mt. Fuji" had been shortened to less than 300 meters, and both sides could see everything on the other side very clearly, and the guns of the "Mt. Fuji" were shelling the small "Demolition" with almost 100% hits, and in this rain of bullets, several personnel entrances and exits on the middle deck of the "Demolition" were opened, and some brave Russian sailors whose names could not be verified by later generations came to the deck, and they ran to the deck with all their might, Some responded with a Nordenfeld five-barreled cannon mounted at the rear of the command tower to return fire on Mt. Fuji, while others rushed to the torpedo launchers at the stern.

As the "Demolition" always maintained a high-speed marching posture, huge waves crashed into the deck, as soon as these Russian sailors appeared, one of them was washed into the sea by the waves, and under the bombardment of the "Mt. Fuji" machine guns, the two sailors were instantly hit, like puppets with broken strings, scattered and shattered, and fell into the sea, but the others were undaunted, they rushed to the only Nordenfeld machine gun on the deck, lifted the gun jacket, and finished reloading with great skill, and opened fierce fire on the "Mount Fuji".

The Russian sailors fired extremely accurately, hitting the "Mt. Fuji" with three machine shells in a row, and the flying shrapnel wounded four Satsuma sailors, but these were the only achievements of these heroic Russian sailors, and they were soon attacked by the terrible machine fire of the "Mt. Fuji", and were completely suppressed while suffering heavy casualties.

But the heroic actions of these Russian sailors were not in vain, due to the fact that they attracted the attention of the machine gunners of the "Mt. Fuji", gaining valuable time for the group operating the aft torpedo launchers to prepare for the attack.

The distance is getting closer. The "Demolition" was almost on the verge of colliding with "Mt. Fuji". Makarov also made a bold move. He commanded the lightning strike ship to make a sudden sharp turn to the left, and the hull of the ship appeared to tilt sharply to the right (the ship in transit, when turning to one side, it will tilt to the other side), and turned away from the "Mt. Fuji" diagonally, and when the distance between the two warships was increased to 30 to 50 meters, the rotatable open-air torpedo launcher at the rear of the deck of the "Blast" aimed at the port side of the "Mt. Fuji" and fired another torpedo!

And this torpedo fired from a torpedo launcher is completely different from the torpedo that was fired from the bow torpedo tube just now!

The tail of this torpedo. Long flames erupted, and like sharp arrows, they flew past the acrobat-like Russian sailors and into the sea along the long rails of the torpedo launchers.

For rocket-powered torpedoes, it is generally believed that they have only happened in recent years, but in fact, in White? Soon after the appearance of Hed's "bald torpedo", both Vickers and Ericsson (Ericsson) created rocket-powered torpedoes with a speed of 40 to 60 knots but a range of only 100 yards. Barber of the U.S. Navy Torpedo Test Site in Rhode Island built an underwater rocket in the sixth year of the Meiji era (9073 AD). 1 foot in diameter, 7 feet in length, weighs 287 pounds, holds a 48-pound warhead charge and 51 pounds of rocket fuel. The rocket fuel was packed in a cast iron pipe with an oak casing and wrapped in asbestos. It has the same advantages and disadvantages as other rocket-torpedoes: it has the advantage of being extremely fast, and the disadvantage is that the range is too close.

There were a lot of people who were interested in rocket-torpedoes at that time. The Bodan company soon developed a rocket-towed torpedo. It uses the rocket's high-pressure gas to propel a turbine connected to a series of propellers. Theoretically, when the Berdan torpedo hits the mine protection net around the ship, the torpedo can be made to dive below the preset depth of the mine protection net through the control cable at the tail, pass under the mine protection net, and detonate near the keel of the target. However, both the British Navy and the Turkish Navy successively felt that the Bodan torpedo was not performing well and did not adopt it. An American shoemaker, Conneham, who also made rocket-torpedoes, fired a rocket-torpedo on the town's main road during the celebration of Independence Day on July 4, frightening old ladies and horses on the road. The rocket finally rushed into a butcher's shop and stopped there, the vent spraying its remaining flames at the freezer where the meat was refrigerated. Although the experiment was unsuccessful, the enlightenment effect was enormous, but the Russians were very interested in this fast short-legged rocket torpedo as a supplement to the German black-headed torpedo, and the shoemaker-inventor rocket torpedo appeared on the "Blast".

Unlike the fish-shaped shape of the black-headed torpedo, the "Conneham torpedo" has a cylindrical minebody, and the head part of the thunder is a sharp cone, which looks like a rocket, and unlike the rocket, the Conneham rocket torpedo does not have a tail, but is equipped with a flat angled drill-shaped shallow groove on the cylindrical minebody, which helps to reduce drag and keep the torpedo on course when moving at high underwater speed. Under water, the Conneham rocket torpedo can reach an astonishing speed of 45 knots and a range of up to 150 yards.

A rocket-torpedo fired at such a close distance at such a fast speed should have hit the enemy ship anyway, and the cry of victory of the Russian sailors sounded on the "Demolition". On the "Mt. Fuji", at the same moment, many people heard a desolate cry: "Ah! Finished! ”

It was the Satsuma Navy Commander Heihachiro Togo who uttered this emotion, which was similar to "my life is on hold".

Because the rocket torpedo was fired so closely, he not only clearly saw the torpedo with its tail spitting fire, but even saw the victorious expressions of the Russian sailors on the opposite mine-striking ship. At this distance, in the face of such a fast rocket torpedo, there is obviously no room for evasion, and Heihachiro Togo no longer cares whether his words and deeds are out of shape, so he simply closes his eyes and waits for death, "waiting for death", and there is a dead silence in his ears. At this moment when death is a foregone conclusion, people no longer have the strength to scream and cry, but just wait silently for death to come.

One minute, two minutes, second by second, and when the third minute was reached, Heihachiro Togo found that he was still alive, that the "Mt. Fuji" had not sunk, and that the torpedo had not exploded! The "Mt. Fuji" immediately burst into cheers for the rest of its life, and the "Demolition" ship, which had already fired all the torpedoes it had been loaded in advance, turned around in frustration and tried to get out of the attack of the "Mt. Fuji."

For the Russians, the fact that the mine-striking ship "Demolition" fired a torpedo at a distance of 30-50 meters and failed to sink "Mount Fuji". It's undoubtedly emotionally hard to bear. This was the closest opportunity to sink an enemy ship from the "Demolition" in this naval battle. It's a pity that I missed it with hatred. In later generations of Russia, whether it is historical works or public discussions, when it comes to the failure of the "Demolition" to attack the enemy, most of them have a critical attitude of hating iron and not steel, because of the lack of understanding of the torpedo weapons of that era, the vast majority of people attribute the failure of the torpedo attack to the poor technology of the torpedo officers and men of the Russian Navy, and even think that the rocket torpedo of the "Blast" at that time forgot to set the depth, but what is the truth of the facts?

Same as blackhead torpedoes. The mechanism used by the Conneham rocket torpedo to control the depth of entry into the water is the depth machine attached behind the head of the war mine. There is a complex system for controlling the depth of torpedo launches, the main part of which is a copper plate supported by three special springs, and a depth "pivot" to adjust the spring expansion and contraction to resist the retractable copper sheet. After the torpedo enters the water, the seawater is poured into the small water injection port on the connection between the shallow machine and the thunder head, and the pressure is generated on the copper sheet, and the water pressure under normal conditions should be equivalent to the force of the spring supporting the copper sheet, if the water is too deep, the water pressure exceeds the supporting force of the spring, and the copper sheet is pressed back. A complex drive system attached to the copper plate will directly adjust the elevator at the end of the torpedo and pull the elevator blades upward. to make the torpedo float upwards until the water pressure corresponds to the support force of the spring. Conversely, if the water is too shallow and the water pressure is not enough to support the spring, the elevator will also be driven to make the torpedo dive to a fixed depth. Considering that the density of sea water in different sea areas is different, the depth of the torpedo is not the same, so the torpedo provides the user with his own depth mechanism, and the pivot, when the depth is needed, use a special key to clamp the head of the pivot to the right, according to the scale of the counting wheel to grasp the required depth. However, the head that can be used to rotate the depth pivot is not on the side wall of the depth machine, but is located on the cross-section where the depth machine is connected to the thunder head. Because the depth fixing was extremely troublesome, this kind of work was done in the torpedo maintenance factory at that time, and the depth was not adjusted after it was transported to the warship.

Just imagine, if it is really as some modern understandings say, the "blasting" mine ship should change the fixed depth. Then there will be an extremely absurd scene on the naval battlefield: after the lightning strike ship approaches the enemy ship at high speed, the captain of the ship orders to adjust the fixed depth, and the sailors withdraw the torpedo loaded in the torpedo tube (regardless of whether there is space on the lightning strike ship to do such a project), and then laboriously loosen the connecting bolts, remove the battle mine head, and then adjust the fixed depth, and then install the battle mine head and refill the torpedo into the launch tube. When this set of processes is completed, I am afraid that either the target has disappeared, or the ship has been destroyed and people have died.

The real reason for the loss of the torpedo of the "Blast" is, from a technical point of view, actually quite simple. At that time, after the torpedo entered the water, it usually had to go through the up and down adjustment of the depth machine before it could reach the predetermined depth, and the route of the torpedo movement in the water during this time was an undulating curve, and it was not until it was basically adjusted after more than 100 meters of sailing, and began to travel in a straight line at the predetermined depth, and the "blast" was a torpedo launched at a distance of only 30 to 50 meters from the "Mt. Fuji". In the case of the draft of the "Mt. Fuji", even in the state of "sudden and uplifting" of the torpedo, the probability of hitting is still very high, and the reason why Makarov gave the order to launch at close range may have taken this reason into account, and this move will also avoid the deviation of course caused by too long range. However, when the "blasting" fired the stern torpedo, the hull of the ship just underwent a large rotation and there was a serious left tilt, which may have caused the torpedo to be launched at a low angle, too deep into the water, and it took a long time to float with the help of an elevator, so that after passing through the bottom of the "Mt. Fuji", it still failed to rise up.

In this regard, in the post-war analysis of the "Mt. Fuji", Togo Heihachiro and Kataoka Shichiro and other witnesses of the naval battle also had a similar view: "The torpedo passed under our ship, and after four or five minutes, it appeared on the surface of the sea to the right of our ship, and then sank again. Finally, the Mt. Fuji was saved. The reason for this is that after the torpedo is launched, it sinks deep for a while, and only after a certain distance does it surface, touching the enemy ship and exploding. ”

In this way, the "Demolition" regrettably missed the glory of sinking the enemy ship.

And then came the Nightmare of the Demolition.

Just as the "Demolition" was speeding away from the battlefield, it suddenly tilted. It had suffered too many blows in the attack just now, and the fragile hull was finally unable to withstand it, and on the "Mt. Fuji", Heihachiro Togo saw the rising smoke and steam surrounding the small Russian warship in its entirety, and after a while, its bow slowly sank, and the stern made a "squeak" sound, cocked, and the propeller spun rapidly in the air. (To be continued......)

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