Robert Whitehead was an English engineer who was most famous for developing the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo.
Robert Whitehead
Whitehead Torpedo and Ship-factory in Fiume, 1910
Robert Whitehead (right) and his son (left) with a battered test torpedo in Fiume, Austria-Hungary c.1875
Chilean torpedo gunboat Almirante Lynch
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such a device was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive, or fish torpedo; colloquially a fish. The term torpedo originally applied to a variety of devices, most of which would today be called mines. From about 1900, torpedo has been used strictly to designate a self-propelled underwater explosive device.
Bliss–Leavitt Mark 8 torpedo
Fulton's torpedo
Confederates laying naval mines in Charleston Harbor
NMS Rândunica