An animation of the Howell 14.2 inch torpedo from 1896. This torpedo uses a heavy flywheel as its motive power, and for a time was considered an alternative to the Whitehead torpedo. The flywheel had to be spun up to 10,000 rpm by an external engine (Barker mill) before launching. The Howell had excellent directional stability and left no visible trail of bubbles, but had limited range. It was phased out of use in 1907. This model uses the drawings from the U.S. Navy’s Manual on the Howell Torpedo 14.2 inch Mark I, 1896.
Hi, Iām Rob, otherwise known as VBBSMYT.
I create the animations on my iMac using Cinema 4D, which I find very intuitive, and allows me to add smoke and flames, and then send the model to my trusty Render farm.
I make my models as accurate as possible through reference books and particularly good drawings. You may have seen my animations of early torpedoes and machine guns on YouTube. I enjoy finding out how things work and it has been fascinating to track the development from the late Victorian period up to World War 1.