laststandonzombieisland

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  May 29

Here we see the first US torpedo boat, USS Cushing (TB-1). Torpedo boats were a daring new concept in the late 18th century. These small Davids were thought capable of using their amazingly fast speed (23knots!) to leap out of the narrows in a littoral and pumping a locomotive powered torpedo into the hull of a Goliath battleship, sending the ship of the line to the bottom for its troubles.

She originally carried a white paint scheme and was in 1898 changed to a dark green for camouflage. Note the framework for her canvas deck awning. The awning is shown installed in the picture below.

Cushing was the first of her type in US service and one of the first in the world. She was preceded by the HMS Lightning in 1876. The Lightning, a 87-foot long steamship that could do 18-knots didn’t look like much but she carried a pair of Whitehead torpedoes. This sent tremors across the seas and the USN’s answer to this was Cushing.

Authorized in  August 1886, Cushing was completed and commissioned 22 April 1890, given the name of one of the most famous of all swashbuckling bluejackets  of the Civil War. She spent most of her career at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport where she raised a young crop of the US Navy’s first destroyer-men. Only 140-feet long, she could float in just 4-feet of water. Her two dozen officers and men were used to man the 2 6-pounder guns and fire her three above water torpedo tubes. From 1890 to 1897 she carried Howell Mk1 locomotive torpedoes (one of which was just found last week off the California coast) and after 1897 she carried the more effective Whitehead type.

Cushing at speed with her dark green paint scheme. Note how low she sat to the water. In February 1898 she lost Ensign John Cable Breckenridge overboard in heavy seas. These were not boats that you wanted to be above deck on in a good sea state.

When the Spanish-American War erupted in 1898, Cushing performed picket patrol in the Florida Straits and courier duty for the North Atlantic Fleet. She captured five small Cuban ships during the war and escorted them into harbor. She was decommissioned later that year after the peace had been declared.

Truth be told, this innovative ship was already made obsolete by ever faster TBs of bigger size and with larger armament. The entire torpedo boat concept itself was largely negated by 1905 when heavy gun-armed Torpedo Boat Destroyers could make mince meat of the smaller TBs before they could close on the battleships, spoiling their shots. Indeed in the world’s largest use of steam-powered torpedo boats, the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war, some 300 torpedoes were launched by both sides yet only 21 hit their target.

From 1898 to 1920 this is how Cushing spent most of her time.

With all this in mind, Cushing was kept around as a second-string reserve ship. A partially dismantled dockside trainer for testing and evaluation purposes for two decades. Finally in 1920 she was towed out to sea and sunk, as a target.

Specs
Type:     Torpedo boat
Displacement:     116 long tons (118 t)
Length:     140 ft (43 m)
Beam:     15 ft 1 in (4.60 m)
Draft:     4 ft 10 in (1.47 m)
Installed power:     1,600 ihp (1,200 kW)
Propulsion:     2 × vertical quadruple-expansion reciprocating steam engines
2 × Thornycroft boilers
2 × screws
Speed:     23 kn (26 mph; 43 km/h)
Complement:     22 officers and enlisted
Armament:     2 × 6-pounder (57 mm (2.24 in)) guns
3 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tubes (3×1)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO) They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!