Torpedo carriages before fixed launchers became standard

Alongside their guns, Comus-class ships carried fourteen-inch torpedoes on movable carriages. Each device was a partial launch tube mounted much like a gun, allowing the crew to swivel and point the torpedo before firing through a port. The concept offered flexibility, but it soon fell out of favour as more practical fixed and submerged arrangements developed. Few trustworthy examples survive, making the precise hardware harder to reconstruct from later photographs and museum claims. Early torpedo warfare was still an unsettled field of mechanical experimentation rather than a standardized system.