Early Whitehead torpedoes could miss, turn away from the target, or be disturbed by a ship's bow wave. Their speed also limited tactics: some ran at about seventeen knots, and later examples in this period reached roughly twenty-six knots. A battleship moving away could outpace some of the earlier weapons. Those weaknesses explain why some officers recognized the torpedo's future potential but judged that it had not yet earned major expenditure. Navies could follow its improvement and prepare a response when the threat justified the cost, provided they could persuade those controlling the budget. Advocates of immediate wholesale adoption risked mistaking an opponent's delayed spending for an inability to develop countermeasures.
Notable Point · 32:27-34:16
Early Whitehead torpedoes delayed the case for full adoption
Slow, erratic early torpedoes made the future threat visible without yet making every proposed countermeasure worth its cost.