How would a torpedo-reliant navy perform?

[Fabius Maximus]

IOTL, the invention of the torpedo led to the development of new kinds of combat vessels -- the torpedo boat, a small, fast, lightly-armoured craft specialising in launching torpedoes, and the destroyer, a bigger boat with quick-firing guns designed to keep torpedo boats away from the navy's capital ships. Nevertheless, naval warfare in general still revolved around warships carrying big guns, and continued to do so until the aircraft carrier became dominant during WW2.

Let's say that a navy decides to go all-in with the torpedo concept, relying on these instead of guns as their primary fleet weapon. Eschewing big pre-Dreadnought and Dreadnought-style battleships, they use the resources to build swarms of torpedo boats instead. Of course, a torpedo boat would have a difficult time surviving a direct hit from a battleship's guns, so the idea would be to rely on speed and numbers to avoid taking unsustainable losses, meanwhile saturating the water with so many torpedos that the comparatively big and cumbersome enemy battleships wouldn't be able to avoid them.

My question is simply -- how would such a navy perform against a more conventional, battleship-based force? Would the big enemy ships be holed beneath the line and sink to a watery grave, or would the torpedo boats be blown away by their adversaries' superior firepower?

 

[alexmilman]

IOTL, the invention of the torpedo led to the development of new kinds of combat vessels -- the torpedo boat, a small, fast, lightly-armoured craft specialising in launching torpedoes, and the destroyer, a bigger boat with quick-firing guns designed to keep torpedo boats away from the navy's capital ships. Nevertheless, naval warfare in general still revolved around warships carrying big guns, and continued to do so until the aircraft carrier became dominant during WW2.

Let's say that a navy decides to go all-in with the torpedo concept, relying on these instead of guns as their primary fleet weapon. Eschewing big pre-Dreadnought and Dreadnought-style battleships, they use the resources to build swarms of torpedo boats instead. Of course, a torpedo boat would have a difficult time surviving a direct hit from a battleship's guns, so the idea would be to rely on speed and numbers to avoid taking unsustainable losses, meanwhile saturating the water with so many torpedos that the comparatively big and cumbersome enemy battleships wouldn't be able to avoid them.

My question is simply -- how would such a navy perform against a more conventional, battleship-based force? Would the big enemy ships be holed beneath the line and sink to a watery grave, or would the torpedo boats be blown away by their adversaries' superior firepower?

French Jeune École had been based upon that principle and proved to be an expensive flop. To a lesser degree the Germans also suffered from this disease prior to wwi. IIRC, an article on wiki has a detailed description of the problems related to this idea.

Anyway, it is not that any fleet had exclusively the battleships. The destroyers had been introduced as a defense against torpedo boats.

 

[HeavyMetal]

One problem is that that kind of Navy only can be a defensive force. It cannot project force and that was probably the most important mission of late XIX and early XX centuries navies.

 

[Arnold d.c]

To echo alexmilman's sentiments, the big guns are gonna win so long as very specific conditions do not take place. Tests conducted by the French Navy showed that they could prevent a close blockade of the coast but the torpedo boats were unable to endure cruising missions to sea. In February 1886, the French Navy sent two torpedo boats from Cherbourg to Toulon and by the end of the trip, the crews were so shaken by the journey that there was no way they could actually be battle ready if an enemy force showed up. It was very much a coastal force, unable to carry out the raiding of commerce as imagined. It also meant that they had no ability for power projection or ability to respond to events abroad, very bad for a colonial power.

The results of the Spanish-American War and the Russo-Japanese War also reinforce why the torpedo-centric force would fail. The development of rapid fire secondary guns and torpedo boat destroyers prevented the torpedo boats from doing their jobs.

 

[Sarthak]

for a second rate naval power, whose only goal is to protect their coasts, with the right doctrine i think it could be pretty successful.

 

[alexmilman]

To echo alexmilman's sentiments, the big guns are gonna win so long as very specific conditions do not take place. Tests conducted by the French Navy showed that they could prevent a close blockade of the coast but the torpedo boats were unable to endure cruising missions to sea. In February 1886, the French Navy sent two torpedo boats from Cherbourg to Toulon and by the end of the trip, the crews were so shaken by the journey that there was no way they could actually be battle ready if an enemy force showed up. It was very much a coastal force, unable to carry out the raiding of commerce as imagined. It also meant that they had no ability for power projection or ability to respond to events abroad, very bad for a colonial power.

The results of the Spanish-American War and the Russo-Japanese War also reinforce why the torpedo-centric force would fail. The development of rapid fire secondary guns and torpedo boat destroyers prevented the torpedo boats from doing their jobs.

Don’t forget that a noticeable part of the motivation was to provide the junior naval officers with a chance of an independent command and promotion both of which they had been lacking within a traditional framework of the French Navy. 😉

Of course, the “torpedo” school also included the fast light cruisers with torpedo tubes as the main weapon, which later evolved into the destroyers (in the Russian Navy they were reclassified as destroyers in 1907).

IIRC (and I may be wrong) during the RJW the torpedo boats did not play any noticeable role and torpedo attacks had been conducted mostly by the destroyers in which Japan had an advantage. But, again, IIRC, the only serious torpedo-related success was a surprise attack on the Russian battleships staying in the unprotected outer harbor of Port Arthur.

The German Navy had the torpedo boats all the way to WWI and they even played a noticeable role at Jutland but more of the distraction rather then destruction factor. Even then, each squadron had as a leader a bigger ship (torpedo cruiser and in some cases, IIRC, “Novik” type destroyer) equipped with radio a powerful radio set and having enough space for the staff work. The “classic” torpedo boats simple were too small for this and each of them had a single officer.