FAQ About Destroyers

A: The British inventor Robert Whitehead improved on the Austrian design of the self-propelled ocean torpedo in 1866. By the mid-1870s he was marketing it to the world’s navies. All of them began to develop the torpedo boat to carry the weapon within range of capital ships. To protect against torpedo boat attacks, designers began to work on the torpedo boat destroyer. Within a decade the two distinct designs merged and the term destroyer became common.