Marufa Poli

  Asus Proart

  Submersible Torpedo Boat Bushnell's Submersible Torpedo Boat, 1776. Cutaway by Lt. Col. F.M. Barber, 1885, based on Bushnell's description. (detail) Submarines were first used as offensive weapons in naval warfare during the American War of Independence (1775-1783). Invented by Yale student David Bushnell, the one-man boat "Turtle" was made of an upright walnut-shaped piece of wood (see photo). Underwater, the boat was powered by a driver turning a propeller. The plan was for the Turtle to approach a British warship underwater, load the hull with gunpowder using a screw device operated from inside the ship, and then leave the ship before a timer would detonate the charge. In a real attack, however, Turtle was unable to drive the screws through the copper cladding of the hull.   Robert Fulton, a famous American inventor and artist, had been experimenting with submarines for several years before the steamship Clermont sailed up the Hudson River. In 1800, Fulto...