Torpedo ram image

[Danny McG]

I'm currently reading Stephen Baxter's Massacre of Mankind, the sequel to War of the Worlds.
In this he mentions Thunder Child, the 'torpedo ram' from the original book.
I've been googling for a torpedo ram image, just out of curiosity, HG Wells mentioned it so casually that I thought it was a well known Victorian navy boat design, however all I can find are artist's impressions of Thunder Child, what appear to be fishing trawlers and some sketches of odd designs.
Was there really such a craft as a torpedo ram?
What does one look like if so?
Thanks
Danny

 

[Alex The G and T]

My first thought was The African Queen. };-}

Torpedo ram - Wikipedia
HMS Thunder Child - Wikipedia "
Historical basis
Torpedo rams were constructed in the 1870s and 1880s after the ramming and sinking of the Re d'Italia at the Battle of Lissa in 1866 by the Austrian flagship, Ferdinand Max. Despite the Italian warship being stationary at the time, the successful attack influenced naval thinking for the next few decades.[1]

The result was specially designed low profile, fast, armoured vessels equipped with a ram or torpedoes, or both, intended for use where it was possible to approach an enemy ship without being sunk; for example, at night or in poor visibility, or where the enemy ship was stationary or disabled, or lacked support by nearby ships.[2] As late as 1896, the United States commissioned a ship whose only effective weapon was a ram: the harbour-defence ram USS Katahdin.[3]

The Royal Navy's only example was HMS Polyphemus, which entered service in 1882. Its primary armament was torpedoes, with four side-firing tubes and one forward-firing tube in the centre of the bow-mounted ram, like the eye of a Cyclops, hence the ship's name of Polyphemus. The ram was fitted in case the then novel underwater torpedo tubes failed to operate properly. After the ship successfully destroyed a harbour defence boom with her ram in 1885, the Royal Navy ordered two further ships of this class; but neither ship was built, probably because the deployment of quick-firing traversing guns made these vessels vulnerable.[3]

torpedo ram image

 

[Danny McG]

Cheers. Pleased to know there really was such a thing. The Polyphemus crew must have been near insane to serve on her. As can be seen from your link to images at the end, there's a lot of Thunder Child pictures out there, hard to determine fakery from reality

 

[Danny McG]

Back to the same book, a few chapters on....
They mention rigging up a crystal set so they can receive radio broadcasts without any power source.
Is that still possible with modern radio broadcasting?
Can a crystal set still receive standard radio channels?

Thanks
Danny

EDIT :- I had to go online a few pages back to find out what a 'safety bicycle' was.. too many obscurities in this tome

 

[Mirannan]

Back to the same book, a few chapters on....
They mention rigging up a crystal set so they can receive radio broadcasts without any power source.
Is that still possible with modern radio broadcasting?
Can a crystal set still receive standard radio channels?

Thanks
Danny

EDIT :- I had to go online a few pages back to find out what a 'safety bicycle' was.. too many obscurities in this tome

I would guess that a crystal set could probably receive modern stations; the caveat is that it could only pick up AM transmissions.

 

[Vertigo]

There is absolutely no reason why a crystal set would not still work today though only as @Mirannan says only with AM (Amplitude Modulation) and not FM (Frequency Modulation). I built one as a kid and the technology of AM transmission has not changed since then and, indeed, I'm not sure it can change! So as long as AM transmissions are still made crystal sets will still be able to pick them up.

 

[Danny McG]

So they don't need a power source then?
I find that somewhat Twilight Zone-ish tbh

 

[Vertigo]

All the energy is in the radio waves; it's just the same as the energy in light or any electromagnetic waves. Though you can't drive a speaker with it, that needs amplification, it is sufficient for earphones/headphones. After all you can cook food with microwaves. Also the range is very limited due to the inverse square fall off of that energy; you have to be moderately close to the transmission.

 

[Danny McG]

Another point from the same book. Time setting is now the early 1920's and a small isolated pocket of humanity is growing their own food. However they rely on covert air drops for medical supplies, including anti-biotics. I personally didn't think these were widely available until the late thirties, am I right in thinking this?
Of course it could be part of the accelerated scientific drive depicted in the book. All avenues explored to stop the Martians

 

[Vladd67]

Penicillin was first purified in 1942, but didn't become widely available until '45 up until then it was really only available to the allied military forces.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

All the energy is in the radio waves; it's just the same as the energy in light or any electromagnetic waves. Though you can't drive a speaker with it, that needs amplification, it is sufficient for earphones/headphones. After all you can cook food with microwaves. Also the range is very limited due to the inverse square fall off of that energy; you have to be moderately close to the transmission.

D'you reckon this is something school students could do? Young ones - say, 12 years.

 

[Vertigo]

D'you reckon this is something school students could do? Young ones - say, 12 years.

Absolutely! I was about 12 when I made my first one. These days a simple semiconductor diode is generally used instead of a crystal and 'cat's whisker' but you should still be able to make one in the traditional manner if you so choose. Anything that allows current freely in one direction but not the other will do. In WWI soldiers used to make them using a safety razor blade; the oxide on the outside of the blade behaved in much the same way as a crystal and instead of a 'cat's whisker' they used a pencil lead. I believe the reason was that if you used a copper wire it encouraged additional corrosion which then negated the effects. There are loads of pages about making them online.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Cheers Mike!
This would be great for the physics club at the school where I work. Nice one.

 

[Vertigo]

Cheers Mike!
This would be great for the physics club at the school where I work. Nice one.

The wiki page is actually very good. About two thirds down the page is a section entitled crystal detector with a nice simple diagram showing how the crystal removes the negative element of the wave and the capacitor smoothes the resulting signal to give a simple audio wave. interestingly without the tuning circuit it is essentially the same as a simple AC to DC converter. The principle is exactly the same, it's just the input frequency which is radically different!

 

[AE35Unit]

I need to read WotW again, I don't remember mention of such a ship!