Robert Fulton the "Nautilus", the first practical submarine in history. Fulton is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the British Royal Navy. Fulton became interested in steam engines and the idea of steamboats in 1777 when he was around age 12 and visited state delegate William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was interested in this topic. Henry had learned about inventor James Watt and his Watt steam engine on an earlier visit to England. Robert Fulton was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1765. He had three sisters –
Naval tactics in the Age of Steam or battle damage, the groups typically sailed with about six ships. The Germans also made use of long-range patrol aircraft to find convoys for the U-boat packs to attack, though this tactic rarely succeeded. Towards the end of the war the Germans introduced homing-torpedoes that aimed for the noise made by a target's propellers. Although devastatingly effective at first, the Allied scientists soon developed countermeasures. The American submarine campaign in the Pacific contains many parallels with the German submarine campaign in the Atlantic. Like the Germans, the Americans began the war with a flawed weapon – faulty torpedoes – that