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 –
Steam tank Earlier fighting vehicles projects had employed steam power because petrol engines were not yet powerful enough; the Steam Tank however used it for the main reason that it was meant to be a specialised flame thrower to attack pillboxes and the original design had this weapon driven by steam. When the main device to build up sufficient pressure became a auxiliary gasoline engine, the two main 2-cylinder steam engines with a combined power of remained, each engine driving one track to give a maximum speed of . The transmission allowed two speeds forward and two in reverse. The steam engines