Specially-trained bottlenose dolphins have found a rare piece of United States Naval history --- an 11-foot brass torpedo dubbed the Howell that dates back about 130 years or so and was one of the first self-propelled units of its kind.
The two enlisted mammals, Ten and Spetz, found only the second of the 50 Howells made known to still exist off the San Diego coast, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
The 50 Howell torpedoes were made between 1870 to 1889 and were cutting-edge technology back then, considered a highly sophisticated weapon, able to follow a track without leaving a wake. The 11-foot-long brass torpedoes had a range of 400 yards and could reach a speed of 25 knots.
Conceived by Naval Lieutenant Commander John A. Howell in 1870, the torpedo design used a 130 lb. flywheel spun at very high rate of speed, between 10000 to 12000 rpm.
Because it didn't have a complicated engine or fuel system, the Howell was much cheaper and easier to build than its main competitor, the Whitehead torpedo.
Also, unlike the Whitehead, the wakeless Howell was able to keep the position of the firing vessel concealed.
On the other hand, according to a piece published in The Submarine Review quarterly, the Howell flywheel was loud and required large devices to wind up the flywheels before the torpedoes were released.
The Howell was passed up by Whitehead model in the early 1890s, so never went into further production.
The dolphins, used by the Navy to detect military equipment underwater, typically mines on the ocean floor, indicated they had possibly made another discovery in an area researchers found somewhat surprising.
Nonetheless, a program specialist ordered one of the dolphins to take a marker to the object, which was soon located by divers, inert, in two pieces bearing the stamp "USN No. 24."
"We've never found anything like this," the head of the Navy's marine mammal program said. "Never."
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