torpedo ram

English

Alternative forms

Noun

torpedo ram (plural torpedo rams)

  1. (military, nautical, historical) A warship designed to sink enemy vessels using a combination of torpedo (self-propelled naval weapon) fire and ramming.
    • 1898, H.G. Wells, “The "Thunder Child."”, in The War of the Worlds‎, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, retrieved 24 November 2022, page 175:
      When his eyes were clear again, he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward. Big iron upper-works rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels projected, and spat a smoking blast shot with fire into the air. It was the torpedo-ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.
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