[a] It was perfected in 1866 by British engineer Robert Whitehead from a rough design conceived by Giovanni Luppis of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in Fiume.

of the Austrian Marine Artillery conceived the idea of using a small boat laden with explosives, propelled by a steam or an air engine and steered by cables to be used against enemy ships; his papers came into the possession of Captain Giovanni Luppis upon his death.

Luppis had a model of the device built; it was powered by a spring-driven clockwork mechanism and steered remotely by cables from land.

Dissatisfied with the device, which he called the "coast-saver",[10] Luppis turned to Robert Whitehead, who then worked for Stabilimento Tecnico Fiumano, a factory in Fiume.

Whitehead developed what he called the Minenschiff (mine ship): an 11-foot (3.4 m)-long, 14-inch (36 cm)-diameter torpedo propelled by compressed air and carrying an explosive warhead, with a speed of 7 knots (13 km/h; 8.1 mph) and the ability to hit a target up to 700 yards (640 m) away.

The United States Navy started using the Whitehead torpedo in 1892 after an American company, E. W. Bliss, secured manufacturing rights.

[11] As manufactured for the US Navy, the Whitehead torpedo was divided into four sections: the head, the air flask, the after-body and the tail.