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1917. "Torpedo shop, Washington Navy Yard." Note the cryptic missive chalked on one torpedo. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.
These are tubes for surface ships to launch torpedoes. There is also a reciprocating compressor casting in the photo, not out of place because the tubes launched by compressed air or black powder. Interestingly, the 21-inch tube for submarines have changed little since WWI. Today's nuclear attack submarines have tubes identical with exception of provision of a reel mechanism for wire guided torpedoes.
Here's the finished product in place.
"Triple 21-inch torpedo tubes on the upper deck of an Omaha (CL 4-13) class light cruiser, circa the mid-1920s" - from history.navy.mil
A torpedo spoon was (is?) evidently a component for easing the passage of the torpedo through the tube, as evidenced by this patent from the same era.
I think those are actually pre WW2 torpedo deck-mounted launch tubes, and the "spoon" in the chalk message was a guide on the end of the launch tube that helped guide the torpedo as it exited the tube.
I think this place is devoted to the manufacture of torpedo tubes rather than torpedoes.
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