Torpedoes again Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Brief description: Another contribution to the cache collective along the Saxon Shore Way. The cache is located next to a curious structure that has an important military history.
The narrow trackway near this cache that leads into the sea is the launch track for the world's first guided anti-shipping torpedo, which protected the Thames around 1886 to the late 1890s. Known as the Brennan torpedo (named after its inventor), an example still exists in Chatham of this wire guided bomb. It was claimed to be accurate enough to "hit a floating fruit bowl at 2000 yards". Apparently never used in anger, this launch only succeeded in sinking a friendly ship. Suggested parking and walk: Although there are shorter routes to the cache location, for a pleasant walk to the cache, I recommend parking in the car park in front of the church at Cliffe (N51°27.717 E0°29.833) and walking down through the RSPB bird sanctuary. Other things of historical interest to look for nearby: Just behind the cache location itself is Cliffe Fort, part of a network of forts built along the Thames estuary in the 19th century to guard against Napoleonic attacks from France. Just a little west of here, a moderately sized hulk can be seen slowly rotting away on the edge of the coastline. Just beyond the hulk, in low tide, the remains of Nore Fort, a World War Two gun platform built in the middle of the Thames Estuary just north of the Isle of Sheppey. This was scrapped and brought here shortly after a ship collided with it in the 1950s, but two similar forts still stand in the middle of the estuary; Red Sands and Shivering Sands (which itself suffered a collision in the 1960s, sinking one of its towers). http://www.subterrain.org.uk/maunsell/ My thanks go to Eclectic Penguin for this text and info as this cache is to replace his that dissappeared awhile ago the replacement is located very close to the original called 'torpedoes away'
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gur fznyy wrggl