Bangalore has to its credit the invention of a military weapon called the Bangalore Torpedo. It was first devised by Captain McClintock of the British Indian Army unit the Madras Sappers and Miners at Bangalore.
Still in use by armies of several countries across the world, the primary use of the torpedo is clearing paths through wire obstacles and heavy undergrowth. It will clear a three to four metre wide path through wire obstacles.
Capt McClintock invented it as a means of exploding booby traps and barricades left over from the Boer and Russo-Japanese Wars. The Bangalore torpedo would be exploded over a mine without the sapper having to approach closer than about three metre (10 ft).
By the time of World War I, the Bangalore torpedo was primarily used for clearing barbed wire before an attack. It could be used while under fire, from a protected position in a trench.
The torpedo was standardised to consist of a number of externally identical 1.5 m (5 ft) lengths of threaded pipe, one of which contained the explosive charge. The pipes would be screwed together using connecting sleeves to make a longer pipe of the required length, somewhat like a chimney brush or drain clearing rod.
During the 1917 Battle of Cambrai, British Royal Engineers used them as diversions to distract the enemy from where the real battle was to be fought.