Question: Which country used small and fast naval ships designated to carry torpedoes into battle during the First World War?

 The notable feature of these vessels was that each was equipped with a pair of spiked continuous tracks, intended to allow them to climb over harbour booms and attack enemy shipping at anchor. The "Grillo"-class was a class of torpedo armed motorboats in service with the "Regia Marina" (the Royal Navy of Italy) during the First World War.  In 1918, two attempts to use them to penetrate Austro-Hungarian harbour defences both ended in failure. <SEP>  The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes.  They were created to counter battleships and other slow and heavily armed ships by using speed, agility, and the power of their torpedo weapons.  A number of inexpensive torpedo boats attacking en masse could overwhelm a larger ship's ability to fight them off using its large but cumbersome guns. A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle.  An inexpensive fleet of torpedo boats could pose a threat to much larger and more expensive fleets of capital ships, albeit only in the coastal areas to which their small size and limited fuel load restricted them. <SEP> A submarine chaser is a small and fast naval vessel that is specifically intended for anti-submarine warfare.  Although similar vessels were designed and used by many nations, this designation was most famously used by ships built by the US.  Many of the US World War I sub-chasers found their way to friendly powers by way of Lend-Lease in World War II. <SEP> Fireships served in the Royal Navy over a period of several centuries.  The earliest fireships – ships filled with combustible and flammable materials and explosives and sent into lines of enemy ships to attempt to set them on fire – were small merchant vessels deployed in large fleet actions, such as by Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada at the Battle of Gravelines in 1588.  Fire was a major hazard on the wooden warships of the time, which carried large quantities of flammable and explosive materials into battle.  Both sides used fireships in a number of engagements during the Anglo–Spanish War, with varying levels of effectiveness.  Fireships reappeared in unconventional forms during the English Civil War, and were used in earnest during the Anglo-Dutch Wars, particularly to great effect in 1666 during Holmes's Bonfire.  Successes such as the burning of the "Royal James" at the Battle of Solebay in 1672 caused considerable interest in the application of such vessels, eventually resulting in the construction of purpose-built ships.  Interest in the fireship declined during the eighteenth century.  Though new vessels continued to be taken into service, they did not play a significant role in either the Seven Years' War or the American War of Independence.  There was a resurgence in the use of fireships during the 1790s during the wars with France, and they were deployed with some success by Thomas Cochrane at the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809, but they were steadily supplanted by new methods of war, such as heated shot, torpedoes and mines.