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Torpedoes appreciation watch


Toxn

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... How could a torpedo be worse than LITERALLY TURNING AROUND, STRIKING AND DETONATING ON THE SHIP THAT FIRED IT?!

Not that I disbelieve you, mind.  I'm just at a loss here.

 

Several german models could also hot run like in the case of the USS Tang, however their early-mid war torpedoes had a failure rate of 30-50% to even detonate and much like the mark 14, had trouble with depth setting.

 

It's saying alot that they managed to make a standard issue torpedo LESS reliable then the Mark 13/14, considering it was one of the least reliable torpedoes of the war for the majority of the conflict.

 

The reason the Mark 13/14 was so unreliable is because they added a secret magnetic detonation mode, rather new at the time.... And never bothered to test it or the rest of the torpedo at all because they wanted to to remain 100% secret, clearly something exploding in hundreds, if not thousands of feet of water will have parts easily retriveable after a test with late 30s-early 40s diving tech..... I guess.

 

Oh, that and the detonation pistol was misaligned, which somehow went unnoticed for years.

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Not to derail, but getting reminded of how crappy Kraut-marine torpedoes were makes me thankful that evil genocidal dictatorships were too suspicious/incompetent to share their military technology with their allies. With the drubbing that the good guys took in the first part of the Battle of the Atlantic, what would have been the butcher's bill if the Nazis had good torpedoes like their Japanese allies?

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If you don't like the site, I don't expect you to shut up about it, but I bet Hognose would appreciate your in-depth feedback.

Also I had just woken up when I wrote that so it may have been a little terse. I basically meant it as an FYI to you.

Thanks for the clarification. My issues with the site don't extend to discussions about torpedoes, so I will park them for the moment so as not to detail.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Not to derail, but getting reminded of how crappy Kraut-marine torpedoes were makes me thankful that evil genocidal dictatorships were too suspicious/incompetent to share their military technology with their allies. With the drubbing that the good guys took in the first part of the Battle of the Atlantic, what would have been the butcher's bill if the Nazis had good torpedoes like their Japanese allies?

 

IJN torpedoes wouldn't fit in German tubes in the first place. The best German aerial torpedo was in fact Italian. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Was the Best Good Enough?

 

An analysis of the type 93 in action.  The author tentatively suggests that the largest asset of the type 93 was not its long range, but rather its great speed.  When they were fired from a long ways off, they tended to have miserable hit probability.

 

Firing at short range with a fast torpedo is obviously more effective, but this has to be balanced against the risk of losing the launching craft. That's why the IJN built the torpedoes to have such a long range to begin with - so they could whittle away at the USN's numerical advantage at minimal risk to their own ships. That the IJN fell short of their pre-war hit expectations does not surprise me; most armed forces tend to over-estimate their hit rates in pre-war conditions anyway.

 

It's worth noting in fact that at least one IJN cruiser was crippled then sunk when her torpedo mount was hit by a 5inch gun from a Jeep carrier - which demonstrates what happens when you try to close the range with dangerously unstable torpedoes still onboard.

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Firing at short range with a fast torpedo is obviously more effective, but this has to be balanced against the risk of losing the launching craft. That's why the IJN built the torpedoes to have such a long range to begin with - so they could whittle away at the USN's numerical advantage at minimal risk to their own ships. That the IJN fell short of their pre-war hit expectations does not surprise me; most armed forces tend to over-estimate their hit rates in pre-war conditions anyway.

 

It's worth noting in fact that at least one IJN cruiser was crippled then sunk when her torpedo mount was hit by a 5inch gun from a Jeep carrier - which demonstrates what happens when you try to close the range with dangerously unstable torpedoes still onboard.

IIRC, the Chikuma?  5 inch shell during the battle of Samar?

Because of the pure oxygen in the torps.

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IIRC, the Chikuma?  5 inch shell during the battle of Samar?

Because of the pure oxygen in the torps.

 

Close enough, it was a messy furball and no one's entirely sure who hit who. It was more likely to be Chokai which was hit by the jeep carrier White Plains. Chikuma also very likely had her torpedoes blown up by 5 inch shells too, albeit it was probably a destroyer escort which scored the hit.

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