Just how bad were USN torpedoes?

[JohnDillworth]

Those weren't Mk 14's.

Thought they were all kind of related. I have had a ton of aircraft torpedoes bounce off. So the aircraft and surface torpedoes should wourk? Heck, I had the depth charges bounce off today!

[Terminus]

Well, no... Strictly speaking, the only US torp you can sort of expect to work is the Mk 10. Here are the initial dud rates:

• Mk 8 - 20%
• Mk 10 - 15%
• Mk 13 - 50%
• Mk 14 - 80%
• Mk 15 - 60%
• Mk 18 - 60%

[Admiral Scott]

deleted

[pompack]

Nice article on the torpedo problem
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp2.htm

[mariandavid]

"It is ironic that the only time allied torpedoes worked well is when they sunk the HMAS Canberra"

In fact non-USA torpedos (surface, sub and air) worked well during the war. As an earlier post mentioned the RN magnetic dets were found to be tricky and removed before the war (in most cases). Later failures of US torpedos seem to have been the result of relying too much on technology eg some captains firing on the basis of sonar readings without using the periscope.
 
As for the IJN convoy problem - this was a technology as well as an tactical issue - given adequate escorts and decent radar/asdic no doubt the loss rate would have been dramatically reduced.
 
A really interesting speculation/mod would be to assume that Hitler got over his 'inferior eastern, even in warrior, race' ravings. A fast, even pre-war transfer of high-tech items would have had fascinating consequences. 

[Terminus]

That's unlikely, to say the least.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

A really interesting speculation/mod would be to assume that Hitler got over his 'inferior eastern, even in warrior, race' ravings. A fast, even pre-war transfer of high-tech items would have had fascinating consequences.

Japanese industry would still have the difficulty of producing those High-Tech items..., something it proved incapable of in real life.

[John Lansford]

German torpedoes had the same problems with magnetic exploders that everyone else had too.

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

German torpedoes had the same problems with magnetic exploders that everyone else had too.

Oh, yeah. Read about their air launched torps - they were so bad that they bought a supply of Italian air launched torps to replace them [:D]

True story [X(]

Phil

[xj900uk]

One of the most interesting facts is that the USN had done very little work or research on torpedo's interwar.  The mark 10 was considered completely obsolete and, apart from in some S-boats, had been largely replaced by WWII.  The Mark 14 was considered far better & more modern because not only did it have a contact firiing pin,  but it could also be set to explode 'under' a ship and be detonated by the target ship's magnetic field.  THe only tests had been carried out to prove this were static ones in the laboratory.
The problem came when using them in the ocean away from the lab.  Magnetic fields varied around the Earth,  the mark 14 rarely ran at the prescribed depth anyway and tended to porpoise about or shoot wildly off,  the contact pin was fragile and tended to smash/jam on an impact rather than actually trigger the warhead,  the torpedo was just too damn slow to catch and hit a lot of the targets it was fired at...
 
Some sub captains actually disingaged the electro-magnetic mechanism and just tried with the contact percussion fuse,  results were possibly slightly better but the fact remains that the Mark 14 was a crap torpedo.  Only the ones carried by the TBD devestator were worse in the US arsenal (even slower than the sub or ship fired ones,  the gyro's were too delicate for air-drop, and the fish itself woudl often break in half on hitting the water).
Sub captains tried to report this to their superiors,  in fact true the early head of sub operations did try to sort it out but got nowhere.  However it is also worth nothing that the smaller S-boats had a far better success rate because they were largely still stuck with the older WWI mark 10 which at least sometimes went off when it hit something.
 
For proof of how bad US mark 14's were, look at the attempts to scuttle the Hornet after the Battle of Santa Cruz in october '42.  A total of 16 torpedo's were fired at the stationary burning target.  Nine malfunctioned (ie refused to leave their tubes or else went off course due to the gyro's being bounced out of align due to the shock of hitting the water) but seven actually still hit the burning hulk using the older 'more reliable' contact firing pin - not a single fish actually detonated!
 
On the other hand, the Japs had spent a lot of time and effort developing the Long Lance, which was by far the best ever fish in WWII.  It was faster than anything in the allied armoury, had a longer range than US Navy planners could even dream about, and was far more reliable (failure rate less than 10% if my memory is correct).  Also it could punch through virtually any bilge or side-armour.  Even one hit could knock out a capital ship (ie Saratoga,  North Carolina).  Look what three did to the Wasp...

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

The lack of live-fire testing was nothing to do with lack of fund (the Two-Ocean Navy Act put plenty of money into the Navy), but because of security concerns over the Super-Duper Magnetic Exploder(TM).

Doesn't mean the politicos weren't idiots, but BUORD was far more to blame.

And the country was just emerging from the great depression. Not a lot of money to be had.

[Panther Bait]

Just started reading "War Beneath the Sea", and the Germans most definitely had lots of problems with dud torpedoes in 1940 at least, and not just with the magnetic exploders.  In fact, Donitz appears to have been furious about the torpedo situation, and estimated that tonnages sunk might have doubled if the torps had functioned 100%.  During the Norway invasion and the British response, there was a significant list of warships that might have been damaged or sunk if the dud rate had been much lower.  The difference appears to be that the Germans had a much easier time convincing people there was a problem and getting the problems fixed.
 
The Japanese, on the other hand, seem to have spent a lot of money during the inter-war years building, and more importantly live testing, their torpedoes and they seem to generally have been fairly reliable.
 
Mike

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Terminus

The lack of live-fire testing was nothing to do with lack of fund (the Two-Ocean Navy Act put plenty of money into the Navy), but because of security concerns over the Super-Duper Magnetic Exploder(TM).

Doesn't mean the politicos weren't idiots, but BUORD was far more to blame.

And the country was just emerging from the great depression. Not a lot of money to be had.

There was still money for the biggest naval programme in the 20th century somehow...

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait
(snip)
The difference appears to be that the Germans had a much easier time convincing people there was a problem and getting the problems fixed.
(/snip)

Yeah, it's amazing what a firing squad can do to "convince" people.

[John Lansford]

Neither the Saratoga nor the North Carolina were ever hit by a "Long Lance" torpedo.  IJN subs fired a standard 21" torpedo that was very reliable, but it wasn't a "Long Lance"; that weapon was only carried by certain surface warships.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
And the country was just emerging from the great depression. Not a lot of money to be had.

ORIGINAL: Terminus
There was still money for the biggest naval programme in the 20th century somehow...

In the early 30s, the US military was very neglected. The Army was allowed to shrink smaller than Finland's. By the end of the 30s, Roosevelt and some others in the government realized how much the military had been neglected and started injecting a lot of money into rebuilding.

Between about 1938 and 1942, the money was around to look into torpedo reliability, but there was no political will within the Navy to do it.

Bill

[Terminus]

The Army, yes. I guess the Navy doesn't count?

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

The Army, yes. I guess the Navy doesn't count?

The Two Ocean Navy Act was passed in July, 1940. Some extra money had gone into the navy before then (the Hornet was under construction in 1940 and was commissioned in 1941 and the Corsair, TBF, and SB2C came out of a 1938 aircraft upgrade program), but that it wasn't until the Two Ocean Act that the Navy had lots of extra cash.

Bill

[JohnDillworth]

Posts: 31730
Joined: 4/23/2005
From: Denmark
Status: offline Well, no... Strictly speaking, the only US torp you can sort of expect to work is the Mk 10. Here are the initial dud rates:


* Mk 8 - 20%
* Mk 10 - 15%
* Mk 13 - 50%
* Mk 14 - 80%
* Mk 15 - 60%
* Mk 18 - 60%

I go into January 43 in my game soon. I was really excited becuase the dud rates drop 20%! I guess I was over excited [X(]

[Boozecamp]

Politics had a lot to do with the issue as well, IIRC.  Can't remember the where the facility that manufactured pretty much all of the Navy's sub torps was located.  I'm sure someone will chime in, my copy of Silent Victory's in storage.  They had a near monopoly on torpedo manufacture, protected politically by local congressmen.  In addition to the Mk 14 being a POS, production couldn't keep up with demand in the early part of the war.  If sub commanders weren't firing a dozen faulty fish at a single ship though, there might not have been such a shortage...