How bad was the Mk XIV torpedo really?

[spence]

I've read a lot of books about USN submarines during WWII and seen lots of anecdotes about the failures of the Mark XIV torpedo. I was wondering if anybody has ever found some official statistics concerning it's failure rate. My searches havent turned up anything.

IRL apparently one fleet boat fired off it's entire load of 20 torpedos at a single large tanker or factory ship near Truk and (maybe) got one hit.

In a PBEM in UV during a period of particularly intense operations over the course of 2 months I had various fleet boats launch 28 salvos of torpedos at the IJN without a single hit. Seems a bit much (or rather little)? Most of the attacks were against warships which have a higher probability of evasion but with an average of 5 torpedo salvos that's 140 torpedos fired for no hits (assumes equal number of bow/stern tube attacks).

[DoomedMantis]

Id say you were just unlucky, Ive had games where I get lots of hits and others where there are a lot less, thats the thing about probability, its only probable

[timtom]

In my current debacle against Toraq-san, I've probably had about a hundred sub contacts or more, averaging 4-5 pr. turn over the most intense three week period, not counting attacks on barges. The max no. for any one turn was 10. I've had a 26 subs available - 10 S-boats, 16 fleet subs, and lost four subs - two of each. I've scored 22 hits, 13 by S-boats, 9 by fleet subs.

[Bobthehatchit]

ORIGINAL: spence

I've read a lot of books about USN submarines during WWII and seen lots of anecdotes about the failures of the Mark XIV torpedo. I was wondering if anybody has ever found some official statistics concerning it's failure rate. My searches havent turned up anything.

IRL apparently one fleet boat fired off it's entire load of 20 torpedos at a single large tanker or factory ship near Truk and (maybe) got one hit.

In a PBEM in UV during a period of particularly intense operations over the course of 2 months I had various fleet boats launch 28 salvos of torpedos at the IJN without a single hit. Seems a bit much (or rather little)? Most of the attacks were against warships which have a higher probability of evasion but with an average of 5 torpedo salvos that's 140 torpedos fired for no hits (assumes equal number of bow/stern tube attacks).

I remember reading a combat report from us skipper who fired his whole load out of mk14 at a stationary ijn transport. He fire three full spreads at it, the fish either ran deep, in circules, or failed to detonate. The on one that actually detonate ran under the transport up the beach and hit a building!

[crsutton]

Pretty bad. Two biggest issues was the tendency for the torpedo to run at a shallower depth than initially set for-many times porposing and then running on the surface. The other flaw was with the magnetic fuse for the warhead, which failed to work properly most of the time. These factors combined with the fact that even very good torpedoes were at best delicate machines, contributed to a very high failure rate. Biggest problem was the failure of the Navy, especially the Ordinance deptartment, failure to admit to the problem and then follow up with testing. Thus, corrections for the defects were slow to come about.

Failure rates early in the war might have been as high as 90% (speaking off the top of my head) with the fish slowly getting better. By 1944, they were finally reaching the point where they could be counted on. Also, torpex, a much better explosive was introduced later in the war and that gave American warheads a significantly better punch.

In UV, I find that the early pig boats are much more sucessful, (due to their use of the older model, more reliable, contact torpedo). The fleet boats miss a lot. The big boats seem to grow more effective after 1943, but I have not see any documentation to this effect. I gradually replace my old subs with fleet subs after Jan 1, 1943 and this seem to work.

[crsutton]

Correction, the problem with the torpedos was that they ran deep rather than shallow. Here is a good article for reference.

www.geocities.com/Pentagon/159/?ustorp2.htm

[crsutton]

[:@] Ok,

Here is the correct link.

www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp2.htm

[anarchyintheuk]

Not only was the magnetic detonator flawed, the contact detanator was as well. The closer you got to a perpendicular hit, the more likely the contact detonator was to jam. In other words, the better shot you had or were, the less likely you got a result.