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RE: Battle of Savo Island
Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:35 pm
by warspite1
ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk
ORIGINAL: spence
The Germans "did it" to save their torpedoes, most of which worked
Actually the Germans had severe problems with their torpedoes at first related to their magnetic exploder. IIRC the closer they got to magnetic North the worse their problems became...in the Norwegian Campaign it became so severe that their equivalent of BuOrd actually paid attention and corrected the problem.
Found a link on the web that describes the problems pretty well. Interesting that there were a lot of the same problems with the same systems on US torpedoes.
http://www.uboataces.com/articles-woode ... does.shtml
Love the quote by Donitz: “I do not believe that ever in the history of war, men have been sent against the enemy with such a useless weapon”.
warspite1
Well Donitz obviously never heard of the Fairey Battle then......
RE: Battle of Savo Island
Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:46 pm
by Orm
Not many have heard of the Battle Fairy, fewer still have seen it. And of those who have seen it, not many survive to tell the story.
RE: Battle of Savo Island
Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 7:37 pm
by decaro
ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk
ORIGINAL: Joe D.
ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk
Love the quote by Donitz: “I do not believe that ever in the history of war, men have been sent against the enemy with such a useless weapon”.
That weapon didn't stay useless for long.
"During the war the U-boats sank about 2,779 ships for a total of 14.1 million tons GRT. This figure is roughly 70% of all allied shipping losses in all theatres of the war and to all hostile action. The most successful year was 1942 when over 6 million tons of shipping were sunk in the Atlantic."
https://uboat.net/special/faq.htm?question=4
My dad was born in Stratford, my mom was born in Fairfield. I always liked the Stratford Point lighthouse. Hope it's still around.
It's now a private residence and is never open to the public, but here's some info and a picture.
http://www.townofstratford.com/content/ ... 43080.aspx
RE: Battle of Savo Island
Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 6:02 am
by warspite1
ORIGINAL: Orm
Not many have heard of the Battle Fairy, fewer still have seen it. And of those who have seen it, not many survive to tell the story.
warspite1
So a bit like the poor b*****s sent into action in the Fairey Battle....
RE: Battle of Savo Island
Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 6:02 am
by Buckrock
ORIGINAL: fcooke
Not the IJN should have known, but the US didn't have many Mark 14s (made even more severe by the loss of a couple hundred at Cavite). So bomb the torpedo storage facility. As it was many boats went on patrol with partial torp loads, often augmented by mines - which crews really did not like laying. In addition captains were urged to use small spreads, which led to many ships being missed altogether, before you even get to the issues with running deep, magnetic exploders, and firing pin jamming (the firing pin problem was a special insult as perfect shots often jammed the pins, but more oblique shots would more often explode).
Regards,Frank
The submarine torpedo storage and repair facility was at the PH submarine base, as was Kimmel's CINCPAC HQ (located in the large "U" shaped adminsitration building close to the camouflaged fuel tank in the photo of Spence's post 94). IIRC, these torpedo facilities ashore and the sub tender USS Pelias (docked at the base on Dec 7th) contained the entire reserve stocks of around 100 torpedoes for the Pacific Fleet submarines.
So IF the Japanese had gone after the submarine base, they might well have caused further headaches for US early-war operations.
RE: Battle of Savo Island
Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 6:09 am
by warspite1
ORIGINAL: Orm
Not many have heard of the Battle Fairy, fewer still have seen it. And of those who have seen it, not many survive to tell the story.
warspite1
Mmmmm a female archer.... reminds me of a poll we had back in the day [;)] from about page 223 when someone happened to mention Rose Leslie....
tm.asp?m=3083586&mpage=223&key=Katniss