ORIGINAL: tondern
[font="Times New Roman"][/font][font="Times New Roman"]Interesting discussion.
From hazy memory I believe that in D.K. Brown's (most excellent) analysis something like 17 British Destroyers survived single torpedo hits. He concluded that as long as the torpedo didn't break the ship's back, survival was likely. Breaking the back has to do with violent acceleration amidships caused by the explosion - horizontally but especially vertically. The farther the hit was below the waterline, the greater the transmission of explosive force into acceleration.
That means a destroyer taking a deep hit by a big torp anywhere plus or minus a hundred feet of amidships (say 60% of the hull) was likely a goner. With a little dinky 18" air dropped torp (Nells, Bettys, Kates, Jills, etc.) even a hit amidships was probably not always fatal. Hits in the bow or stern are likely non-fatal even with a big torp, and certainly with little (air-dropped) torps. The destroyer losses in the Solomons were the result of very big torpedoes (24"), the existence of which was unknown to Allied intelligence.
So - could a DD sink from a single torp? Yes, easily. Could it survive? Yes. Especially from a single 18" air-dropped torp.
Humbly Yours, Johnny
[/font]
An example to support your point would be the case of HMS Javelin which was hit by two German G7a torpedos in bow and stern and which was reduced as a consequence to little more than the machinery section with a length of 155 feet of the original 353 feet. The torso was towed back to port and repaired, which took a year. That was in Nov. 1940. Later in the war, this would have become a constructive total loss.