This is coolbert:
"The only reliable feature of the torpedo [Mark XIV] was its unreliability." - - Theodore Roscoe
The American submarine force, during World War Two, at least for the first twenty months of the war [after Pearl Harbor], were forced to fight with weaponry that was deficient in the extreme.
A torpedo, of revolutionary [?] design, proving to be a "dud"!!
This was the U.S. Navy Mark XIV torpedo.
A torpedo designed NOT just to hole an enemy ship at the water-line. Designed to explode UNDERNEATH THE ENEMY VESSEL, USING A MAGNETIC DETONATOR, BREAKING THE KEEL IF POSSIBLE, AND CAUSING IRREPERABLE HARM FOR WHICH NO AMOUNT OF DAMAGE CONTROL WOULD BE POSSIBLE!!
"it [U.S. Navy] introduced a sophisticated new magnetic influence exploder (similar to the British Duplex and German models), the Mark VI, inspired by German magnetic mines of WW1, designed to break ships' backs by causing explosions beneath them, where warships had no armor."
"the magnetic detonator was designed to travel under the keel of a ship and then detonate. Such underbelly explosions could break a ship’s hull in two, sinking it with just one torpedo."
"For 18 months, several flaws had combined to render the Mark XIV torpedo, upon which submariners’ lives and success depended, virtually impotent. From the onset of Mark XIV production, inherent defects had existed within the design of the torpedo and the Mark VI magnetic influence exploder mechanism. Each flaw that was discovered and corrected exposed another malfunction . . . Mk 14 was central to the torpedo scandal of the US Pacific Fleet Submarine Force during World War II . . . defects, in the course of fully twenty months of war, were exposed, as torpedo after torpedo either missed, prematurely exploded, or struck targets (sometimes with an audible clang) and failed to explode."
"In addition, British and German submariners experienced problems with their magnetic exploders, and BuOrd [Bureau of Ordnance] was informed; it took no action. This, also, can be called dereliction. No member of the Bureau, from top men William Leahy, Harold Stark, and Spike Blandy on down, was disciplined."
With regard to the personalities, Harold Stark was Chief, Naval Operations [CNO] at the time of Pearl Harbor, and William Leahy was military aide to President Roosevelt all during the war. Leahy was heard to comment on the atomic bomb, before detonation of the first test device, "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done . . . The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
The Mark 14 was found to have four major flaws. To include:
* It tended to run about 10 feet deeper than set.
* The magnetic exploder often caused premature firing.
* The contact exploder often failed to fire the warhead.
* It tended to "circular", turning back to strike the firing ship.
Consider these egregious and what must have been maddeningly frustrating torpedo failures as experienced by American submariners: [just a sampling too!]
* Commander Tyrell Dwight Jacobs in Sargo: "fired a total of eight torpedoes at two different ships, with no results, when firing two torpedoes at each ship ["two additional merchantmen"] . . . All missed."
* Pete Ferrall in Seadragon: "who fired eight fish [torpedoes] for only one hit"
* Lieutenant Commander John A. Scott in Tunny on 9 April 1943: Ten torpedoes launched, seven detonating, each detonation premature, slight damage to one enemy vessel.
* Dan Daspit (in Tinosa): "He fired four torpedoes . . . two hit, stopping the target dead in the water. Daspit immediately fired another two; these hit as well . . . he [Daspit] fired nine more Mark 14s . . . All were duds"
Failures were analyzed, corrections were made - - and amazingly, the Mark XIV proved to be effective and useful after all!! So much so that the Mark XIV remained as a standard torpedo carried by American submarines for some forty years afterwards, even unto the 1980's!!??
"[the Mark XIV] remained in service for almost 40 years in the US Navy, and even longer with other navies."
coolbert.
"The only reliable feature of the torpedo [Mark XIV] was its unreliability." - - Theodore Roscoe
The American submarine force, during World War Two, at least for the first twenty months of the war [after Pearl Harbor], were forced to fight with weaponry that was deficient in the extreme.
A torpedo, of revolutionary [?] design, proving to be a "dud"!!
This was the U.S. Navy Mark XIV torpedo.
A torpedo designed NOT just to hole an enemy ship at the water-line. Designed to explode UNDERNEATH THE ENEMY VESSEL, USING A MAGNETIC DETONATOR, BREAKING THE KEEL IF POSSIBLE, AND CAUSING IRREPERABLE HARM FOR WHICH NO AMOUNT OF DAMAGE CONTROL WOULD BE POSSIBLE!!
"it [U.S. Navy] introduced a sophisticated new magnetic influence exploder (similar to the British Duplex and German models), the Mark VI, inspired by German magnetic mines of WW1, designed to break ships' backs by causing explosions beneath them, where warships had no armor."
"the magnetic detonator was designed to travel under the keel of a ship and then detonate. Such underbelly explosions could break a ship’s hull in two, sinking it with just one torpedo."
"For 18 months, several flaws had combined to render the Mark XIV torpedo, upon which submariners’ lives and success depended, virtually impotent. From the onset of Mark XIV production, inherent defects had existed within the design of the torpedo and the Mark VI magnetic influence exploder mechanism. Each flaw that was discovered and corrected exposed another malfunction . . . Mk 14 was central to the torpedo scandal of the US Pacific Fleet Submarine Force during World War II . . . defects, in the course of fully twenty months of war, were exposed, as torpedo after torpedo either missed, prematurely exploded, or struck targets (sometimes with an audible clang) and failed to explode."
"In addition, British and German submariners experienced problems with their magnetic exploders, and BuOrd [Bureau of Ordnance] was informed; it took no action. This, also, can be called dereliction. No member of the Bureau, from top men William Leahy, Harold Stark, and Spike Blandy on down, was disciplined."
With regard to the personalities, Harold Stark was Chief, Naval Operations [CNO] at the time of Pearl Harbor, and William Leahy was military aide to President Roosevelt all during the war. Leahy was heard to comment on the atomic bomb, before detonation of the first test device, "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done . . . The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
The Mark 14 was found to have four major flaws. To include:
* It tended to run about 10 feet deeper than set.
* The magnetic exploder often caused premature firing.
* The contact exploder often failed to fire the warhead.
* It tended to "circular", turning back to strike the firing ship.
Consider these egregious and what must have been maddeningly frustrating torpedo failures as experienced by American submariners: [just a sampling too!]
* Commander Tyrell Dwight Jacobs in Sargo: "fired a total of eight torpedoes at two different ships, with no results, when firing two torpedoes at each ship ["two additional merchantmen"] . . . All missed."
* Pete Ferrall in Seadragon: "who fired eight fish [torpedoes] for only one hit"
* Lieutenant Commander John A. Scott in Tunny on 9 April 1943: Ten torpedoes launched, seven detonating, each detonation premature, slight damage to one enemy vessel.
* Dan Daspit (in Tinosa): "He fired four torpedoes . . . two hit, stopping the target dead in the water. Daspit immediately fired another two; these hit as well . . . he [Daspit] fired nine more Mark 14s . . . All were duds"
Failures were analyzed, corrections were made - - and amazingly, the Mark XIV proved to be effective and useful after all!! So much so that the Mark XIV remained as a standard torpedo carried by American submarines for some forty years afterwards, even unto the 1980's!!??
"[the Mark XIV] remained in service for almost 40 years in the US Navy, and even longer with other navies."
coolbert.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment