General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
RE: torpedo failures..?
Posted by:
kurt
()
Date: December 09, 2000 10:51PM
<HTML>The torpedo problems of the US and Germany have an erie number of parallels.
They had three major problems:
1) They ran much deeper than set
2) The magnetic exploder did not function properly
3) The impact detonator did not function well for dead on hits, only for glancing blows.
Torpedo development in the US was conducted by the powerful, and independent Bureau of Ordnance. They came up with the magnetic influence exploder in tremendous secrecy. The magnetic field exploder used the magnetic field of a ship to detonate the torpedo beneath a ship. This not only made the torpedo more deadly in general, but it also made the torpedo much more effective against battleships and other capital ships by striking below their massive anti-torpedo armor belts.
The magnetic influence exploder was seen as a great breakthru device, and so was kept in total secrecy. Crews never practiced with it, and (this is key) it was never thoroughly tested in actual war-like conditions - no open ocean live fire tests: it was too secret to be tested properly. So the bugs never were worked out. Secrecy, not cost, was the reason for poor pre-war testing.
Then the war started. None of the pronblems were suspected, and they masked and confused eachother. In addition, the US sub fleet was having tremendous leadership problems: pre-war skippers, picked by seniority, lacked aggressiveness, and were being sacked wholesale: up to 1/3 of all sub commanders were relieved for cause during these early war patrols. US crews were also very green, like the rest of the US military.
Add to this a critical torpedo shortage. The US sub force spent much of 1942 on the verge of running out of torpedoes. Since the magnetic exploder was seen as a \'shot multiplier\', a \'one hit one kill\' weapon, crews were ordered to use it regardless. Commanders who used too many torpedoes to sink a ship were severely criticized. More than a few sub commanders disobeyed orders to use the mag exploders, and used contact detonators, but faked their logs to hide their disobedience. The result was that high command felt the exploder must work,as some people had good results with them....
Continued field reports of bad torpedoes were dismissed as mistaked by poorly trained crews, or excuses by inferior, or cowardly, commanders.
Finally, it was realized that the torpedoes tended to go too deep (Adm Lockwood finally fired some torpedoes thu a fishing net and measured where the holes were), about 15 feet deeper than set. This was mostly because the \'atmoshperic\' diaphram inside the torpedo that serves as a pressure reference for depth keeping tended to leak. Since a sub\'s internal pressure usually climbs during submerged operations from air being vented into the boat, the \'reference\' diaphrams gradually had too high a pressure, leading the torpedo to go too deep. This is virtually the same problem as the Germans had, and solved, a few years earlier. By the way, the British also had, and solved, this problem... in WWI.
Then, against increasing field evidence, the magnetic influence exploder was gradually withdrawn from service, though Adm Christie (who helped develope it) dragged his feet a great deal. Many of the problems of the mag exploder were the same as the Germans: it tended not to explode, or premature. Real world magnetic fields were more complex than the tightly controlled, ideal tests done by the bureau of ordnance. The bureau of ordnance had done hundreds of magnetic exploder tests using actual torpedoes and ships, but not in the open ocean.
The final problem was due to the contact detonator design. In the US design physical impact with the target released the firing pin, which travelled down some metal guides to hit the detonator. In a hard, direct, near 90 degree impact the impact was so hard that the front of the torpedo crumpled, and the guide rails bent, before the firing pin was finished traveling, jamming it. Either it didn\'t fininsh travelling, or it hit with too little force to set of the detonator. Glancing blows did not crush the nose as much, and the firing pin would travel down the guide pins as designed.
As relayed above, test shots against a cliff from a sub finally confirmed this. Finally drop tests on land onto a steel plate held at varying angles revealed the total problem. A redesign was made to isolate the guiderails, and make the firing pin lighter.
The Germans also had the same problem with their imnpact detonator, with the firing mechanism being crushed before it could operate in a direct, head on blow.
In both cases the torpedo bureaucracies, instead of acting with concern when field reports poured in with complaints about their weapon, became defensive and refused to even look at the problem till forced to by higher command.
In the end both sub services ended up with good weapons, though I think the US had the harder time of it.
Next, we can talk about the problems in electric torpedo dev\'t,....
</HTML>
They had three major problems:
1) They ran much deeper than set
2) The magnetic exploder did not function properly
3) The impact detonator did not function well for dead on hits, only for glancing blows.
Torpedo development in the US was conducted by the powerful, and independent Bureau of Ordnance. They came up with the magnetic influence exploder in tremendous secrecy. The magnetic field exploder used the magnetic field of a ship to detonate the torpedo beneath a ship. This not only made the torpedo more deadly in general, but it also made the torpedo much more effective against battleships and other capital ships by striking below their massive anti-torpedo armor belts.
The magnetic influence exploder was seen as a great breakthru device, and so was kept in total secrecy. Crews never practiced with it, and (this is key) it was never thoroughly tested in actual war-like conditions - no open ocean live fire tests: it was too secret to be tested properly. So the bugs never were worked out. Secrecy, not cost, was the reason for poor pre-war testing.
Then the war started. None of the pronblems were suspected, and they masked and confused eachother. In addition, the US sub fleet was having tremendous leadership problems: pre-war skippers, picked by seniority, lacked aggressiveness, and were being sacked wholesale: up to 1/3 of all sub commanders were relieved for cause during these early war patrols. US crews were also very green, like the rest of the US military.
Add to this a critical torpedo shortage. The US sub force spent much of 1942 on the verge of running out of torpedoes. Since the magnetic exploder was seen as a \'shot multiplier\', a \'one hit one kill\' weapon, crews were ordered to use it regardless. Commanders who used too many torpedoes to sink a ship were severely criticized. More than a few sub commanders disobeyed orders to use the mag exploders, and used contact detonators, but faked their logs to hide their disobedience. The result was that high command felt the exploder must work,as some people had good results with them....
Continued field reports of bad torpedoes were dismissed as mistaked by poorly trained crews, or excuses by inferior, or cowardly, commanders.
Finally, it was realized that the torpedoes tended to go too deep (Adm Lockwood finally fired some torpedoes thu a fishing net and measured where the holes were), about 15 feet deeper than set. This was mostly because the \'atmoshperic\' diaphram inside the torpedo that serves as a pressure reference for depth keeping tended to leak. Since a sub\'s internal pressure usually climbs during submerged operations from air being vented into the boat, the \'reference\' diaphrams gradually had too high a pressure, leading the torpedo to go too deep. This is virtually the same problem as the Germans had, and solved, a few years earlier. By the way, the British also had, and solved, this problem... in WWI.
Then, against increasing field evidence, the magnetic influence exploder was gradually withdrawn from service, though Adm Christie (who helped develope it) dragged his feet a great deal. Many of the problems of the mag exploder were the same as the Germans: it tended not to explode, or premature. Real world magnetic fields were more complex than the tightly controlled, ideal tests done by the bureau of ordnance. The bureau of ordnance had done hundreds of magnetic exploder tests using actual torpedoes and ships, but not in the open ocean.
The final problem was due to the contact detonator design. In the US design physical impact with the target released the firing pin, which travelled down some metal guides to hit the detonator. In a hard, direct, near 90 degree impact the impact was so hard that the front of the torpedo crumpled, and the guide rails bent, before the firing pin was finished traveling, jamming it. Either it didn\'t fininsh travelling, or it hit with too little force to set of the detonator. Glancing blows did not crush the nose as much, and the firing pin would travel down the guide pins as designed.
As relayed above, test shots against a cliff from a sub finally confirmed this. Finally drop tests on land onto a steel plate held at varying angles revealed the total problem. A redesign was made to isolate the guiderails, and make the firing pin lighter.
The Germans also had the same problem with their imnpact detonator, with the firing mechanism being crushed before it could operate in a direct, head on blow.
In both cases the torpedo bureaucracies, instead of acting with concern when field reports poured in with complaints about their weapon, became defensive and refused to even look at the problem till forced to by higher command.
In the end both sub services ended up with good weapons, though I think the US had the harder time of it.
Next, we can talk about the problems in electric torpedo dev\'t,....
</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
torpedos
|
tony | 12/07/2000 07:54PM |
|
RE: torpedos
|
Craig McLean | 12/07/2000 10:31PM |
|
RE: Japanese honor code and subs
|
kurt | 12/09/2000 11:30PM |
|
RE: Japanese honor code and subs
|
Roy Prince | 12/10/2000 12:36AM |
|
RE: Japanese honor code and subs
|
Steve Cooper | 12/11/2000 01:00PM |
|
RE: Japanese honor code and subs
|
kurt | 12/12/2000 03:15AM |
|
RE: torpedos
|
kpp | 12/07/2000 11:00PM |
|
RE: torpedos failures..?
|
Joe Brennan | 12/08/2000 02:21AM |
|
RE: torpedos failures..?
|
John R. | 12/08/2000 02:17PM |
|
RE: torpedo failures..?
|
j harvey | 12/08/2000 05:51PM |
|
RE: torpedo failures..?
|
John R. | 12/08/2000 06:03PM |
|
RE: torpedo failures..?
|
jharvey | 12/08/2000 07:22PM |
|
RE: torpedo failures..?
|
John R. | 12/08/2000 08:25PM |
|
RE: Torpedo Exploder Mods
|
Don Baker | 12/08/2000 07:52PM |
|
RE: Torpedo Exploder Mods
|
John R. | 12/08/2000 08:29PM |
|
RE: torpedo failures..?
|
John | 12/09/2000 05:50PM |
|
RE: torpedo failures..?
|
kurt | 12/09/2000 10:51PM |
|
Japanese torpedoes
|
kurt | 12/09/2000 11:07PM |