The Kriegsmarine had some torpedo problems early on as well. I think they were quicker to sort them out though
That's because the KM believed the captains that the Torps were crap, unlike the USN who said that the captains were lying and not aggressive enough. Someone in BuOrd should have been jailed for that imo.
It's funny how some thigs never change. The German's still work out defects quickly and our bosses don't believe us either!! The XXIIs did arrive to late to make a difference, lucky for us. They could have made the Battle of the Atlantic much more difficult to win for the Allies. J
Well I was favoring "drug out in the street and shot" but this is the new, politically sensitive America, and we are not supposed to be blood thirsty cavemen like that anymore. Honestly, in the whole "torpedo scandal" I am more ashamed of the fact that the navy wouldn't listen to it's commanders when they were proven to be garbage, then the fact that they weren't well tested before the war. Times were hard, and I can understand penny pinching (even if I think it shouldnt have been done), but to have a bunch of REMFs at BuOrd tell combat commanders that they were incompetent and imply cowardice...well that raises the blood.
Now hold up, We tested our torpedoes quite thoroughly before employing them in combat. Cal Tech, my dad's alma mater, was extensively involved in the whole project. The problem was that we only tested the torpedoes in a lake in California, and calibrated the detonator to the magnetic field in California. So when the submariners took the torpedoes out into the Pacific and to Japan, where the earth's magnetic field was different, the magnetic detonators weren't calibrated right. Before the war, we never got the funding to test the magnetic detonator in places outside the testing lake in California, so we simply had no idea that they needed to be recalibrated to different locations of the world. BuOrd disbelieving the skippers when they said their torpedoes weren't working was pretty bad. THAT's a problem.
I can not believe that testing would not have shown the failure of the contact exploders. Of course the tests may not have gotten that far. The magnetic exploders were working as planned (in Newport anyway) strikes me as sloppy work.
They used the exploder mechanism that had been proven in the MK12 torpedo. That older torpedo was slower though. Engineers didnt take into account the additional stresses that would br put on the system from a heavier, faster torpedo striking a target. They probably felt that the exploder was properly tested enough in the old torpedo, there was no need to re-design the wheel.
I read somewhere that there is a chance that the torpedo issues experienced by the U.S., and Germans might have been linked, due to one country's spys getting their hands on the other's torpedo designs. I am not sure if it is true. But it is very interesting. Mikey
There is a solid chance of that, as the German magnetic exploder had similar problems to the American magnetic exploder. The Germans quickly deactivated that magnetic exploder, whereas the Americans kept using it, partially in light of the fact that the guy who designed it ended up in charge of the Australia based submarines, until Admiral Kinkaid told him in no uncertain terms to deactivate it. Poor budgets are one thing. Three MAJOR defects are soemthing else entirely. The magnetic exploder was only tested twice, both times fired from a barge. One went off. So the exploder actually entered service with a 50% FAIL rate. These problems were also found in the mk15 destoyer torpedo, which would be far harder to detect. One has to wonder how some of those night actions where the US got creamed in the Solomons might have turned out if the US destoyers would have had reliable torpedoes.
Or read the book pig boats and look at the tons ships sunk per year. Had the torpedos worked, the jump in tonnage sunk would not have been so great when comparing the start of the war to the end.!
My favourite would definatly have to be the French cruiser submarine Surcouf. Some day when I have a little more in the way of resources, I would really love to build one for rc combat, no matter how hard it is. --Chase
My favorite is the Surcouf. I think that the Surcouf, and the I-400 would be the two to try to build in 1/144th scale, as they are the largest. Mikey
I like Surcouf, have a partially-finished 1/96 plug for it even, but for looks, I like the US V-boats... USS Argonaut in particular. Too large for practical use in tight confines, she looks awesome
I had almost forgot: In the book "Pig Boats" there is one chapter titled "David and Goliath." The American Sub fire it's first torp at one of the largest tankers the Japanese ever built during the war. The torp detonated and disable the ship. With no tin cans around, the sub then set itself up in perfect firing position and fired torpedo after torpedo at the tanker. As they looked around, they could not believe thier luck still no Japanese Tin cans in the area! The Skipper made a precise log entries for each torpedo that they fired. The setting of t he torp, distance to target, etc. When they were down to their last torpedo, the skipper decided bring that last one back to Pearl instead of firing it at the disabled tanker. In the book the skipper talks about how he watched the torpedo’s bounce off the side of the ship! It was the the log entries of this Skipper that brought the big shots around to finding out just what was wrong with the American torpedo. It was later found out that the warhead would only detonate if the torpedo hit its target at an angle! With a perfect shot to the broad side of a target the firing pin would not hit the primer with enough force to detonate the warhead. Also they learned that the torp was running something like two fathoms lower than the set depth. That is all that I can remember off the top of my head. My copy of the book is buried deep in a storage room until I am able to finish the library.
I tried to build a Surcouf but very quickly realized it was far too small to be an effective combat model. No way it could both dive and shoot. The I-400 was much bigger than the Surcouf and is probably the only sub that can work as a combat model in 1/144 scale. Many people in the hobby know about my experimentation with a 3/8" deepened Battler's Connection I-400 hull. The model's stability problems were gradually being overcome by successive shifting of lead ballast from inside the pressure hull to a lower position on each side of the box keel. That was still going on when four of us in Nova Scotia decided to make a fuller and deeper I-400 hull. The OOP Battler's I-400 hull matched the plans from amidships aft but was quite a bit too narrow from amidships forward. Our hull matches the top view plan from bow to stern and has been deepened 3/4". With more volume and a lower lead keel we think the stability problem will be solved. Our damaged lower hull plug will be fixed over the next 2-3 weeks, then we'll proceed to molding (5 months later than planned). I've tried to post a video of my BC I-400 doing a static dive but it didn't upload. The sub has saddle type ballast tanks inside the hull and used CO2 to blow them and surface. It dove and resurfaced very well but with a 1.5 unit spurt gun in the hangar was only stable in a flat calm and running in a straight line. A light breeze, ripples or a quick turn and she'd roll 45 degrees and stay there. The gun worked well and was designed so water would flow out of it on surfacing. The model will be shipped to Byran M. of the OAF in a week or two. He may do more experimentation with a gun and stability, but the BC model will definitely work as a diving convoy ship. Bob
