...Those Marvelous Tin Fish: The Great Torpedo Scandal Avoided

[phx1138]

Mk 10s have been retained for the S and R class boats. They can not use the longer Mk 14.

I did know they can't use the MkXIV; I was thinking the R- & S-boats might be in low numbers for training, with most sold off to Poland or somebody (as many were OTL).

Oops. I gooned that up.

It happens to the best of us.

The O-boats were needed for stateside training of all the new crews coming out of Sub School in Groton. They were old, but still useful for the role

R-boats OTL were used, too; my thinking was (is), retire the O- & R-boats as too labor-intensive (shore establishment takes too much manpower for maintenance), turn over some of the S-boats to training duty, & sell of most of them, while increasing building rate of fleet boats in '39 (from 4 boats a year to 8?); I'd do it in '37, as a Depression recovery program, if I thought FDR & Congress would go along.

It will be a ways yet. I would estimate not until the Guadalcanal campaign kicks into high gear in late '42.

I have another post coming up in a few days. It will discuss tactics, or the lack thereof.

Just a thought, along with the others on Sub Force deployments.

 

[Butchpfd]

GEARING UP FOR WAR – 1941

President Roosevelt declared a “limited emergency” on 08 September 1939 in response to the initiation of war in Europe. This declaration freed up funding for the military and served as a priming pump to the armed forces and the industry that supported it. The Navy asked for and got a new torpedo plane project initiated as a replacement for
.

Greatly encouraged by the results, ELCO incorporated the new racks into the design of their 78-footer which after a summertime competition was chosen by the Navy, along with designs from Higgins Industries and the Huckins Yacht Corporation for full production, with the Navy dictating that the ELCO torpedo rack design be used by all three companies. The weight savings also allowed the incorporation from the start of a Mk 2 20 mm Oerlikon rapid fire cannon on the aft deck, to supplement the normal gun armament of two twin mount .50 caliber M2 machine guns. The first squadron to deploy overseas was MTB Squadron 3 with 78-foot ELCOs and they arrived in the Philippines in September 1941 with Mk 13s and 20 mm Oerlikons, and were under the command of none other than LT John Bulkeley.

Persistent and lengthy development work on the Mk 18 by Bliss, Westinghouse, and Exide had yielded results by late 1941. It had been a frustrating R&D , with one problem after another cropping up and demanding attention. Issues with short circuits, excessive hydrogen production from the batteries, varying voltage in different water temperatures (and thus varying speeds and ranges) had all bedeviled the development team. The prototypes had also shown a propensity towards requiring dperiodetailed and intensive maintenance, which obviously was not always obtainable onboard a submarine. On one occasion a tube loaded prototype weapon short circuited onboard the submarine Sturgeon (SS-187) and the subsequent hot run very nearly destroyed the submarine when it exploded shortly after being ejected from the tube. One by one these problems were addressed by the combined industry team and with assistance of technicians from Newport were all eventually solved. Since Bliss was fully involved with steam torpedo production the tooling was handed over to Westinghouse and on 05 December 1941 the first low rate production model rolled off the production line and was immediately delivered to Newport for subsequent validation testing.

Author’s note: And so the stage is set for the great test of Roosevelt’s torpedo infrastructure. Will it make a difference? We shall see!

One of the other factors in the scandal was Newport’s inability to adequately ramp up production. At the start of the war, with three shifts running and over 3000 workers employed they were still only turning out about 2.5 weapons per day. The reasons were multi-fold, but primarily rested with the fact that Newport was primarily an R&D center and was not in the production mindset. All three of the torpedoes were finely crafted works of art and in some cases parts were individually fitted and thus not identical. This practice did not lend itself to mass production. The overall shortage of torpedoes drove home the need to conserve torpedoes and reinforced in the minds of men like Christie, Blandy, and Admiral English in Pearl Harbor the need to rely on the Mk 6 exploder to solve their problems. It added to the reluctance to give the damn thing up.

The early performance of the PT boats suffered in large part because of the black powder fired tube system they carried. The tubes were very heavy and did not work reliably but without a viable alternative in the OTL it was their only choice at the time. A large number of the easier to handle and perfected Mk 13 gave them a choice ITTL and I butterflied in John Bulkeley to give them the inspiration. In the OTL the decision to convert to Mk 13s only happened in 1943 and it went down similar to how I described it, only with different players.

Working up a viable electric torpedo by the start of the war would not have been easy OTL, but I am convinced that with the right support and funding it could have been done. It will be interesting to explore how this will affect this timeline.

Would this earlier emergency status have allowed the funding for Adm. Thomas Hart to begin the construction of the Mirivales naval magazines for the Asiatic Fleet, beginning in early 1940 as opposed to late 1940, early 1941? Even 6 months would have allowed their completion prior to the outbreak of the war and saved over 200 torpedoes destroyed by the bombing and destruction of Cavite.

 

[Butchpfd]

Question , what was the status of tube launched mines?

 

[DaveJ576]

Some notes from the last several posts:

President Roosevelt declared a “limited emergency” on 08 September 1939 in response to the initiation of war in Europe. This declaration freed up funding for the military and served as a priming pump to the armed forces and the industry that supported it. The Navy asked for and got a new torpedo plane project initiated as a replacement for the rapidly obsolescing TBD Devastator. Grumman made quick progress on the new bomber and by August 1941 the first prototype had flown and Grumman was standing up a full production line in Bethpage, New York.

I apologize for not noting this earlier, but this part is actual history per the OTL. It did free up funding and lead to a lot of new programs, including the TBF/TBM Avenger and the Gar and Gato class submarines. It was the first real step in getting us on a war footing. However, Roosevelt had to play this carefully, taking into account the politics of the day. He truly did not want war and hoped to prevent it (IMHO), but he realized the folly of not being prepared in case the worst happened. It was because of the murky politics of the day and a sense of self-denial on behalf of the American public that his efforts at preparedness fell short and we were still caught asleep at the switch in Pearl Harbor.

A portion of the WWI era O-class submarines had been retained in mothballs as a mobilization asset. In early 1941 the Navy reactivated them and sent them to Groton as school boats for the Submarine School students, and they turned in excellent service in that regard. The Mk 7 torpedoes were retained in the inventory just for them. It was only the Electric Boat design O-boats that were retained. The Lake design had been heavily disliked and they were all scrapped in the 20's and 30's.

Along with the O-boats, some of the Electric Boat (EB) design R-boats and Government design S-boats filled the same billet in Groton, but these boats were also used on actual patrols in the Caribbean and Panama Canal areas. As we all know, a number of the EB design 20, 30, and 40 series S-boats saw combat in the Pacific. A few of the 20 series boats were transferred to the Royal Navy and Poland.

After the war started some of the older fleet boats were pulled back from combat duties and returned stateside for training roles. These were mostly the riveted construction boats like Dolphin, Cachalot, Cuttlefish, Porpoise, Pike and a handful of others. Although these boats were worn out, leaky, and generally unfit for combat duty they gave the Sub School students a look at a more modern boat and thus were quite valuable in that regard. There were also two smaller "Fleet" boats, the Mackerel and Marlin, that were based out of Groton and performed Atlantic anti-U boat patrols and trained students. These two boats were to have been prototypes for a smaller but more modern submarine and were built at the behest of Admiral Hart. If they had been built in numbers they may have been an excellent replacement for the old S-boats. But ultimately the best choice was to build large numbers of Gato, Balao, and Tench class fleet boats and not get distracted with the smaller ones.

Mackerel and Marlin along with some of the O-boats starred in the Tyrone Power movie Crash Dive. Check it out on You Tube. For an explanation of some of the visual differences in the S-boats and the fleet boats check out the following link: http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/10idx.htm. These are articles I wrote a few years ago that were meant to clear up misconceptions and mistakes in submarine photograph historical records. You would be surprised at how many photos have been mis-identified over the years. Also, check out this link: http://www.pigboats.com/. This is a site co-founded by myself and a good friend of mine Ric Hedman. It is an excellent resource.

As the idea for this timeline was rolling around in my head I toyed with the idea of including mines in the mix. It would have been interesting to play with that, but in the end I decided to try to keep this as close to reality as I could make it, and building up mine useage would have introduced a lot of butterflies that I didn't want to deal with. So ITTL mine employment does not change at all.

 

[McPherson]

Same layout of piping for low- and high-powered 1-stage R-1830. There is no additional piping, all piping is within the stated length of an engine KISS already applied. Period.

You forget the intercooler and the pump?

and with the gewgaws:

Maintenance manual... https://aviationshoppe.com/manuals/...tenance_manual/r-1830_maintenance_manual.html

Yes, it took some time for the WAllies to introduce automation of engine operation. Italian were that artful in their engine design that they didn't managed to design engine above 1250 HP during the ww2. It was no accident they license produced German engines.
'British' is not equal to 'Rolls Royce'.

Bristol is not RR. Neither is Napier. Their aspiration schemes were at least as good as Curtiss Wright's.

Of course. Start producing Devastators with 1200 HP engines from late 1940.

Production run is finished (~150 planes) tool jigs are gone. Engine swapout (weight) is not simple. Mods expensive. New TBM on the way. Better suggestion.

N3PB

Developed from:

A-17 (Northrop)

Or

A-33 (Northrop designed for Douglas)

Those three planes are in production, they are in order the Norwegian N3PB torpedo bomber seaplane with a cruise of 160 knots (294 kmh) and endurance of 4 hours at cruise which gives it DOUBLE the strike reach of a Devastator at 30% greater drop speed. This requires some changes in USN doctrine though as the extra fuel is carried in the floats.

The A-17 and A-33 have similar performance to the N3PB but are DIVE BOMBERS and only 2.5 hours endurance in the air at cruise. Their reach is therefore as short as the Devastator. Also they would have trouble carrying a metric ton (tonne) bomb-load so a Mark XIII would be kind of awkward. But in a pinch, already built dive bomber tough, with arrestor gear, they'll do.

P-47 was Kartvelli's masterpiece, the 1st US fighter that could beat Luftwaffe's best above 20000 ft, it took Ta-152 or Me 262 to beat the P-47D. Other A/C needed two engines to equal 1000 mile radius (not range), P-47N needed just one.

P-47N was an end of run, more expensive than the P-51. And it took Kartvelli four tries to get to that Jug. This tortured path started with the P-35 which was okay (Engendered the Reggiane line of Re-2000 series as a byproduct) but needed replacement urgently by 1939. The first attempt was the XP-41 (Seversky with Kartvelli) which went nowhere fast when the army bought into Kartvelli's P-43 Lancer. That plane came out of the Severski AP1-AP9 line of development off the basic P-35 airframe, which is why his name keeps popping up. The Lancer had no armor and its gun armament was a catastrophe, but aside from those faults and short range it was a good airplane for 1937, though made in 1941.

Enter the P-47. This plane had armor, a good gun pack and four hours in the air at cruise. From D to N took SIX iterations to get all the bugs out. By 1945 it, as the N, could escort Superforts from Iwo to Tokyo (double time from D model) and back, but so what? At $87,000 a copy? The P-51 at $55,000 a copy could do the same and was a better dogfighter.

Merlin was not an option when P-38 wa in development phase. At any rate, airframe problems were much greater than engine problems. Too bad they opted for twin-boom layout instead of 'classic', too bad that PR stunt destroyed the XP-38, then Lockheed dragged their feet for years thus squandering the timing advantage vs. P-47 and P-51.

Yeah, too bad. It would have helped in the lean years to have the P-38 (another option was Pratt and Whitney radials, lose maybe 10% speed but gain in engine reliability and range) ready to beat up on the Axis when a "forked tailed devil" would have been the RX.

But that carries us away from the Mark XIII torpedo and delivery options for it. The Devastator was a no-go after 1939. Three options (all Jack Northrop designs) existed as plug-ins before Grumman delivers her baby. Which one do you like?

P.S. Looked at the Devastator barrel SSgtC. How do we widen the recess to take the drogue kit on a barrel that narrow? Also hate the Norden bomb sight. The British had a much better one whose name escapes me, but the Navy developed Norden had a crosswind error built in that threw bomb drop off about 100 meters for every 2 m/s wind unaccounted for for which the device was improperly calibrated. Can't blame BuOrd for that one. It was BuAer's fault.

 

[McPherson]

Would this earlier emergency status have allowed the funding for Adm. Thomas Hart to begin the construction of the Mirivales naval magazines for the Asiatic Fleet, beginning in early 1940 as opposed to late 1940, early 1941? Even 6 months would have allowed their completion prior to the outbreak of the war and saved over 200 torpedoes destroyed by the bombing and destruction of Cavite.

Probably. Of course AAF Philippines and at Hawaii could have also gotten funding earlier to build earthen revetments for their aircraft and a bomb dump. You can do things with a shovel, pickax, lime, gravel, cement, scrap metal and men who need to be kept busy, if you are not a dud staff officer or MacArthur. I mean after 1936, when the Philippine Islands are
"an Independent Commonwealth" the brakes are off. What is a guy doing from 24 August 1936 onward?

Counting golfballs? And don't get me started on Brereton.

At least Hart has an excuse. It took him two years to clean up his predecessor's mess.

 

[SsgtC]

P.S. Looked at the Devastator barrel SSgtC. How do we widen the recess to take the drogue kit on a barrel that narrow? Also hate the Norden bomb sight. The British had a much better one whose name escapes me, but the Navy developed Norden had a crosswind error built in that threw bomb drop off about 100 meters for every 2 m/s wind unaccounted for for which the device was improperly calibrated. Can't blame BuOrd for that one. It was BuAer's fault.

Simple answer? This is not OTL's Devastator. It would have been designed with the knowledge of how the Navy intended to use the aircraft and how they intended to deploy a torpedo from it. So the designers would have simply made the fuse just that little bit wider from the get go. Obviously, a wider fuse does have draw backs. Namely reduced performance in top speed and reduced range from increased drag. So maybe TTL, the Devastator is designed with a 1,000 hp engine instead of OTL's 900?

You could also lose the Norden bomb sight TBH. Did the Navy ever use the Devastator as a level bomber? Honestly, I'm not really sure what it's purpose was. As a torpedo bomber, the pilot lined the shot up manually with the Mk I Mod 0 eyeball.

 

[DaveJ576]

Hey guys... let's have a little rudder correction and steer this thing back on course. Thank you for the contributions!

 

[McPherson]

Kick left rudder.

Simple answer? This is not OTL's Devastator. It would have been designed with the knowledge of how the Navy intended to use the aircraft and how they intended to deploy a torpedo from it. So the designers would have simply made the fuse just that little bit wider from the get go. Obviously, a wider fuse does have draw backs. Namely reduced performance in top speed and reduced range from increased drag. So maybe TTL, the Devastator is designed with a 1,000 hp engine instead of OTL's 900?

You could also lose the Norden bomb sight TBH. Did the Navy ever use the Devastator as a level bomber? Honestly, I'm not really sure what it's purpose was. As a torpedo bomber, the pilot lined the shot up manually with the Mk I Mod 0 eyeball.

To KISS it, dispense with the bomb aimer balcony and use a two point shackle on a smooth belly. Put the Norden into a periscope set or use a reflex periscope bomb sight. To get that torpedo bomber an extra 15 minutes in the air dispense with the useless third man and his pop gun and put all of that into fuel.

And yes the TBD was used as a level bomber up to 10,000 feet. It's accuracy in that role during the Marshall Islands raids was "questionable".

Hey guys... let's have a little rudder correction and steer this thing back on course. Thank you for the contributions!

Kicking right rudder, now.

 

[phx1138]

Hey guys... let's have a little rudder correction and steer this thing back on course. Thank you for the contributions!

You can try that, but in my experience, keeping posts on track is a bit like herding cats.

 

[SsgtC]

You can try that, but in my experience, keeping posts on track is a bit like herding cats.

Herding cats is easier. All it takes is a little bit of tuna.

 

[McPherson]

Pianoforte B flat or C tuna?

 

[SsgtC]

Yellowfin works best

 

[DaveJ576]

(Sound of slapping forehead) Sigh... apparently no one reads my posts!

 

[phx1138]

Herding cats is easier. All it takes is a little bit of tuna.

I advocate a phaser set on "behave". (Stun just puts them to sleep, which I've never known a cat to need help with.)

(Sound of slapping forehead) Sigh... apparently no one reads my posts!

You were warned.

And, for the record, I've read every one of your posts. I just don't obey them all.

 

[zert]

(Sound of slapping forehead) Sigh... apparently no one reads my posts!

This somewhat silent member does.

With the changes in torpedo technology ITTL, has there been any new developments in sonar or anti-submarine weapons here? Any thought in trying to map the waters near possible enemy bases or hidden coves for tenders to hide for resupplying US subs?

 

[phx1138]

trying to map the waters near possible enemy bases or hidden coves for tenders to hide for resupplying US subs?

Hiding near enemy bases is not the best idea...but finding places in (frex) northern Oz suitable for basing would be good.

Better charts of the waters of DEI would be exceptionally valuable in the war, given how bad they were OTL.

 

[DaveJ576]

This somewhat silent member does.

With the changes in torpedo technology ITTL, has there been any new developments in sonar or anti-submarine weapons here? Any thought in trying to map the waters near possible enemy bases or hidden coves for tenders to hide for resupplying US subs?

First, thank you!

Second, sonar and ASW weapons will remain the same ITTL. I am still toying the idea of the Cuties and Fidos and haven't decided what to do with them yet, if anything.

It should be noted that the forward thrown Hedgehog was a huge advantage to the allied forces. It enabled an ASW vessel to keep the enemy sub in its sonar cone and keep an accurate track on it as it was attacking. To accurately drop depth charges you obviously had to drive directly over the target. This caused you to lose contact with the target before you dropped the ash cans and if they maneuvered at the last minute your depth charges may not be placed accurately. The Hedgehog projectiles didn't really have that much boom, but then again it really doesn't take that big of a hole to sink a submarine. One or two direct hits from a Hedgehog and your day was ruined for good.

 

[DaveJ576]

Any thought in trying to map the waters near possible enemy bases or hidden coves for tenders to hide for resupplying US subs?

A sub tender is a mini floating submarine base. It has repair shops for engines, periscopes, radar, guns, etc., a torpedo depot, a mini hospital, admin offices, and all the other things that would have been found on the sub base at Pearl Harbor, just afloat. Thus they were very valuable ships and the USN would have been very reluctant to risk them in this way. True, their whole rationale was forward presence, but that had to be tempered with the idea of protecting them too. They could, and did, move forward as the perimeter expanded. Witness Manus Island (Seeadler Harbor), Mios Woendi, Guam, and a host of others. These areas were close to the front, but still behind it and could be adequately defended.

 

[phx1138]

A sub tender is a mini floating submarine base. It has repair shops for engines, periscopes, radar, guns, etc., a torpedo depot, a mini hospital, admin offices, and all the other things that would have been found on the sub base at Pearl Harbor, just afloat. Thus they were very valuable ships and the USN would have been very reluctant to risk them in this way. True, their whole rationale was forward presence, but that had to be tempered with the idea of protecting them too. They could, and did, move forward as the perimeter expanded. Witness Manus Island (Seeadler Harbor), Mios Woendi, Guam, and a host of others. These areas were close to the front, but still behind it and could be adequately defended.

Even someplace like Midway might only have a sub tender in place, rather than a dedicated base, with yard & shore facilities (like a movie theatre or billets). IIRC, that's all Exmouth Gulf & Wake had, until quite late in the war.