BlondieBC
Banned
The Germans also had problems with their magnetic detonators functioning correctly. In areas of high magnetic field strength they had a bad habit of going off too soon. This despite being warned there was a possible problem in the 1930's.
Lots of examples of such problems can be found all over the place and in all nations. The Demon Murphy has vast power.
Michael
Yep, a lot of it was a budget issue. Most Navy's had a test range for torpedoes, not 5 or more ranges all over the world. They also tended to test torpedoes in calm waters, under easy conditions, where it was easier to recover the torpedo. Torpedoes were considered very expensive. At a given place, under calm weather conditions, the torpedoes worked fine. Unfortunately, the worlds magnetic field is quite variable, sea water has differing densities, and testing under easy conditions does not reveal many flaws.
If an army tested tanks the same way, they would test the model at only one military base, then basically mothball the tanks because they were too expensive too operate until the war. The reliability issues of the M-16 related to chrome basically came from the same laziness/cheapness. Robust reliability testing of complex machines or systems is one of the most expensive activities. In the business world, i have seen multiple computer systems go live with almost no test, only to be taken off line within a few 10's of hours. The issue was never a recommendation by the installers not to test, but an unwillingness of management to spend money. I have also taken untested systems live without much testing that worked ok. So I have seen both sides. Now to be fair, it was the third time I had installed the same software package, so I knew where most of the bugs would be and what had to be tested.