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

[McPherson]

@McPherson excellent analysis. My one point of disagreement is classifying Halsey and Arnold as duds. Arnold was a competent officer who led the USAAC through a massive expansion, saw it transform into the USAAF, then into it's own seperate branch. He wasn't a genius, but he was competent.

I had to spend some minutes to reflect on these two men. I try to be fair, to put my PoV in their time and place, understand what they knew, what they believed they knew and what limits they had because of it.

For Arnold, I have to say that his air staff let him down on more than one occasion. He was not as badly misfocused as "Bomber" Harris on ineffectual strategic bombing "strategies", but he did make some huge mistakes. I think he was inflexible when it came to AAF policy, he did not listen to his op-art guys, especially the tactical aviation shop and he did not understand or figure out what the operating forces reported back. I'm not so much concerned with the technical side that he personally goofed up, such as the jet program, a replacement bombing sight, the Wright corruption problem, the P-38 debacle or the B-29 disaster. I'm more concerned about his blindness to what he saw in the op-art. By 1941, he should have known that sending in bombers without fighter escort or killing the enemy air force was not going to work.

Halsey, well, he made the right call more than he made the wrong one. He gets hammered, rightly, for his decision to take off after the IJN carriers at Leyte Gulf without leaving a blocking force behind. However, even that decision isn't really wrong. The entire war up to that point had taught the USN that carriers were the most dangerous enemy and to handle them first. So in the abstract, without hindsight, he wasn't wrong for doing what he did. Granted, he should have left his proposed SAG behind, but still. His only other major fuck up was trying to take on that typhoon. That was just boneheaded and stupid of him and he got lucky that more ships weren't lost.

For Halsey I am a bit more forgiving of his mistakes and less of the man. He was a leader that men would cheerfully storm the gates of hell for. You need men like him. But you also need a strong cast of subordinates and a staff who know what they are doing. At Guadalcanal this proved out to work. The supporting infrastructure of leaders and staff who could cover Halsey's weaknesses was there. He still bungled the Battle of Santa Cruz, and Rennell Island and some of the CACTUS operations he ordered were just criminal in the wastage of pilots and I also blame him for Wasp. Still, given what he knew, these mistakes can be forgiven. Even Leyte Gulf and the typhoons can be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is his actions after his mistakes. He alibied, lied, and ruined other men for mistakes he made and did not stand up and accept personal responsibility for the commission.

So I still harbor hard feelings about Halsey. I cannot help it.

 

[phx1138]

Yes. Given what they knew and what they could reliably predict up til 1935

Okay, withdrawn.

Ask BuPers and King. Monkeys in the barrel. Nimitz was open to fresh faces and ideas.

Nimitz was, but he wasn't in charge on this one. Even Lockwood wouldn't reach deeper. There's something systematic here.

"Sailor" Malan or Keith Park are RAF examples of "commanders" who showed "leadership and ability" but who were technically incompetent. They killed dozens if not hundreds of pilots because they could make "correct" decisions that were disastrously wrong because they did not understand the difference in technology they confronted; specifically operating characteristics of their own air defense system. I want someone who knows his sub when he attacks a convoy. Not some British example, I mean a Mommsen, someone who KNOWS his systems characteristics. That means an engineer, I'm afraid. To cite another example from the RN, how many T-class boats did the RN lose because the skippers did not know or understand their "peculiar" dive characteristics and surface blow procedures? About a dozen if we are to believe Italian RM records.

I have to disagree, here. No sub CO qualifies for dolphins without understanding how the boat works. What was the difference between Morton or O'Kane & Pinky Kennedy or...IDK, I can't think of anybody else offhand. (Haven't read Blair in 20yr...) You don't get dolphins without a qualification exam. So what was it that made Morton, Dealey, O'Kane, Fluckey, & others good at it? AFAIK, nobody's figured that out yet. What I'm suggesting is a program to try, rather than just hope for success.

Also, notice Park wasn't RN. Horton & Dunbar-Naismith, frex, both were, & both eminently qualified.

As for T-boat losses, how many of those problems were due to crewmen who didn't perform correctly, as a result of curtailed training schedules? If the CO is personally on the air manifold, you've got a bigger problem...

Also, AFAIK, USN never lost a boat due to operational casualty, contrary to (frex) IJN, so they were getting something right, in spite of the likes of O'Kane practically parking on the beach & Dealey treating tincans like thin mints.

P.S. The two geniuses who need to be third railed in San Francisco in October 1941 are U.S. Customs Service Agent George Muller and Commander R. P. McCullough of the U.S. Navy's 12th Naval District.

I have to confess, neither name is familiar...

 

[McPherson]

About my examples of commanders who did not understand the war machines they were asked to command: Park, Malan and those twelve unfortunate T-boat captains.

Also, notice Park wasn't RN. Horton & Dunbar-Naismith, frex, both were, & both eminently qualified.

The list of RN admirals and captains who flunked WW II basic naval warfare technology 101 is a LONG one. Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, Sir Tom Phillips, Sir James Somerville, Lancelot Holland, Loben Maund, etc., so I think I can cover that base thoroughly even if I cannot use Park and Malan as examples.

As for T-boat losses, how many of those problems were due to crewmen who didn't perform correctly, as a result of curtailed training schedules? If the CO is personally on the air manifold, you've got a bigger problem...

I think that should cover RN execs' (first officers') competencies, would it not? If the crew is not trained to handle the captain's last order, that would be the number one's fault?

About technical qualifications and an engineer's mindset:

I have to disagree, here. No sub CO qualifies for dolphins without understanding how the boat works. What was the difference between Morton or O'Kane & Pinky Kennedy or...IDK, I can't think of anybody else offhand. (Haven't read Blair in 20yr...) You don't get dolphins without a qualification exam. So what was it that made Morton, Dealey, O'Kane, Fluckey, & others good at it? AFAIK, nobody's figured that out yet. What I'm suggesting is a program to try, rather than just hope for success.

A good engineer knows how far he can push the machine into the red zone and come out the other side with a whole hide. A good leader can do that with men, too. There's the difference. A man may know the theory, but practical application in both areas is something entirely different from "book learning". I want a captain who could raise the Squalus, sink Japanese tankers and fix the Mark XIV torpedo. I want "Swede" Mommsen. That dual track mindset is something historical to the USN from the days of Bradley Fiske or even back to the days of Dupont and Dhalgren. It is why the USN brought the Franklin back when any other navy would have lost that ship.

Also, notice Park wasn't RN. Horton & Dunbar-Naismith, frex, both were, & both eminently qualified.

So was Lumley Lyster (a great planner) and Bruce Fraser (a first rate SAG operator; as good as Willis Lee); but do you see either one of them, good as they are, as Frank Jack Fletcher's technical peer in the overall naval art in fleet management? I don't believe they were/are. (Witness Fraser's logistics difficulties when he tried to operate carriers, a type of warship he frankly did not understand.)

 

[tomo pauk]

About my examples of commanders who did not understand the war machines they were asked to command: Park, Malan and those twelve unfortunate T-boat captains.
...

I don't think anyone of us is worthy to say a word against Park or Malan.

 

[McPherson]

I don't think anyone of us is worthy to say a word against Park or Malan.

Malan got some RAF pilots killed in a friendly fire incident. He tried to cover it up at a court martial. He succeeded until recent historians uncovered the incident. Park was one of the blokes who did not play well with others and as a consequence his pilots suffered in the political blowback that got them killed. I think we can notice these things and comment fairly about it.

 

[Errolwi]

Malan got some RAF pilots killed in a friendly fire incident. He tried to cover it up at a court martial. He succeeded until recent historians uncovered the incident. Park was one of the blokes who did not play well with others and as a consequence his pilots suffered in the political blowback that got them killed. I think we can notice these things and comment fairly about it.

That's an interesting link to give as evidence of Park's faults. Puts far more blame on Dowding and Leigh-Mallory. Surely Leigh-Mallory would be a better example of the point you are trying to make, given he ignored issues with the equipment available, and arguably mis-used Fighter Command in 1941?

 

[McPherson]

That's an interesting link to give as evidence of Park's faults. Puts far more blame on Dowding and Leigh-Mallory. Surely Leigh-Mallory would be a better example of the point you are trying to make, given he ignored issues with the equipment available, and arguably mis-used Fighter Command in 1941?

Trefford Leigh Mallory has his own issues, but Park had the monkey in the barrel bad luck to be the object lesson on how not to conduct an air defense. He was the one at the edge of the air defense engagement zone and the one sitting on the primary threat axis. Concomitantly, while I agree that Leigh Mallory during the BoB failed to backstop Park because of his own faulty ideas about reaction times and assembly points (Big Wing indeed.), it was the piecemeal committal of Park's units (by squadron or flight one after the other in series) fed into the air battle sausage that allowed the LW to so roughly handle 11th Group. I sure wish Park had realized that each fighter sector GCI controller setup could vector in independently time on formation (to borrow an American artillery analogy) their allotted fighters and bounce the inbounds from all directions at the same time. It makes for furballs, but that is what a defense wants. Break the enemy formations up and scatter them across the sky.

Anyway, one's real complaint is with the RAF high command, and paradoxically also with Dowding, who should have sacked either Park or Leigh-Mallory. The issues at stake were too steep in consequences to stand for this kind of school-boy nonsense illustrated here. (^^^^)

P.S. apologies for this hard right bank, but when we talk about English and Christie, and Kincaid (already mentioned earlier some of that history) I promise this RAF shenanigans will make sense and actually be on point.

 

[phx1138]

About my examples of commanders who did not understand the war machines they were asked to command: Park, Malan and those twelve unfortunate T-boat captains.



The list of RN admirals and captains who flunked WW II basic naval warfare technology 101 is a LONG one. Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, Sir Tom Phillips, Sir James Somerville, Lancelot Holland, Loben Maund, etc., so I think I can cover that base thoroughly even if I cannot use Park and Malan as examples.

Judging by Sub Force, plus the likes of Halsey, the Redmans, & Kelly Turner (among others), there were plenty in the USN system who were no good, either.

I think that should cover RN execs' (first officers') competencies, would it not? If the crew is not trained to handle the captain's last order, that would be the number one's fault?

That sounds like moving the goal posts...

A good engineer knows how far he can push the machine into the red zone and come out the other side with a whole hide. A good leader can do that with men, too. There's the difference. A man may know the theory, but practical application in both areas is something entirely different from "book learning". I want a captain who could raise the Squalus, sink Japanese tankers and fix the Mark XIV torpedo. I want "Swede" Mommsen. That dual track mindset is something historical to the USN from the days of Bradley Fiske or even back to the days of Dupont and Dhalgren. It is why the USN brought the Franklin back when any other navy would have lost that ship.

It also produces skippers who had no ability to lead men well, but understand the boat intimately. That's not a good solution. Ideally, we have both. IMO, the British selection process is more likely to produce technically well-qualified skippers who can actually lead.

So was Lumley Lyster (a great planner) and Bruce Fraser (a first rate SAG operator; as good as Willis Lee); but do you see either one of them, good as they are, as Frank Jack Fletcher's technical peer in the overall naval art in fleet management? I don't believe they were/are. (Witness Fraser's logistics difficulties when he tried to operate carriers, a type of warship he frankly did not understand.)

Duds aren't uncommon in anybody's navy...

I sure wish Park had realized that each fighter sector GCI controller setup could vector in independently time on formation (to borrow an American artillery analogy) their allotted fighters and bounce the inbounds from all directions at the same time. It makes for furballs, but that is what a defense wants. Break the enemy formations up and scatter them across the sky.

Bear in mind, Sector Control (thanks to stupid system design) could only handle a single squadron at once... Allen makes the point this need not have made your idea impossible: put them on a common frequency, & vector them geographically, rather than by heading (& the Sector Controller trying to get them up-sun & such, which was SOP OTL), & trust the pilots to know where Liverpool & Swansey & such were...

Of course, scrambling as soon as you see the flights starting to form up over France, instead of waiting for them to cross the bloody coast, would have been a good idea, too.

As for Dowding firing Park or Leigh-Mallory, yeah, & it should've been Leigh-Mallory. The man was a menace. Park may've been a dick, but...less incompetent, anyhow.

 

[Errolwi]

I would love to read an analysis of what Park did wrong. A link to such a piece would be great when calling him out from the many available targets, rather than one that obliquely criticises him in one sentence.

 

[McPherson]

Judging by Sub Force, plus the likes of Halsey, the Redmans, & Kelly Turner (among others), there were plenty in the USN system who were no good, either.

Did I leave them out? Apologies. I was just trying to be catholic here and include everybody.

That sounds like moving the goal posts...

What I meant by landing on the execs with both feet, is that it is not the captain's job to train the crew. Responsibility, yes, but that is why he has an exec, to take up that burden, so the captain can manage the big picture and handle the boat.

It also produces skippers who had no ability to lead men well, but understand the boat intimately. That's not a good solution. Ideally, we have both. IMO, the British selection process is more likely to produce technically well-qualified skippers who can actually lead.

But it didn't and doesn't. I mean the collision of the French and British SLBM boats a few years back and the USS San Francisco running into a mountain at 30 knots may seem like identical types of snafus, but the upshot is that the American boat had a crew and skipper who survived a killing event because the captain was a good engineer; as well as a good leader, while the British skipper, who just tapped the French boomer, pulled a Halsey act. The American skipper rightly stood a board of inquiry and took the blame. What about that Perisher trained captain who didn't listen to his sonar man?

Duds aren't uncommon in anybody's navy...

I hope that I did not leave the impression that either British admiral, I named, was a dud. Most assuredly not. It is just that I would not expect either of them to be able to handle the hell that Fletcher went through. Coral Sea, Midway, and Eastern Solomons were far worse than Taranto or the North Cape.

Bear in mind, Sector Control (thanks to stupid system design) could only handle a single squadron at once... Allen makes the point this need not have made your idea impossible: put them on a common frequency, & vector them geographically, rather than by heading (& the Sector Controller trying to get them up-sun & such, which was SOP OTL), & trust the pilots to know where Liverpool & Swansey & such were...

Uhm, that is not how vectoring works. Ideally each sector has a transponder based IFF track on the friendly planes in its controlled package and those friendlies entering its airspace. On the master plot (there should be one master and repeaters for each GCI node or director/controller station) tracks should have been established for unidentifieds so that the controllers can point their packages at the unidentifieds' tracks either in series or in a swarm attack as I described (^^^^). A good battle manager (Park) will have the master of the developing air battle in his AOR and will instruct his nodes or director/controllers to "vector" attacks in phased or delayed time so that all of his fighters converge on the inbounds at the same time. This does require that the fighters scramble and wait aloft before the enemy is over the defender airfields as one suggests.

The downside is that one only has so many minutes aloft and one has to land, arm and fuel during the air battle. It can be exciting... in a negative way.

 

[Md139115]

Apologies. I was just trying to be catholic here and include everybody.

That is the first time I have ever seen someone actually use the word “catholic” in anything other than a religious context!


Congratulations!

 

[merlin]

Of course, scrambling as soon as you see the flights starting to form up over France, instead of waiting for them to cross the bloody coast, would have been a good idea, too.

No, you need an idea of where they are going in order, allocate the most appropriate squadrons, and suppose the initial form up is a feint. You don't want to be too early otherwise combat would start over the channel - a disadvantage to the RAF. 11 Group's attacks were formed sometimes two squadrons together, to constantly attack over time, as the bombers crossed over the English countryside.

Park showed his worth, when he again beat Kesselring when he defended Malta. While, Leigh-Mallory fixated with the Big Wing got it wrong over Dieppe. Leigh-Mallory & Sholto-Douglas tried war gaming some of the BoB Lw attacks with their tactics - they lost!!

In any ATL BoB, I always think what to do with LM, - Dowding sacks him, he's posted elsewhere and not in Fighter Command, or something else?

Too many in the AM believed in the 'bomber' Dowding was different, he believed in the safety of the Homebase first. His failing was not having a good enough night-fighter defence quick enough.

 

[DaveJ576]

Mind your rudder gentlemen, mind your rudder...

 

[sonofpegasus]

Dowding not only believed in the necessity to defend the 'home base' he realised that it was fundamental to the whole bomber strategy of the RAF. he was also amongst the first to understand that with changing technology a viable Fighter defence was possible and practicable.

 

[tomo pauk]

Dowding not only believed in the necessity to defend the 'home base' he realised that it was fundamental to the whole bomber strategy of the RAF. he was also amongst the first to understand that with changing technology a viable Fighter defence was possible and practicable.

We were politely asked to keep on-topic. Twice.

 

[McPherson]

I just wanted to do a paper exercise and see if an electric Mark 20 was actually possible. It is, but you need a magnesium silver chloride seawater battery.

 

[phx1138]

Did I leave them out? Apologies. I was just trying to be catholic here and include everybody.



What I meant by landing on the execs with both feet, is that it is not the captain's job to train the crew. Responsibility, yes, but that is why he has an exec, to take up that burden, so the captain can manage the big picture and handle the boat.



But it didn't and doesn't. I mean the collision of the French and British SLBM boats a few years back and the USS San Francisco running into a mountain at 30 knots may seem like identical types of snafus, but the upshot is that the American boat had a crew and skipper who survived a killing event because the captain was a good engineer; as well as a good leader, while the British skipper, who just tapped the French boomer, pulled a Halsey act. The American skipper rightly stood a board of inquiry and took the blame. What about that Perisher trained captain who didn't listen to his sonar man?



I hope that I did not leave the impression that either British admiral, I named, was a dud. Most assuredly not. It is just that I would not expect either of them to be able to handle the hell that Fletcher went through. Coral Sea, Midway, and Eastern Solomons were far worse than Taranto or the North Cape.

I'm not sure we'll ever agree on this, so I'll let this stand & say no more.

Ideally each sector has a transponder based IFF track on the friendly planes in its controlled package and those friendlies entering its airspace. On the master plot (there should be one master and repeaters for each GCI node or director/controller station) tracks should have been established for unidentifieds so that the controllers can point their packages at the unidentifieds' tracks either in series or in a swarm attack

If they were tracking IFF plots for each friendly at that time, I'm unaware of it. (Depictions of Sector Control I've seen suggest not.) In any case, Allen reports squadrons being diverted for no apparent reason. (He may've been unaware.) I'm suggesting (following Allen) the effort for convergence be less stringent: meet the enemy & break up his formations ASAP, rather than wait for greater strength, which sounds more Big Wing to me.

With that goal in mind, intercepts over the Channel are a good thing. That they were at a disadvantage for RAF was thanks to stupid planning: how did RAF not have a sea rescue service? They're based on a frigging island!

And perhaps we should start a new thread for this, since it's gone way, way OT...

 

[sonofpegasus]

my apologies for going off topic.

 

[McPherson]

I just wanted to do a paper exercise and see if an electric Mark 20 was actually possible. It is, but you need a magnesium silver chloride seawater battery.

It takes time to make sure the cockamamie numbers are good.

Production history

Designer: (Paper study fictional torpedo.)

ATL responsible: Naval Torpedo Station Newport, Electric Storage Battery Company and General Electric

Designed: ATL (1933)

Manufacturers: E.W. Bliss, General Electric

No. built: (Paper study TBD.)

Specifications

Weight approx. 3,333 lbs (1,500kg)

Length 246 inches (625 cm)

Diameter 21 inches (53.3 cm)

Effective firing range 9,000 yds (8,250 m)

Warhead: Hexanite / Aluminum or Torpex (prefer Hexanite as it is in the Dupont chemistry registry.)

Warhead weight 550 lbs (251 kg)

Detonation mechanism: Binary; contact horns and influence feature (metal detector. Ask me why the warhead body is BRONZE.)

Engine: Direct current electric motor 200 Kw

Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h, 17 m/s)

Guidance system: 2-d pitch/yaw (2) gyroscopes with artificial horizon (1) gyroscope referent governor

Launch platform: Submarines

 

[phx1138]

It takes time to make sure the cockamamie numbers are good.

That spec looks pretty good. As said, I'd sacrifice range for more warhead, & delete the dual-activation, but I won't quibble over it.

Questions: do the batteries leak gas? Do they require extensive (continuous?) maintenance? Does performance vary with water temperature (or, given water activation, salinity or density)? Do they need special care (heaters or coolers) before firing? Or, worse, during non-use periods?

I wouldn't call those non-starters, but they're things to eliminate if possible.