Admiral Halsey
Banned
Isn't JANAC suspect in its numbers though given they relied a lot on the Japanese sources which were unreliable themselves?
...Those Marvelous Tin Fish: The Great Torpedo Scandal Avoided
- Thread starter DaveJ576
- Start date
JANAC is notoriously bad, but there's nothing better...
And if this is your idea of a good source...
It credits Nautilus with sinking a CV on 4 June '42: that's the attack claimed by Brockman to have sunk Soryu (which he earned credit for at the time, denied postwar). In a series of attacks, Brockman suffered three misfires (failures to fire) in three attacks.
Last edited:
McPherson
Banned
I just used it to track type of torpedo used.
If you want something different.
USS Nautilus patrol reports.
If you want something different.
USS Nautilus patrol reports.
As to all of these sources... JANAC and SORG are obviously flawed. There was a very conservative bent to the thinking of the groups as the data was being compiled. If a sinking could not be absolutely confirmed from Japanese records it could be disallowed. The problem was the wholesale destruction of the records, both deliberately by the Japanese themselves at the end of the war and by American bombing. In addition it was not above Japanese escort commanders to fudge records in order to sidestep controversy or blame. Just look at some of the outright lies that Mitsuo Fuchida told in the post war years when being interviewed about the Battle of Midway. So the studies started with a flawed premise and sometimes a submarine crew had their score lowered, despite evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, often the studies got it right, and the historical record was set straight.
Yes, submarine, destroyer, PT boat, and VT squadron crews occasionally got it wrong, sometimes (with hindsight) laughably wrong. But before you go all high and right on them, consider the conditions under which they made the observations of the "sinkings". Put yourself in the cockpit of a TBM Avenger flying through flak so thick it seems as if you could get out and walk on it. Shrapnel is pinging off the side of your plane and your rear gunner is pounding away at a Zero that is trying to kill you. You are flying at 150 knots only 40 feet from the water and the strain of keeping the aircraft straight and level is causing you to sweat like a pig.
Then imagine being confined up inside a steel tube submerged 65 feet under the Pacific. The boat is swaying from the wave action topside. You are running at ultra quiet so the A/C is off and as usual the sweat is running down your forehead and into your eyes. Ten men in the conning tower are all talking at the same time and your eyeball is glued to a tiny little fog-covered lens in the periscope not much bigger than a quarter. The waves are breaking over the top of the scope and you are praying that the three destroyers topside don't spot you while you are making observations on the biggest damn carrier you have ever seen, one that is rushing towards you like a freight train.
I have been on a periscope observing ships on the surface under a variety of conditions and I can tell you with certainty how difficult it is to make dispassionate and accurate observations while under stress. With all this in mind it is easy to see how crews might get it wrong once in a while.
The post war studies were conducted literally by a handful of men and women sifting through mountains of paper records cross checking data that had to be translated from Japanese Kanji or Katakana. There were no computerized spreadsheets or translators. To say that it was a daunting task is an understatement of monumental proportions. So when reading this stuff don't take it as gospel. Cross check it against other sources and interpret it for yourselves, and give the USN crews and the original researchers some credit where it is due.
Yes, submarine, destroyer, PT boat, and VT squadron crews occasionally got it wrong, sometimes (with hindsight) laughably wrong. But before you go all high and right on them, consider the conditions under which they made the observations of the "sinkings". Put yourself in the cockpit of a TBM Avenger flying through flak so thick it seems as if you could get out and walk on it. Shrapnel is pinging off the side of your plane and your rear gunner is pounding away at a Zero that is trying to kill you. You are flying at 150 knots only 40 feet from the water and the strain of keeping the aircraft straight and level is causing you to sweat like a pig.
Then imagine being confined up inside a steel tube submerged 65 feet under the Pacific. The boat is swaying from the wave action topside. You are running at ultra quiet so the A/C is off and as usual the sweat is running down your forehead and into your eyes. Ten men in the conning tower are all talking at the same time and your eyeball is glued to a tiny little fog-covered lens in the periscope not much bigger than a quarter. The waves are breaking over the top of the scope and you are praying that the three destroyers topside don't spot you while you are making observations on the biggest damn carrier you have ever seen, one that is rushing towards you like a freight train.
I have been on a periscope observing ships on the surface under a variety of conditions and I can tell you with certainty how difficult it is to make dispassionate and accurate observations while under stress. With all this in mind it is easy to see how crews might get it wrong once in a while.
The post war studies were conducted literally by a handful of men and women sifting through mountains of paper records cross checking data that had to be translated from Japanese Kanji or Katakana. There were no computerized spreadsheets or translators. To say that it was a daunting task is an understatement of monumental proportions. So when reading this stuff don't take it as gospel. Cross check it against other sources and interpret it for yourselves, and give the USN crews and the original researchers some credit where it is due.
McPherson
Banned
What makes for a deadly Mark XIV?
Now here follows a layman's description of how to guide a torpedo. The torpedo is a tail control missile that relies on a screw or propeller to push it along and a pair of tail-planes to control its nose point in the vertical or Y axis, and a pair of rudders to control its yaw in the X-axis. This is called 2 direction or 2-d control. To steer the torpedo a mechanical system that dates back to 1898 in the Whitehead torpedo was the norm up until the second world war. This was the compass and pendulum system. The "compass" was a gyroscope that could control the yaw/rudder control. Different nations had different linkage setups, but basically the gyroscope because of its spin could gate or lock the rudder to a set bearing, either along a straight run, or a log curve to steer the path of the torpedo, straight, left or right, or in accordance with an accordion roll pattern running tape that would weave or curl the fish along a baseline track. To maintain running depth, the pendulum control, regulated by a pressure sensor, would keep the fish running at a pressure level zone below the surface waves often confused with "depth". This zone was subject to such vagaries as current flow, and sunlight heating the ocean surface so it could vary as much as two meters in the torpedo depending on the type of sensor employed! The Whitehead type torpedo could sine wave vertically and nose wander horizontally with this setup. Needless to say, this made for some erratic running fish.
Obviously, a better means of guidance would be desirable?
The Germans and the Americans, coming at it from opposite directions and for opposite purposes, tried acoustic seekers or signal chasing to provide torpedo steer guidance. Since the Germans were interested in killing surface ships, their first attempts were to create a left-right signal chase based on noise striction. This meant rudder control and a set of hydrophones tied into an electrical resistance setup that would actuate rudder control to try and point the torpedo's nose at a balanced or centered "signal" between the left and right hydrophone sensors. It was effective. That torpedo had a tendency to sine wave horizontally now as well as vertically, but it would chase the clanking reciprocating engine of a liberty ship or the standard British tramp steamer. Note that the Germans would improve sensitivity to listen for a destroyer's mechanicals... But essentially it was mostly restricted to killing surface ships and it could be foxed off by a noise maker trailed astern that mimics the noise of a target ship and decoys the torpedo off on a false target tangent track and causes the fish to lose the signal, or acquisition.
Maybe in their naivite, the Germans never expected what the Americans did. This was full 2-d torpedo control using acoustics and what is called 4 sensor shadow body striction. It is simplicity itself. The signal chase is set up so that the torpedo nose point is bang/bang tail-plane and rudder signal simultaneous chaser steer so that the nose is pointed at a screw noise both vertically and horizontally. The hydrophones are placed midbody so that the torpedo creates a noise shadow if it steers the wrong way and loses the signal on one side. A "corrector" shoves the torpedo opposite way until the hydrophone that signal drops receives the signal again thus centering the torpedo in a sort of corkscrew fashion. Obviously the thing is meant to chase submarines. In an experiment, the Americans modified an S-boat with caged propellers and used it to test out "inert" Mark 24 Fidos. The test boat would confirm it had been "killed" when the inert warheaded torpedo "clanged" into it. DEADLY, because the Americans tried to figure out countermeasures and the only one that worked was to stop the engines and surface.
But that does not give the Americans a surface ship killer, although by disabling the vertical signal striction a kind of "German" type acoustic "destroyer killer" could be made.
Still a clumsy solution.
Now remember what I said about sunlight and current affecting ocean pressure? So does a ship moving through water when it creates a wake. That nice trail of bubbles makes a dandy sound reflector. Guess what you can do with that information? Put a small sonar set up in a torpedo that points up either side of the torpedo mid-body and pings off that bubble curtain. Couple that with a "corrector" as was used in Fido and couple that with German style 1-d noise striction rudder steer and you have a WAKE HOMER. Doable but difficult with US tech in 1939-1941.
Now here follows a layman's description of how to guide a torpedo. The torpedo is a tail control missile that relies on a screw or propeller to push it along and a pair of tail-planes to control its nose point in the vertical or Y axis, and a pair of rudders to control its yaw in the X-axis. This is called 2 direction or 2-d control. To steer the torpedo a mechanical system that dates back to 1898 in the Whitehead torpedo was the norm up until the second world war. This was the compass and pendulum system. The "compass" was a gyroscope that could control the yaw/rudder control. Different nations had different linkage setups, but basically the gyroscope because of its spin could gate or lock the rudder to a set bearing, either along a straight run, or a log curve to steer the path of the torpedo, straight, left or right, or in accordance with an accordion roll pattern running tape that would weave or curl the fish along a baseline track. To maintain running depth, the pendulum control, regulated by a pressure sensor, would keep the fish running at a pressure level zone below the surface waves often confused with "depth". This zone was subject to such vagaries as current flow, and sunlight heating the ocean surface so it could vary as much as two meters in the torpedo depending on the type of sensor employed! The Whitehead type torpedo could sine wave vertically and nose wander horizontally with this setup. Needless to say, this made for some erratic running fish.
Obviously, a better means of guidance would be desirable?
The Germans and the Americans, coming at it from opposite directions and for opposite purposes, tried acoustic seekers or signal chasing to provide torpedo steer guidance. Since the Germans were interested in killing surface ships, their first attempts were to create a left-right signal chase based on noise striction. This meant rudder control and a set of hydrophones tied into an electrical resistance setup that would actuate rudder control to try and point the torpedo's nose at a balanced or centered "signal" between the left and right hydrophone sensors. It was effective. That torpedo had a tendency to sine wave horizontally now as well as vertically, but it would chase the clanking reciprocating engine of a liberty ship or the standard British tramp steamer. Note that the Germans would improve sensitivity to listen for a destroyer's mechanicals... But essentially it was mostly restricted to killing surface ships and it could be foxed off by a noise maker trailed astern that mimics the noise of a target ship and decoys the torpedo off on a false target tangent track and causes the fish to lose the signal, or acquisition.
Maybe in their naivite, the Germans never expected what the Americans did. This was full 2-d torpedo control using acoustics and what is called 4 sensor shadow body striction. It is simplicity itself. The signal chase is set up so that the torpedo nose point is bang/bang tail-plane and rudder signal simultaneous chaser steer so that the nose is pointed at a screw noise both vertically and horizontally. The hydrophones are placed midbody so that the torpedo creates a noise shadow if it steers the wrong way and loses the signal on one side. A "corrector" shoves the torpedo opposite way until the hydrophone that signal drops receives the signal again thus centering the torpedo in a sort of corkscrew fashion. Obviously the thing is meant to chase submarines. In an experiment, the Americans modified an S-boat with caged propellers and used it to test out "inert" Mark 24 Fidos. The test boat would confirm it had been "killed" when the inert warheaded torpedo "clanged" into it. DEADLY, because the Americans tried to figure out countermeasures and the only one that worked was to stop the engines and surface.
But that does not give the Americans a surface ship killer, although by disabling the vertical signal striction a kind of "German" type acoustic "destroyer killer" could be made.
Still a clumsy solution.
Now remember what I said about sunlight and current affecting ocean pressure? So does a ship moving through water when it creates a wake. That nice trail of bubbles makes a dandy sound reflector. Guess what you can do with that information? Put a small sonar set up in a torpedo that points up either side of the torpedo mid-body and pings off that bubble curtain. Couple that with a "corrector" as was used in Fido and couple that with German style 1-d noise striction rudder steer and you have a WAKE HOMER. Doable but difficult with US tech in 1939-1941.
Last edited:
Post 6 - The Fish Has Wings and Some Unpleasant Truths, 1925-1930
THE FISH HAS WINGS AND SOME UNPLEASANT TRUTHS, 1925-1930
Up to 1925 the Navy’s aerial torpedo had been variants of the 18” Mk 7 destroyer torpedo. Testing had shown that it worked reasonably well as long as you did not exceed the specified deployment parameters of dropping it at 95 knots or less and from altitudes of less than 35 feet. As aircraft performance increased, and as the anti-aircraft capabilities of ships got better, it was realized that these parameters were dangerously low. In order to ensure a reasonable chance of survival for the aircraft crews these launching parameters had to get better. Also, the small size of the weapon meant it carried a small warhead and thus a bigger boom was desired.
Accordingly, in 1925 Newport initiated Project G 6 for the development of a new aerial torpedo. Initial specs called for a 21” weapon capable of being launched at 140 mph from an altitude of at least 40 feet with a warhead charge of 350 lbs. of TNT. At first excited by the project, the Council and the FLO were soon frustrated by Congress and their usual penny-pinching ways. In addition, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) vacillated on the whole concept. There was talk in some aviation circles about doing away with the concept of aerial torpedoes altogether. Low level development work continued at Newport while the Council worked these issues, once again turning to their patron FDR for help. FDR assisted in clearing the obstacles in Congress and the Council was successful in clearing the fog from BuAer on concept issues.
The engineers at Newport studied several different concepts for this new torpedo, including trying to make it all fit into a weapon that did not exceed 1,000 lbs. This was found to be nearly impossible with the existing state of the art and by 1930 they had settled on a weapon that was short and squat, designating it the Mk 13. It was only 13.5 feet long, but they compensated for that by making it 22.5 inches in diameter. It had a warhead of 404 lbs. and could do 33 knots for 5700 yards.
Work on the ultra-secret magnetic influence exploder proceeded apace. CDR Ralph Waldo Christie, an experienced submariner and a graduate of MIT took charge of the project in early 1926. Work had proceeded to the point that an operational test was needed and the new exploder was fitted to a Mk 8. An obsolete submarine, the L-8 (SS-48) had been provided and it was moored in Narragansett Bay off Goat Island. On the 8th of May the Mk 8 with the new exploder was loaded aboard a test barge and fired at the L-8. The weapon passed under the old sub and failed to detonate. Recovered, it was checked out and reset for another test. Once again it failed to detonate and a frustrated Christie took the exploder back into the shop for thorough bench test. Not finding a problem, he was determined to try again. In the intervening days, changing weather and tidal conditions in the bay forced the NTS to move the L-8 to a new spot and re-moor her. On the 26th the range was ready and this time the L-8 disappeared in a huge blast as the weapon detonated dead center under the old boat.
A jubilant Christie pressed the Council for another more extensive test series and they quickly granted it, having obtained an old destroyer, the Ericsson (DD-56) as a target. Wanting to obtain as much data as possible, Christie substituted the warhead for one of the new calcium chloride filled exercise heads. Over the course of the summer 30 test firings from a barge were conducted against the Ericsson, but a dejected Christie found that the exploder tripped only eight times, with three of those proving to be premature, a timing device showing that the exploder activated before the weapon passed under the ship. In one other instance the exploder activated after a run of only 75 yards. The Council was not impressed and Christie, mystified at the inconsistent performance of the exploder, took Project G 53 back to the lab in an attempt to find the cause.
Further testing during this period also revealed some other unpleasant truths. Even though the earlier testing on the S-3 and Reuben James had rung out the depth keeping problems on the Mk 8, 9, and 10 weapons, those tests had been conducted under controlled conditions and in calm sheltered waters. More rigorous and realistic testing in Maine, Hawaii, and in other locations showed disturbing problems in torpedo performance. Cold runs (i.e. failure of the motor to start), erratic course keeping and depth control, and failure of the contact exploder resulted in an end to end success rate of only 61%. With many of these weapons having been built by Bliss, some very pointed questions were asked of the Bliss representatives on the Council. Embarrassed, the company undertook a top down review of quality control at its’ plant in New York, finding numerous but minor issues that had led to a larger problem. The company managers quickly stamped out these issues and quality rapidly improved. NTS Alexandria closely mirrored the production techniques and practices of Bliss and they too found and corrected quality control issues.
Fleet Problem IX, an exercise conducted in the Pacific near the Panama Canal in January 1929, included live ordnance testing and it showed that the issues with torpedoes had been largely corrected. The old cruisers Pueblo (CA-7) and Charleston (CA-19) served as destroyer and submarine targets with Pueblo going down after taking five Mk 8 hits and Charleston succumbing to three Mk 10’s from USS R-7 (SS-84). The old battleship South Carolina (BB-26) proved quite resilient, absorbing two aerial Mk 7’s and two Mk 8’s before going down under a hail of bombs by dive bombers from the Lexington (CV-2). The use of Mk 7’s in this exercise and their lack of power against the armored South Carolina underscored the need for a new aerial torpedo and gave the G 6/Mk 13 project greater emphasis.
Despite having largely corrected quality control problems, the Navy’s existing torpedoes were beginning to show their age by 1930 and with new and much more capable ships being designed and built, Navy was desirous of a new torpedo to match. The new decade marked the beginning of an idea that would prove to have momentous consequences in the years to come.
Author’s note: ITTL the initial work on the Mk 13 proceeded pretty much along the lines of the OTL. The big POD’s here are the further testing of the G 53/Mk 6 exploder, and the correction of the deficiencies noted in the field tests of the other torpedoes. None of that actually took place and it greatly contributed to the breadth and depth of the scandal. Fleet Problem IX was real, but I added the live testing.
Up to 1925 the Navy’s aerial torpedo had been variants of the 18” Mk 7 destroyer torpedo. Testing had shown that it worked reasonably well as long as you did not exceed the specified deployment parameters of dropping it at 95 knots or less and from altitudes of less than 35 feet. As aircraft performance increased, and as the anti-aircraft capabilities of ships got better, it was realized that these parameters were dangerously low. In order to ensure a reasonable chance of survival for the aircraft crews these launching parameters had to get better. Also, the small size of the weapon meant it carried a small warhead and thus a bigger boom was desired.
Accordingly, in 1925 Newport initiated Project G 6 for the development of a new aerial torpedo. Initial specs called for a 21” weapon capable of being launched at 140 mph from an altitude of at least 40 feet with a warhead charge of 350 lbs. of TNT. At first excited by the project, the Council and the FLO were soon frustrated by Congress and their usual penny-pinching ways. In addition, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) vacillated on the whole concept. There was talk in some aviation circles about doing away with the concept of aerial torpedoes altogether. Low level development work continued at Newport while the Council worked these issues, once again turning to their patron FDR for help. FDR assisted in clearing the obstacles in Congress and the Council was successful in clearing the fog from BuAer on concept issues.
The engineers at Newport studied several different concepts for this new torpedo, including trying to make it all fit into a weapon that did not exceed 1,000 lbs. This was found to be nearly impossible with the existing state of the art and by 1930 they had settled on a weapon that was short and squat, designating it the Mk 13. It was only 13.5 feet long, but they compensated for that by making it 22.5 inches in diameter. It had a warhead of 404 lbs. and could do 33 knots for 5700 yards.
Work on the ultra-secret magnetic influence exploder proceeded apace. CDR Ralph Waldo Christie, an experienced submariner and a graduate of MIT took charge of the project in early 1926. Work had proceeded to the point that an operational test was needed and the new exploder was fitted to a Mk 8. An obsolete submarine, the L-8 (SS-48) had been provided and it was moored in Narragansett Bay off Goat Island. On the 8th of May the Mk 8 with the new exploder was loaded aboard a test barge and fired at the L-8. The weapon passed under the old sub and failed to detonate. Recovered, it was checked out and reset for another test. Once again it failed to detonate and a frustrated Christie took the exploder back into the shop for thorough bench test. Not finding a problem, he was determined to try again. In the intervening days, changing weather and tidal conditions in the bay forced the NTS to move the L-8 to a new spot and re-moor her. On the 26th the range was ready and this time the L-8 disappeared in a huge blast as the weapon detonated dead center under the old boat.
A jubilant Christie pressed the Council for another more extensive test series and they quickly granted it, having obtained an old destroyer, the Ericsson (DD-56) as a target. Wanting to obtain as much data as possible, Christie substituted the warhead for one of the new calcium chloride filled exercise heads. Over the course of the summer 30 test firings from a barge were conducted against the Ericsson, but a dejected Christie found that the exploder tripped only eight times, with three of those proving to be premature, a timing device showing that the exploder activated before the weapon passed under the ship. In one other instance the exploder activated after a run of only 75 yards. The Council was not impressed and Christie, mystified at the inconsistent performance of the exploder, took Project G 53 back to the lab in an attempt to find the cause.
Further testing during this period also revealed some other unpleasant truths. Even though the earlier testing on the S-3 and Reuben James had rung out the depth keeping problems on the Mk 8, 9, and 10 weapons, those tests had been conducted under controlled conditions and in calm sheltered waters. More rigorous and realistic testing in Maine, Hawaii, and in other locations showed disturbing problems in torpedo performance. Cold runs (i.e. failure of the motor to start), erratic course keeping and depth control, and failure of the contact exploder resulted in an end to end success rate of only 61%. With many of these weapons having been built by Bliss, some very pointed questions were asked of the Bliss representatives on the Council. Embarrassed, the company undertook a top down review of quality control at its’ plant in New York, finding numerous but minor issues that had led to a larger problem. The company managers quickly stamped out these issues and quality rapidly improved. NTS Alexandria closely mirrored the production techniques and practices of Bliss and they too found and corrected quality control issues.
Fleet Problem IX, an exercise conducted in the Pacific near the Panama Canal in January 1929, included live ordnance testing and it showed that the issues with torpedoes had been largely corrected. The old cruisers Pueblo (CA-7) and Charleston (CA-19) served as destroyer and submarine targets with Pueblo going down after taking five Mk 8 hits and Charleston succumbing to three Mk 10’s from USS R-7 (SS-84). The old battleship South Carolina (BB-26) proved quite resilient, absorbing two aerial Mk 7’s and two Mk 8’s before going down under a hail of bombs by dive bombers from the Lexington (CV-2). The use of Mk 7’s in this exercise and their lack of power against the armored South Carolina underscored the need for a new aerial torpedo and gave the G 6/Mk 13 project greater emphasis.
Despite having largely corrected quality control problems, the Navy’s existing torpedoes were beginning to show their age by 1930 and with new and much more capable ships being designed and built, Navy was desirous of a new torpedo to match. The new decade marked the beginning of an idea that would prove to have momentous consequences in the years to come.
Author’s note: ITTL the initial work on the Mk 13 proceeded pretty much along the lines of the OTL. The big POD’s here are the further testing of the G 53/Mk 6 exploder, and the correction of the deficiencies noted in the field tests of the other torpedoes. None of that actually took place and it greatly contributed to the breadth and depth of the scandal. Fleet Problem IX was real, but I added the live testing.
Some of the testing was a success, some were not. The Council is tracking down new developments and hoping to enhance current ones. The more live fire and controlled shots used, the greater the future torpedoes will hopefully be.
The 20s have been the start of the race, the 30s the middle, and come the 40s, a final stretch to blowing up enemy ships by the dozen.
The 20s have been the start of the race, the 30s the middle, and come the 40s, a final stretch to blowing up enemy ships by the dozen.
For that, it might be okay...
It appears that's what the page is based on--& patrol reports are known to have been doctored or fictionalized to inflate the size of targets, to justify using more torpedoes.
And that's why I say there's nothing better.
I don't fault the sub crews (or others) for making erroneous claims. (For making flat false ones, yes. Even for making very dubious ones of sinkings without observation, based entirely on sound.)
The wartime record, IMO, wasn't sufficiently-well vetted at the time by SubPac & Fleet intel officers. It might have been possible to confirm sinkings based on Japanese messages. (Was there enough manpower to break & read every message in the maru code at the time? Or every message indicating a sinking? {Maybe not...} Was it possible later, for JANAC?)
There were a few extemporized mounts, but you're right, it should've been standard fitment as soon as it was demonstrated to be possible--& that should've been much sooner.
The trouble is, that might undermine claims of a target being big enough to warrant the number of torpedoes used... Would that speed up realizing the Mark VI was faulty? IDK.
This is an interesting story regarding an ATL improved development of the U.S. Navy's submarine torpedos for WW2. Though not quite on the OP topic the story of the Mark 24 ASW homing torpedo is also engrossing.
The Mark 24 Fido was a remarkable achievement. Beginning development in Oct 1941 to the first operational deployment in March 1943 took only a year and a half. The Mark 24 didn't require inventing new technology but used the existing acoustic and electronic technology of the day.
What a powerful gain in capability the Mark 24 represented. Giving Allied aircraft the ability to attack and reliably sink recently submerged enemy submarines. This weapon could be used day or night as the crew of an attacking airplane could spot a surfaced submarine in day or detect it by radar at night. If/when the U-boat dived then the Mark-24 could be dropped in the near vicinity of where the sub had dived. This was also a much less hazardous attack method for the aircrew as there would be no return fire.
One can only imagine how different the Battle of the Atlantic would have been if the Mark 24 had been available 2 years earlier to the British and Canadians. If the RCAF and RAF Coastal Command were equipped with the Mark 24 or a British made equivalent.
RAF Liberators such as this radar equipped example would have the ability to detect surfaced U-boats day or night. With 4 20MM cannon to suppress return fire and depth charges and/or bombs this plane would have been able to carry out an attack on a surfaced or submerging U-boat. But if it was also equipped with the Mark 24 than it could drop one near the last noted location of the dived U-boat. With its 12 knot speed and 2.5 mile range the Mark 24 would run down a Type 7 or Type 9 U-boat. As long as the Kriegsmarine didn't have knowledge of the Mark 24 than any U-boat captain spotting a plane or detecting the radar signal would dive believing that is the safest tactic. If the crew of the Allied plane had spotted where the U-boat had dived than the Mark-24 could be dropped.
The U.S. Navy could have used a few groups of these B-24s equipped this way patrolling off the Atlantic seaboard and Caribbean sea in early 1942. Another WW2 what if.
McPherson
Banned
This is an interesting story regarding an ATL improved development of the U.S. Navy's submarine torpedos for WW2. Though not quite on the OP topic the story of the Mark 24 ASW homing torpedo is also engrossing.
The Mark 24 Fido was a remarkable achievement. Beginning development in Oct 1941 to the first operational deployment in March 1943 took only a year and a half. The Mark 24 didn't require inventing new technology but used the existing acoustic and electronic technology of the day.
What a powerful gain in capability the Mark 24 represented. Giving Allied aircraft the ability to attack and reliably sink recently submerged enemy submarines. This weapon could be used day or night as the crew of an attacking airplane could spot a surfaced submarine in day or detect it by radar at night. If/when the U-boat dived then the Mark-24 could be dropped in the near vicinity of where the sub had dived. This was also a much less hazardous attack method for the aircrew as there would be no return fire.
One can only imagine how different the Battle of the Atlantic would have been if the Mark 24 had been available 2 years earlier to the British and Canadians. If the RCAF and RAF Coastal Command were equipped with the Mark 24 or a British made equivalent.
RAF Liberators such as this radar equipped example would have the ability to detect surfaced U-boats day or night. With 4 20MM cannon to suppress return fire and depth charges and/or bombs this plane would have been able to carry out an attack on a surfaced or submerging U-boat. But if it was also equipped with the Mark 24 than it could drop one near the last noted location of the dived U-boat. With its 12 knot speed and 2.5 mile range the Mark 24 would run down a Type 7 or Type 9 U-boat. As long as the Kriegsmarine didn't have knowledge of the Mark 24 than any U-boat captain spotting a plane or detecting the radar signal would dive believing that is the safest tactic. If the crew of the Allied plane had spotted where the U-boat had dived than the Mark-24 could be dropped.
The U.S. Navy could have used a few groups of these B-24s equipped this way patrolling off the Atlantic seaboard and Caribbean sea in early 1942. Another WW2 what if.
Maybe. HUSL and Bell did some fine guidance logic work to make FIDO work. A lot of things and people had to come together at exactly the right moment.
Good luck with that.
You'd need the torpedo to trigger the camera when it exploded, or have Tony Stark's reflexes.You know what the key to getting it done ASAP was? Keeping it the hell away from BuOrd & NTS.
It wasn't called the Mark 24 Mine because the designers were clueless. It was because torpedo design was a specific area "owned"...& mines weren't in it.That said, if somebody had mooted a homing fish & called it a "mobile mine" (per CAPTOR), they might (just) have gotten away with it...
McPherson
Banned
Good luck with that.
Movie camera, triggered by a gate limiter when the periscope rises from its well.
You know what the key to getting it done ASAP was? Keeping it the hell away from BuOrd & NTS.
That said, if somebody had mooted a homing fish & called it a "mobile mine" (per CAPTOR), they might (just) have gotten away with it...
That said, what happens when Blandy hears about it? He did, you know.
AFAIK, no movies were ever shot from a periscope--& are you nuts, leaving it up for two whole minutes?
Or more?Even if you wait til the run is nearly done, you're exposing it a dangerous duration, & risking seeing nothing thanks to wave action (unless you poke way, way too much out of the water
), & limiting your ability to reposition for another shot (slowing to run the scope up...)Taking stills wasn't a cakewalk. Movies? I wouldn't want to try it.
I expect he'd do the same as OTL--& probably have to be overruled.