That sort of what the Russians thought when surprised by some North Sea fishing boats.
In war, men panic a lot. The incident isn't really unusual.
7% hits. Not much different from WWII rates. Maybe point lower due to inexperience of other factors. That leads me to think that if a night attack prior to the OTL battle You would have to place 300 of these Whitehead torpedoes in the water to damage or sink 15-20 Russian warships.
Not really. The Japanese torpedo boats were firing at ships that were heavily damaged traveling at very slow speed. There was no defensive cohesion left. The older ships were still in formation and beat back every attempt. In no other battle did the Japanese torpedo boats succeed in scoring a single hit to ships in formation
If you fired an 1905 torpedo, it left a trail of bubbles. Anyone could spot it and avoid them. The torpedo boats are also going to have to penetrate a destroyer screen to get in range. It simply isn't happening
Torpedoes were effective:
1) if the ships were surprised as they were at Port Arthur. This was before the Russians knew they were at war and hadn't put up the nets. These ships were also dead in the water and the attack happened at night Pretty ideal
2) isolated, damaged ships like after Tsushima
3) merchant and auxillieries