[HN Gopher] U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
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U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
Author : mmhsieh
Score : 77 points
Date : 2020-01-16 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historynet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historynet.com)
| rocketpastsix wrote:
| They talk about it in the movie "Midway" (2019). It's definitely
| one of those things a lot of people thought was embellished to
| make the incoming battle of Midway look more drastic. However it
| was absolutely true. Without the dive bombers and code breaking
| they were able to do in the lead up Midway would have been a
| disaster for the Americans.
| DuskStar wrote:
| Ehhh. There's a lot of people that seem to think that Midway
| would have been a disaster for the US if they lost, but there's
| not much reason behind this. The only thing the US was really
| risking that _had a significant strategic impact_ were the
| carriers - if the island of Midway fell it would have been
| essentially unsupportable by Japanese forces (being _far_ past
| Japan 's supply lines, when Japan was already facing logistical
| issues, and within B-17 range of bases in Hawaii) and even the
| carriers weren't absolutely critical must-not-lose assets for
| the US like they were for Japan. (The US commissioned 8
| carriers in the year following Midway - four Essex class fleet
| carriers and four Independence class light carriers)
| Incidentally, this is part of why Midway was such a huge
| strategic blunder for the Japanese forces - it risked 2/3rds of
| their carriers for minimal gain.
|
| If Midway fell, it would have extended the war another few
| months. But I'm not sure that that really qualifies as a
| disaster.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| > The only thing the US was really risking that had a
| significant strategic impact were the carriers
|
| Yeah, that thing Japan bombed Pearl Harbor over....
| Evil_Saint wrote:
| They bombed Pearl Harbor knowing that no carriers were
| docked there at the time. American carriers were not the
| main objective of the attack. You have to realize carriers
| were relatively new and not a known commodity like they are
| today.
| DuskStar wrote:
| And at the same time, carriers were counted as powerful
| enough to make the opening moves of the war.
|
| I don't think Japan was happy to discover that they'd
| missed _all_ of the US 's carriers. I think I've read
| that Yamato was furious, in fact.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The strike Pearl Harbor did achieve all of Japan's
| objectives: it prevented the US Navy from rushing to the
| Philippines' defense or otherwise thwarting their
| 1941-1942 conquests in Australasia. The IJN was still
| planning on having their decisive battle strategy, in
| which the US Navy would be decisively defeated in a
| pitched battleship battle, where carriers would not
| matter because carriers are not effective ships of the
| line, instead being good for scouting missions or
| harassing of incoming forces.
|
| Ironically, they still held to this strategy in 1944, and
| attacked the US Navy in the Battle of Leyte Gulf to force
| their missing decisive battle, using their carrier fleet
| entirely as a decoy force. Even after there had been only
| one battleship action in the entirety of the Pacific war
| to this point, with all other major naval battles
| involving only the carriers on one or both sides.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| 6-12 months of Japanese free reign in the Pacific might've
| led to conditions in which the US would've pursued a
| negotiated peace, though.
| mynameishere wrote:
| 6-12 _years_ of Japanese _total domination_ in the Pacific
| would have led to their eventual defeat. Their probability
| of victory was zero from day one of the war.
| DuskStar wrote:
| I'd say it was zero as soon as they gave the US such a
| large piece of internal propaganda (the attack on Pearl
| Harbor). Without that, and without a declaration of war,
| Japan might have been able to ignore US forces in the
| Pacific. Getting the US to attack Japan in response to
| attacks on countries full of lesser peoples would have
| been a difficult proposition, and the willingness to
| fight on through the slog that the South Pacific became
| might not have been there.
|
| But after Pearl Harbor...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The Japanese wouldn't be able to sustain a US invasion, but
| they would have conquered Australia and would probably have
| forced the US out of the Pacific war.
|
| That was the gamble. Success in 1942 meant Japanese
| domination of the entire Pacific, including areas of the
| Soviet Union.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Success in 1942 meant Japanese domination of the entire
| Pacific, including areas of the Soviet Union.
|
| Japan and the Soviet Union did not go to war with each
| other until August 1945.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure, because "Success in 1942" _didn 't_ happen.
|
| It might've happened if Midway had gone differently.
| jcranmer wrote:
| I'm still dubious. Adding a new theater to the war when
| your other theaters are already stalling without a
| decisive victory is generally not a winning measure. The
| naval victory is only at best a temporary reprieve: the
| US is going to replace all its lost carriers within a
| year, and is similarly going to replace all the capital
| units [1] it lost at Pearl Harbor by that time. The
| Japanese didn't think themselves capable of mounting an
| invasion of the USSR before about mid-1943, by which
| point it was beginning to feel pressure on other fronts,
| and the IJA would start raiding the Manchurian army
| groups for manpower to keep from losing on the fronts
| they were already engaged in.
|
| [1] Again, recall that to Japanese strategic thinking at
| this time, it's the battleship strength that matters.
| Carriers are just a sideshow.
| MS90 wrote:
| They'd had some border skirmishes before WWII even
| started, with tens of thousands of casualties on each
| side. The 1941 neutrality pact was a result of a combined
| Soviet/Mongolian force defeating and removing the
| Japanese from Mongolia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_bor
| der...
| DuskStar wrote:
| Ironically, if Japan had committed all 6 fleet carriers to
| the South Pacific in early 1942, they might have been able
| to conquer Australia. Instead they split them - two to the
| South Pacific, to be damaged in the Battle of the Coral
| Sea, and then the four remaining operational carriers to
| Midway. Had all 6 shown up at Midway... Things probably
| would have gone differently.
|
| The things that show up in hindsight, of course.
| leftyted wrote:
| > There's a lot of people that seem to think that Midway
| would have been a disaster for the US if they lost, but
| there's not much reason behind this. The only thing the US
| was really risking that had a significant strategic impact
| were the carriers - if the island of Midway fell it would
| have been essentially unsupportable by Japanese forces (being
| far past Japan's supply lines, when Japan was already facing
| logistical issues, and within B-17 range of bases in Hawaii)
| and even the carriers weren't absolutely critical must-not-
| lose assets for the US like they were for Japan.
|
| The Japanese were well aware of this.
|
| The Battle of Midway was not an attempt by the Japanese to
| capture Midway but rather to lure the American Pacific Fleet
| into a trap and to destroy its carriers. Ironically the
| direct reverse of that happened.
| DuskStar wrote:
| Oh, of course - that's why the Pacific fleet _not taking
| the battle_ would have left Midway as a minor loss for
| Japan.
| NeedMoreTea wrote:
| Strategically crucial in a Pacific that had seen most
| everything the Japan side of Midway fall. If Midway had
| fallen, New Guinea, Coral Sea and Fiji were next in line,
| putting Australia and New Zealand at risk. What you call
| minimal gain would, had Yamamoto's plan come off, have put
| over 60% of the Pacific under Imperial Japanese control.
|
| US would have been fighting their way across the Pacific,
| island to island at a range that no longer permitted bombing
| the mainland of Japan. Which, as seen at the end of the war,
| was subject to colossal losses.
| DuskStar wrote:
| You're assuming that Japan could have kept Midway
| resupplied, let alone defended it. From what I understand,
| that's very questionable.
|
| Midway wasn't keeping Japan contained in the South Pacific
| - the two were as militarily separated as Midway and the
| Aleutians. Japan probably could have taken the South
| Pacific in early 1942, in fact - but instead divided her
| fleet carriers up piecemeal, available to be defeated in
| detail.
| NeedMoreTea wrote:
| No it wasn't keeping them contained, but it was an
| attempt to draw out the US carriers. Had the US lost
| Midway and Japan not got bogged down in the endless,
| unwinnable campaign in the Solomons that absorbed endless
| Japanese resources, Yamamoto's plan may have worked as
| his stepping stone to Hawaii. Only Midway and they
| probably couldn't have kept it... Had they got to Hawaii,
| I'm not sure Japan would have cared much about the atoll.
|
| As it was, with help in the Solomons, Midway turned the
| war in the Pacific. Least that's how I understand it,
| though I've certainly read more of the war in Europe. :)
| DuskStar wrote:
| My understanding is that while the US losing her carriers
| at Midway would have allowed Japan free reign in the
| South Pacific for a few months, that _was already the
| case_ for anywhere that all 6 fleet carriers showed up.
| Nothing the US had - combined, worldwide - could match
| those 6. Killing the US carriers at Midway was just to
| turn it from a 6v3 to a 6v0 - instead it ended up 2v2,
| but so goes war.
|
| Japan invading Hawaii would have caused a famine if they
| succeeded - it'd be even harder to keep supplied than
| Midway, but with dozens of times the population.
|
| _In my opinion_ Midway marked the turning point of the
| war in the Pacific, but that turning point was inevitable
| as long as the US could credibly say "we're going to
| commission 6 fleet carriers with a full suite of aircraft
| over a 12 month period". There's a great video here [0]
| that illustrates the differences in production over the
| course of the war. For instance, the US commissioned 17
| fleet carriers and 9 light carriers from 1941 on - Japan
| commissioned 7 and 1, respectively.
|
| 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ag2x3CS9M
| NeedMoreTea wrote:
| You are right of the unarguability of US manufacturing
| against Imperial Japan's, but that inevitability still
| doesn't eliminate the time recapturing territory that had
| Japanese presence. Their no surrender policy made island
| recaptures slow, brutal and ugly. Even with carrier
| provided air superiority.
|
| Had they got to Hawaii, I imagine the experience would
| have been similar to all Japanese occupied territories --
| famine, brutality, extensive forced labour and systemic
| murder. So long as the troops are fed, and enough comfort
| women can be found, nothing much else mattered...
| jcranmer wrote:
| The Japanese probably never had the logistical capacity
| to actually capture Hawaii. Hawaii is a supply chain 4000
| miles away, and is not exactly rich in natural or
| industrial resources that can sustain itself. Getting a
| major fleet to Hawaii would eat up most of the IJN's
| support ships, and if someone at Pearl Harbor had the
| presence of mind to destroy the fuel tanks there before
| retreating, the IJN would have its fleet stuck there
| without any means of resupply, which would be easy
| pickings for the USN to recapture.
| 0az wrote:
| You're also assuming that Midway would have fallen.
| Japanese amphibious doctrine frankly wasn't up to the task
| of taking a properly fortified Midway.
| caycep wrote:
| Granted, Yamamoto himself had no illusions re: a protracted
| struggle between Japanese industry, vs. American industry
| of the '30's/'40's era.
|
| Assuming no loss of political will, I suspect even in a
| worse case scenario where the US lost all its 3 carriers,
| it would still have eventually produced enough to win the
| war. Just maybe it would have taken several years longer...
| jcranmer wrote:
| In 1943, the US was commissioning an Essex-class carrier
| more or less every month, so the extra time would have
| been closer to "several months longer" instead.
| DuskStar wrote:
| Yeah - the US commissioned 17 fleet carriers, 9 light
| carriers and a whopping _76_ escort carriers over the
| course of the war. Japan? 7, 1 and 4.
| NeedMoreTea wrote:
| That's roughly my interpretation too -- there's no way
| Japan could out-manufacture US industry, and the
| difference in materiel, ship building and aircraft
| production wins out, even if Midway had been a
| catastrophic US loss.
|
| I suspect a couple of years longer is much nearer the
| mark than a few months as the Japanese dug to never
| surrender, but second guessing history is a no cost
| game... Who knows what other dominoes would have fallen,
| and where, in the extra time.
| reddog wrote:
| Yeah, the US GDP was 4x Japans at the start of the war
| and 7x bigger at the end. Japans fate was sealed on Dec
| 7th, 1941.
|
| But would a Midway disaster have extended the war 2
| years? The US would become the worlds only nuclear power
| in 1945 and start cranking out atomic bombs no matter
| what happened at Midway.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Midway was surprisingly accurate.
| ryanmercer wrote:
| It doesn't surprise me. I've seen WWII-era torpedoes and their
| innards at the Science of Museum and Industry in Chicago in the
| U-505 exhibit (seriously, if you're ever in Chicago to to the
| museum and pay the extra fee to go aboard U-505. Totally worth
| it) and there is a _lot_ going on in one of those.
|
| Here's a low-ish quality photo of the innars of a torpedo in the
| exhibit (not mine)
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/1jxk7k...
|
| Specifically in that thread these photos
| https://imgur.com/a/zNry7
|
| Sadly my photos from last year aren't any better, the cavern that
| U-505 is in has terrible lighting for photography.
|
| I was quite surprised by the amount of gears, tubes, segments,
| weights, etc inside one. Even the amount of batteries initially
| caught me off guard because I'm used to thinking in modern
| lithium batteries and not lead acid.
|
| I _think_ that is a G7e torpedo above.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7e_torpedo
| MrZander wrote:
| Wow, that is incredible. I had no idea they were that complex,
| or even that big.
| ryanmercer wrote:
| The length was a bit hard to accept. Later I started looking
| into torpedoes and there are some real monsters that have
| existed, the Japanese Type 93 used in WWII is almost 30 feet
| long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo .
|
| The more modern Russian Type 65 is roughly the same size as
| the Type 93 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_65_torpedo
|
| Russia also has that 'Poseidon' unmanned mini sub that's
| basically the nuclear powered sub version of a UAV that's
| something like 65 feet long and is believed to be able to be
| launched from another sub like a torpedo https://en.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...
| 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote:
| > _Two completely different devices, each responsible for
| checking the other, deviated identically for vastly different
| reasons._
|
| Happens frequently. "The tests are broken but I'm positive the
| software is correct so I'm going to fix the tests"
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| That's one reason I hate complexity in tests. Your tests have
| to be dumb enough that you are 99% sure the code under test is
| at fault.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| By definition, tests have to be more complex than the
| underlying code. The test have to setup the conditions,
| execute the action and validate it. Don't confuse complexity
| with shitty unreliable tests (timing-based tests)
| penagwin wrote:
| Depends on the type of test. What you guys are talking
| about are unit tests, and are designed to test individual
| methods/functions. You write a separate test for each one.
|
| There's other types of testing, integration tests sound
| like what you are both complaining about. Integration tests
| test the interaction between components of a system, and
| are thus far more complex and likely to break as you're
| developing (which is a huge pain).
|
| However integration tests have their place - just because
| the function works doesn't mean it's being called from the
| web client correctly.
| Armisael16 wrote:
| That isn't at all what happened.
| president wrote:
| There have been similar concerns about the US nuclear arsenal
| which are decades old and aging.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Which is why the nuclear test ban is, IMHO, a bad idea. A
| nuclear deterrent must be credible to be effective. If an
| adversary comes to believe that, say, 80% of our warheads are
| duds and most of theirs work, the logic of retaliation may come
| to favor a first strike.
| mmhsieh wrote:
| The logic behind test bans (in conjunction with numerical
| caps on warheads) is to create uncertainty in the reliability
| of one's own arsenal to discourage either side from
| contemplating a first-strike.
| quotemstr wrote:
| I'm not sure about that. What if you're convinced that
| _your_ brilliant scientists have created working warheads
| while you think the enemy 's dolts haven't been able to
| keep their arsenal working? What if your enemy thinks the
| same thing in reverse? I think there's always a temptation
| to overestimate one's own capability and underestimate the
| sophistication of others.
| [deleted]
| coachtrotz wrote:
| The WWII in Color series on Netflix has a Midway episode in which
| they indicate a 90% failure rate of the torpedoes to explode. The
| article says 70 percent rate but either way its pretty
| unreliable.
| jandrese wrote:
| > Because of this logistics fiasco, veteran submariner and
| historian Paul Schratz said he 'was only one of many frustrated
| submariners who thought it a violation of New Mexico scenery to
| test the A-bomb at Alamagordo when the naval torpedo station was
| available.'
|
| LOL.
|
| Another interesting fact about the US torpedoes is that they were
| slow by WWII standards, especially compared to the Japanese
| torpedoes. This is normally a fairly bad flaw because it gives
| the enemy ship more time to dodge the torpedo, however in the
| Battle off Samar it turned out to be an advantage as they allowed
| the torpedoes fired by a tiny destroyer managed to scare the
| mighty battleship Yamato away from the battle for quite a long
| time because the torpedoes took so long to arrive that the Yamato
| was well out of position once they finally missed.
| swiley wrote:
| IMO that really is the point of weapons at the end of the day:
| to scare your enemies into giving up some resource. Any damage
| caused is only to remind them that they should be scared.
| m4rtink wrote:
| It's important to note that the torpedoes Japanese generally
| used we powered by compressed pure oxygen, making them faster &
| giving them more range.
|
| But it also turned them into even bigger explosion hazard than
| normal torpedoes when the ship caring them is hit. As a result
| many Japanese ships are documented going down after what would
| normally be minor hits due to their oxygen torpedoes exploding
| and causing massive damage.
| stcredzero wrote:
| _WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 -- The Department of Energy said tonight that
| approximately three-quarters of the A-1 model Polaris nuclear
| warheads deployed on submarines in the mid-1960 's were probably
| "duds" because of mechanical defects._
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/02/archives/early-polaris-mi...
|
| To be fair, the Japanese had really good torpedos at the start of
| WWII, but there were other things which were just as unproven and
| wonky. For one, the proposed tactic of letting battleship shells
| fall short, to target enemy ships underwater, was pretty much
| useless.
|
| (Come to think of it, the initial performance of Sidewinder
| missiles in Vietnam was another example of this sort of military
| equipment failure.)
| m4rtink wrote:
| The japanese 25 mm AA gun seems to be considered pretty bad as
| well, at least by western WWII historians.
| Smoosh wrote:
| Another example is when the M16 rifle was first introduced in
| the Vietnam War, it was unreliable due to fouling.
| m4rtink wrote:
| This was prominently shown in the first Vietkong game,
| including having to use just 20 round clips when using it to
| reduce the chance of fouling happening. Quite a nice touch.
| rshnotsecure wrote:
| It's very likely that the torpedoes did not work for the whole
| war really. It sometimes is scary to think about all the
| complaints sub commanders put in, only to be dismissed by the
| Department of the Navy as excuses for bad leadership or tactics.
| I get that you have to take this line sometimes but still...
|
| That being said it should be noted US Naval strategy has never
| particularly relied on subs or been that great at it.
|
| This has always fallen to the Eurasian powers such as Germany,
| Russia, and China/Japan.
|
| Nothing has been downed by a torpedo in actual combat for the
| last 75 years, so realize that there are so many unknowns today
| in submarine warfare that you don't see in say land warfare. That
| being said it looks like Underwater Unmanned Autonamous Drones is
| where sub warfare is heading. Supposedly China is way ahead of
| the pack here much like they are in the drone space (supposedly
| again) as well. The 2016 capture of a US Navy UUAV really was not
| good for the USA and marked a shift in the balance of power.
| wayanon wrote:
| Belgrano?
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser Belgrano with
| torpedoes
| DuskStar wrote:
| With a torpedo introduced to service in _1927_ , though. She
| avoided using her homing torpedoes (the Mark 24 Tigerfish)
| due to fears that they were unreliable.
| zentiggr wrote:
| > It's very likely that the torpedoes did not work for the
| whole war really.
|
| The patrol reports of each sub detail pretty well what shots
| were taken and after the fixes in '42 and early '43, the hit
| percentages rose dramatically... 1944 and 1945 were very good
| hunting times for US subs in the Pacific. They sank an amazing
| number of targets in a very short time.
|
| (Former US submariner and very amateur military historian.)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "Did not work for the whole war" is far too string. There were
| specific fixes to the torpedoes and also to the detonators;
| they were in place by September 1943. This is well documented.
|
| Now: Did they work perfectly for the rest of the war? No.
| Nothing ever does. They worked a lot better, though.
| cameldrv wrote:
| As others have said, the Belgrano, but also the Cheonan, and
| the Khukri have all been sunk by torpedos since WWII.
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