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 Re: American Torpedos
Author: Webmaster 
Date:   11-24-05 15:24

Conversely, Dick O'Kane once pointed out that, during the early part of the war and before the problems with the contact detonator were discovered, it seemed likely that the majority of hits probably resulted from those occasions when the magnetic feature did work. It was far from reliable, but it wasn't subject to the inertial distortion of the firing pin guides on impact (as there was none) that hindered the contact detonator, so if you managed to get the torpedo under the target at the right depth it would detonate.

Much of the problem stemmed from an American design quirk, too. The U.S. was the only country that designed the mechanical part of the detonator (firing pin, guides, primers, safety chamber, etc.) with a veritical orientation, which greatly increased vulnerability to inertial distortion upon sudden deceleration at impact. Everyone else used a horizontal design.

In our case, BuOrd was seemingly trying to save on development costs by using a mechanical firing train that had already been proven reliable in the Mark 10 torpedo without, apparently, stopping to recognize that a 10 knot speed increase at impact would result in significantly greater inertia being exerted on the mechanism. With the Mark 14 fired on the low speed setting, the contact detonator was much more reliable, but few captains ever used the low speed setting until later in the war, after the bugs had been worked out.

J.T. McDaniel
Webmaster, FleetSubmarine.com
Author of: With Honour in Battle and Bacalao
General Editor: American Submarine War Patrol Reports series
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 Topics Author  Date
 American Torpedos  new
MIke 08-18-05 20:32 
 Re: American Torpedos  new
Dan Odenweller 08-21-05 02:52 
 Re: American Torpedos  new
terry 11-24-05 11:15 
 Re: American Torpedos  new
Patrick O'Connor 11-24-05 11:40 
 Re: American Torpedos  new
Webmaster 11-24-05 15:24 
 Re: American Torpedos  new
Patrick O'Connor 11-26-05 23:50 


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