[ARC5] PT-658

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

According to MY reading, the torpedo fiasco was a complete scandal. 

I remember reading an old book on submarine warfare about this. 
Apparently, one or more of the sub crews took it upon themselves, with 
approval from some "higher ups" at Pearl Harbor, to actually run some tests 
using nets strung across the firing-path. They discovered that all the 
torpedos were porpoising horribly. 

In addition to the fact that the contact detonators were so poorly built that 
they would distort and fail on impact with a target.

I remember reading that the machinist mates made replacement parts for the 
contact detonators out of shot-down Japanese Zero aluminum which did not 
fail.

I was pretty disgusted by what I read.

The Japanese "Long Lance" torpedo was a technological wonder. I read 
yesterday that one U.S. warship was hit by one from such a long distance 
away that they never could figure from where it came.

Ken W7EKB


On 1 Jul 2013 at 20:26, Mike Everette wrote:

> It took until late 1943 for the US Navy to figure out that our
> torpedoes -- sub launched, boat launched, destroyer-launched,
> air-launched -- were pretty much junk.  Had the Navy actually tested
> the torpedoes prior to WW2, and fixed the problems -- which were
> legion -- the war could possibly have been shortened by at close to a
> year.  But during the 30s, the conventional wisdumb was that torpedoes
> cost too much money to expend in tests (!!).

Kenneth G. Gordon W7EKB

"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."--- John   Wayne