The Giant Torpedo Fail that Almost Changed WW2
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- Lieutenant Dan Daspit was exuberant.
The skipper was in command of USS Tinosa, which was on her second war patrol in late July of 1943. The submarine had been lurking the Japanese shipping routes from Borneo to Truk for a couple of weeks, and the crew finally spotted a thin trail of gray funnel smoke on the horizon. It was the Japanese tanker Tonan Maru No. 3.
Tinosa then approached her prey while submerged and fired four textbook shots. All the torpedoes ran true, and the crew eagerly waited to hear the unmistakable sound of the explosions. The expectations behind the Mark 14 torpedoes were enormous, as they were deemed the most advanced anti-ship weapons in the US inventory.
A few seconds later, the sonarman heard the projectiles’ thumps striking the tanker’s hull, and then, the unexpected happened…
What was left out of this cut was the fact that many NAVY Sub Captains were "relived" of duty early on. The NAVY supported the ordnance so much that they basically blamed the commanders of inability and or lack of aggressiveness.
These guys would have been the "older" guys who trained in the Peace Time 1930's to command a sub, only to be stripped of command and blamed for the inability of NAVY ordnance.
Very sad indeed.
They were releived bcuz they were not aggresive and they fought like a simple peace time exercise
@@gotanon9659 Please watch the video before leaving ignorant comments like this. If you knew anything, ANYTHING about history you would know that this story is established fact, and the Navy fully admits that crap ordnance cost many men their careers.
Admitting it was not enough they should have reinstated these men as they had actaul experience rather than just saying sorry
Sounds like a Dr speaking out against a vaccine 🤔
Military justice is almost as big a joke as military intelligence.
My Dad actually served aboard the Tinosa at the time of this incident. He made six War Patrols and this was the most frustrating. The video is good but naturally not all encompassing. One torpedo actually porpoised on its way to the tanker and hit high enough on the side to be seen through the periscope. Others could be heard banging into the side of it but not detonating.
They were allowed to set the depth of the torpedoes but it was to be set to the estimated depth of the hull of the target. After this incident and one or two others, enough of a stink was made that the torpedoes were taken and fired through a net, at a cliff, to test their accuracy and the exploder. It was found that they ran sometimes as much as twenty or more feet deeper than set. Then they found out that the firing pin used for the contact exploder was weak and if it hit at the "PERFECT" 90 degree angle, it would sheer off and fail to activate the exploder.
If the torpedo hit at an angle other than 90, it would generally explode. ALso, what the video fails to mention is that EVERY OTHER COUNTRY had DUMPED magnetic exploders prior to WWII as totally unreliable and were using only contact exploders on the torpedoes. Once we dumped the magnetic exploder and put in a more robust firing pin, suddenly our torpedoes started working too.
FYI, the US Navy tested their torpedoes in the Finger Lakes at Seneca Lake in NYS.
This comment needs to be pinned or at least more comments and likes
Daspit wrote of that breaching torpedo, "I find it difficult to convince myself I saw this."
Ted Thank you for your Comment . Sampson Naval Base is located along Seneca Lake . My Neighbor did his Basic training there during W W 2 . To This day There Is a Barge type vessel with a superstructure on the Lake The Navy tests Sonar or something because the Lake is so Deep .
Every other country had not dumped magnetic pistols prior to WWII. Germany in particular had significant troubles with their magnetic pistols. Costing them chances to sink multiple UK warships.
Germany still used magnetic torpedoes during WW2, with mixed results.
There's a PBS documentary on this subject, NOVA I believe. One of the major problems with the MK14 was the depth setting. It was set too deep at the factory so the magnetic proximity detonator wouldn't trigger as it passed under the target ship. The Ordinance Department was so adamant that the setting was correct that adjustments weren't allowed, so much so that the depth set screw was to be witness marked with paint before the torpedoes were issued to each boat. Warfighters in theater are willing to bend rules to stay alive so they made their own workaround. The solution: the quartermaster that marked the torpedo also sent a jar of paint with each departing submarine. At the start of their cruise the torpedoman on each boat would remove the paint, change the depth setting for the time they were at sea, return the torpedo to the factory depth setting when they returned to port, and reapply the paint. For all the advancements in aircraft, armor, and other weapons it's criminally negligent and possibly even reckless to have not taken a long, hard look at the primary projectile of such an important weapons platform until so far into the war. How much Japanese logistics could have been interdicted had the torpedoes functioned properly?
Any supplies the Japs got to use meant more fallen Marines and GI’s. So BuOrd was responsible for their share of casualties.
It's all the more galling when you realize that once American submariners did get torpedoes they could rely on, they virtually swept the Pacific clear of Japanese shipping in not much more than a year or two.
Thanks for explaining what I didn't hear this film explain.
Actually, the depth setting was selectable by the crew just prior to firing. The real problem was that the sensor used ambient atmospheric pressure as a reference, and the air pressure in a submerged submarine is quite a bit higher than sea level, meaning that over the course of the voyage this extra pressure would leak into the sensor chamber, effectively re-calibrating it.
And, of course, the contact pistol was made of lightweight metals and was crushed by direct hits (the ideal shot), but worked better with glancing hits. The magnetic pistol was a piece of donkey guano was considered so top-secret that sailors in the field were not even allowed to disassemble it, much less try to repair it.
Lord save us from drawing-room generals.
Re the difference of magnetic fields around the world.
_'Designers presumed that this field extended an equal distance in all directions, forming a perfect hemisphere under the bottom of the ship. But there was flaw in the reasoning. What was not understood (by anyone in the world) was that the magnetic field encasing a ship varied in shape depending in circumstances. Near the equator, this magnetic envelope flattened out until it resembled a thick disk more than a hemisphere. Since the torpedo would enter the magnetic field some distance from the ship it would explode harmlessly.'_
Not to mention how many submarine commanders were removed from command who did everything right, but were let down by the torpedo's
For being too conservative too, right? Like a holster full of potential duds wouldn't make anyone hesistant.
This is criminal 😢😢😢
@@goldenschlong4846 Of all the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, the Navy has by far the worst reputation when it comes to corruption, coverups, incompetent brass, and entitlement.
As a former submariner, every time I see this story about these torpedo failures, the Navy's arrogance and incompetent higher commanders, it sickens me.
As a former submariner as well, preaching to the choir.
Problems like onions, and it took Admiral King's apoplectic rage being unleashed in its full fury at BuOrd to get it fixed.
Army here. Yeah, the military excels at hoarding useless equipment and systems. Still, could be worse. It could be Russian.
Why?
@@johnnyjericho8472 The brass in charge absolutely refused to believe his pet torpedoes were defective. There are other vids on the topic (this one was an excellent slice of the problem, but didn't cover everything).
What was extremely galling in this case was the Tonan Maru 3 was a tanker converted from a whaling factory ship and at nearly 20,000 tons was one of the largest tankers in anyone's fleet at that time.
Incredible how arrogance and incompetence has led to so many soldiers deaths.
More like every single death
Yeah, Like the Air to Air Missiles During the Air War in Vietnam.
Don't forget about the failures of the early M16s in Vietnam. The rifles jammed at a horrendous rate, and the military's top brass pinned the blame on the soldiers who they claimed were not properly cleaning and maintaining them. It took a lot of effort to finally prove that the rifles and ammunition were not properly tested after several last-minute design changes, resulting in guns that stopped cold right in the middle of a close-range firefight. Nobody knows how many American soldiers were killed because their rifle crapped out on them at the worst possible moment.
And sailors deaths.
Stuff like this has happened throughout history.
My grandad was hit by 2 torpedos in WW2 from the Nazi U-boat 124, commanded by Nazi commander Jochen Mohr. The Royal Navy warship my grandad was shipwrecked on was called H.M.S Dunedin and was sunk about 1500 miles from Brazil. He got shrapnel all down his legs from the explosion. He was on a life boat for 7 days and nights and at night time he could hear the sharks killing off and eating his friends in the darkness of night but was powerless to help them. He woke up in a Trinidad hospital after they drifted hundreds of miles and the Nishmaha, a US merchant ship en route from Takoradi to Philadelphia, found them and rescued them. If he had died I would not be here to tell you his war story, it took him about 20 years to open up and finally tell my family what had happened out there but we didn’t push him for his account, we knew we just had the time he needed to open up and tell us his account in detail. He suffered all of his life because of the shrapnel wounds and he also had chunks of flesh bitten out of his left arm from barracuda because he fell unconscious and his left arm was hanging over the side of the lifeboat. That generation was a special generation, we owe everything to them so telling their war stories is a way to keep their memory alive an honour them all. He was always a sailor and a navy man and loved the sea so he wanted to have his ashes to be put in the ocean we honoured his last request. That was in the mid 1990s. navigate maria in sæcula sæculorum grandad ❤️🇬🇧
glad to hear they got their karma and justice for betraying their fellow brothers, ie; white German Europeans, for the group🇮🇱 that hijacked the west and subverted and stole everything while making us nothing more than their servants
@Ben Jones there were over 200,000 WW2 veterans alive in the USA in 2021 and just a year later it dropped to 167,284. These men won’t be with us for much longer in both our countries the numbers are declining rapidly which is to be expected really but I just wish we could of done better with the great western countries of WW2 because we are squandering that honoured ultimate sacrifice. Our society is a mess with people who use feelings to decide that they are more than 2 genders and people who are mutilating them selves and have mental disorders being encouraged and the grooming by sick people of our children in schools.
@@Biketunerfy you went from being a proud grandson... to complaining our country is squandering soldiers sacrifices by being Gender Fluid... That's quite the left turn there bud.
@@Schwift3D what would be stranger is if he realised that if you hadn't fought the Germans, there'd probably be none of this genderfluid bullshit now.
@Ben Jones How utterly disrespectful to bring god in to this. How about thanking the people who actually fought?
I still say you could make a case that the Bureau of Ordnance was working for Japan during the war. Someone should have gotten charged with treason.
It's worse, it's arrogance and pride.
Guess who was running the development of the mk 14... Adm Christie (then Lt Christie) who would become (at the time in question) commander of all subs in Fremantle, and ordered their untampered with use. Adm Lockwood bucked the system, HARD and is a hero. Even after Lockwood proved the mk 14 was a POS and was sending out repaired and upgraded torps ... Christie was... a traitor seems a tad too light for what he did.
My grandfather was part of the group working on the torpedo mess. They were trying to make the magnetic detonator work, but it always had such a delay that it initiated far past the other side of the target. He told me that their commanders told them to fix it by inventing an "anticipator", that sensed the magnetic field sooner (like seeing the future)...after that they drilled some holes so the prototype torpedos all sank during tests, failed completely and got the project cancelled so they could focus on impact detonation issues (which was an absolute necessity during 1942). He went on from there to design the US version of the pressure wave mine and had it promptly rejected by the Navy because they were afraid to deploy a mine sweeper proof weapon that the axis might copy. The submariners also rejected his groups acoustic mine, that was eventually deployed all around Japan by B-29's. He told me about how the mines had a salt-plug that was supposed to dissolve and deactivate the mines before Operation Olympic. After the war, numerous crews on Liberty ships were tasked with cruising the Japanese coast to make sure the mines were dead.
Amazing comment C.O.N., all the details of this old WW2 stuff is fascinating to me!
What amazes me as a retired Marine, is to my knowledge, there were never any charges brought to the Bureau of Ordinance..You would think at a minimum Dereliction of Duty
There's no such thing as a retired marine. You though are definitely an imposter
@@fauxbro1983 On the other hand, he capitalized Marine, which is correct, and you did not. Why should we believe you over him?
@@fauxbro1983 Retired, rather than a four year wonder
Dereliction of Duty would be a stretch. Everyone was carrying out existing policy.
There were charges brought against them but in true Bureau fashion, they failed to go off😀
This is amazing. It seems like the Mark 14 torpedo was one of Japan's most effective weapons in the war.
The torpedo shown in the video being dismantled and reassembled was a British MkXV 18 inch torpedo. The RAF uniform of the corporal is a bit of a giveaway. You can see the Brotherhood burner cycle semi-diesel engine and the igniters being inserted are for the engine rather than the warhead. The plank by the propellors is an adaption to allow the torpedo to enter the water smoothly. I've not been able to read all the other replies but I'm sure someone has recommended Drachinifel's video on the Mk 14 and commented on similar probelems the Kriegmarine had with G7 torpedoes diving too deep and the failure of the British magnetic exploders used against the Bismarck and (accidentally) HMS Sheffield.
The Japanese Long Lance Torpedo was a marvel of technology at the outbreak of WWII. One of the few areas they had an advantage.
Let's not forget the Zero
@@Thor_Odinson But we're talking about American torpedos.
The Long Lance Torpedo was the fastest, best-ranged, the most reliable fish and carried the biggest warhead in December '41. Strangely enough by the time of Japan's surrender in September '45 it was still the best torpedo in WW2...
Mk 14 Torpedo: "I am the worst example of American Naval mismanagement and incompetence ever!"
Littoral Combat Ship: "Hold my beer."
Glad they finally worked on reliability issues. I had a mark 46 torpedo accidentally shot from the USS Gray DE-1054 land on the concrete pier about 10 inches from me and skid down the pier until it hit one of the huge dumpsters. I heard the shot, looked up and I couldn't believe what I was seeing, took a few seconds for my mind to recognize what it was, I was sure it would explode when it hit. When it hit and skidded off down the pier I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. I thought they would get like a bomb disposal team to come to check it out, but they just formed a work party from weapons-3rd and we picked it up and brought it back on the ship. I kept waiting for it to cook-off in the torpedo magazine but it never had any issues.
A major player in the torpedo scandal was Radm. William Blandy who was in charge of the Bureau of Ordnance at the time. Later, as commander of the naval bombardment force at Iwo Jima he called off the pre-invasion bombardment early over the objections of USMC Generals Smith and Schmidt. To cap off his stellar career he had charge of the atomic tests on Bikini Atoll and 'celebrated' with a cake formed into the shape of a mushroom shaped cloud.
You mean to top it all off, he had a chance to kill Godzilla and missed? ):D
Additional bombardment at Iwo Jima would not have made a difference. It's already been a settled matter that the troops were already inside of Mount Surabachi.
@@WALTERBROADDUS That wasn't the point. It was an indication of his character that he refused the added bombardment requested by the Marine generals who were about to put the troops ashore.
@@jimcronin2043 the additional bombardment wouldn't have done anything. You could have fired weapons for a month and the results would not have changed anything.
@@jimcronin2043 I think I heard they were running low on ammunition and rightly feared a japanese surface fleet attack after being caught with their pants down at guadalcanal. . .
I read somewhere that Submarine Captains later replace the magnetic with the contact type on their own, against orders and their successful patrols actually helped to hide the stats of the magnetic since they had to deny using them. I served Balao Class late 60's-early 70's...hooked on these stories.
Toured one when I was a boy. My shorts ripped going through a hatch. Does Coos Bay ring any bells?
Sorry to say this is just another day at the office for Navy leadership. Was a Spook for 22 years and in the intel community often an outstanding idea was ignored if it came from an enlisted man, but if a mid-grade officer came up with an idea that could easily be proven to be a waste of money and manpower it was given lavish support and the problems were ignored. To get the mission accomplished often you had to be very creative to go around roadblocks. Also you knew that if it worked you were actually going to be targeted as not a team player.
"... if it worked you were actually going to be targeted as not a team player."
(Sound of head slowly thumping against wall ensues.)
Welcome to the tyrannies of rank and petty office politics; you don't need to join the military to find those.
I can concur that enlisted get ignored by the arrogance of higher command. I being just such an enlisted person came up with a far more simple, compact and portable system for FARP operations that far exceeded the current system in place but was completely ignored simply because it wasn't the higher ups that came up with the idea. So the army stayed with the system they had and so made operations, time and handling far more excessively labouress for the guys then it needed to be.
I had a plaque on the wall above desk. It listed all the phases of a major project. They were:
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honors for the ignorant.
Worked out that way more often than not.
How sad our servicemen had to fear retribution if they gave fixes for our superiors incompetence
The British mistook HMS Sheffield for the Bismarck, and torpedoed it with magnetic detonators, which all failed. So they replaced them with contact detonators which did explode on the Bismarck.
Hms Sheffield Yes I remember reading that , that mistake could have cut like a Knife . Somebody today might comment that it is a good thing they tested the Torpedoes on the Sheffield first ? It could have been A very costly Mistake .
I thought about the same incident. The mistake could have been a DISASTER, but ended up allowing the Bismarck to be sunk.
Then there’s this; the Japanese were setting their depth charges too shallow….until a US congressman that went on a training dive told the press how stupid the Japanese were setting their depth charges to shallow.
The shocking thing that the Navy accused their captains as cowards.
That slip of the tongue is estimated to have cost about 800 lives.
My faith is sorely tested when certain individuals are not incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Typical politician, always eager to expand their exposure in the press. If that increases the danger and death rates of submariners it is a risk he is willing to take. How brave.
I've heard this story many times. Who was he? If this is, in fact, a true story he must have a name.
@@paulmaxwell8851 From Wikipedia:
"Andrew Jackson May (June 24, 1875 - September 6, 1959) was a Kentucky attorney, an influential New Deal-era politician, and chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee during World War II, infamous for his rash disclosure of classified naval information that may have resulted in the loss of 10 American submarines and 800 sailors, and his subsequent unrelated conviction for bribery. "
Plus how did that get by the censors as well? Should have made that POS congressman serve submarine duty after that......
From what I was told and read about it was the submariner's that took it upon themselves to fix the problem. When I served in the USN back in the late seventies if there was an issue you followed the chain of command but that most of the time was a joke. There was always someone up the ladder that had their head up there ass. So it became SP "standard procedure" to fix the problem yourself. By the way I was a Machinist Mate and I worked on the engine rooms. We fixed a few problems on our own and sometimes got in trouble for it. It just did not make any sense and quite frankly made me disgusted with higher-ups. There was a lot of good men lost because of this concept back in WWII and my sincerest condolences go out to them and their families.
It didn't change much into the 90's... For all the "kinder and gentler and PROGRESSIVE" talk, it's the same shit in a different barrel. ;o)
I got a very in depth look at the Navy in 1980 considering it as an already experienced commercial pilot/ instructor. I wanted the extremely valuable military flight hours to get an airline career. I saw things I couldn't fathom!🤣 Chose wisely against the Navy.
ERAU 80 CFIA&I ret.
For anyone interested in more information on this topic, I'd highly recommend you search TH-cam for "The Mark 14 Torpedo - Failure is Like Onions" by Drachinifel. It goes into great, concise detail on this topic, and even includes the incident with the Tinosa. If you've got half an hour to spare, it's well worth your time.
He also did an excellent video on Admiral King as well, highly recommended.
@@scrumpydrinker Saw that one. I personally love the video on the Russian Second Pacific Squadron. The closest that's ever been to the appellation "Voyage of the Damned."
@@scrumpydrinker I love Drach's 'Salvage of Pearl Harbour' series, and the coop special on the KGV design was an eye-opener for me.
Drachinifel is definitely a good channel. I've been subbed to him for years.
This is proof that when you don’t research or test in all profiles you will cost lives. This weapon was only first tested in perfect conditions and not in real world.. When they finally tested it in real conditions it was found that the detector was not set to the proper magnetic field for the area that it was used in. As you cross different areas of the world the magnetic field changes so you have to adjust the sensitivity for the areas you operate in..
Reminds me of software development and testing.
And the sailors were forbidden to adjust the magnetic detonator in any way. It was considered beyond top secret and they were prohibited from so much as touching it. Even after Admiral Lockwood ordered the deactivation of the magnetic detonator, Admiral Christie, who was involved in its design, ordered the subs under his command to keep using it until he was overruled at the end of 1943.
All services all business. People doing the work don't matter what they say or their lives
"As you cross different areas of the world the magnetic field changes so you have to adjust the sensitivity for the areas you operate in.." A lot have people have advanced this theory. Can anyone cite any scientific published studies available on the web?
@@jackb1803The Earth's magnetic field does indeed vary in strength depending on latitude. The one test they did was fairly close to the equator, but the magnetic field at other latitudes is different enough that the detonator needed to be calibrated to that specific latitude. This of course was well known by then. If they had bothered to test the detonator at various latitudes they would have had accurate calibration tables for the crews to use.
I believe the targeted tanker was one of the two largest tankers in the Japanese fleet. Both were formerly whale processing ships. The torpedo problem had been going on since the war started. Unbelievably frustrating.
As I heard, the War Department started charging the torpedo test group for derelict vessels used for testing. This caused the test group to massively scale back testing.
Then there were the U.S. Navy torpedo pilots, who dropped the equivalent of practice ordinance on Japanese war fleets during the desperate, early days of World War II. The "false economy" of the 1930's killed hundreds in the next decade. Reassigning Bureau of Ordinance bigwigs to torpedo-using ships and aircraft would have "suddenly gotten results."
There were three problems piled on top of each other. First, the torpedoes ran deeper than set. Second, the magnetic exploders didn't work reliably at the near equatorial latitudes in the Pacific. Third, the backup contact exploders didn't work reliably.
All of these had to be unraveled one at a time to get a reliable torpedo.
fourth problem - Navy brass ignored all reports from the front of malfunctions. Politics.
The USS Tang {SS-306} was struck and destroyed by her 24th and last Mark 18 torpedo 20 sec after it was fired. 78 men were killed, 9 survived including their CO, Richard Kane. Their deaths were covered up until after the war.
This problem is well covered in “Submarine Operations in World War 2” or “Pig Boats” by Theodore Roscoe. Does a very detailed on how they tested it and the solutions they came up with.
Having read a couple of books on the Submarine War of WWII, I am almost sure that several subs where lost because of faulty torpedoes. Politics in the Navy Ordinance department killed many sailors. That is why I never trusted high ranking officers when they told us that our equipment was awesome, but no one that uses it got to test it.
A Marine who service in Vietnam wrote of a high-ranking Marine officer who loudly declared, "If I hear anyone criticizing the M-16A2, that Marine can tattoo his rank on his shoulder blade. He won't get a promotion as long as _I'm_ the commandant."
Sound familiar?
After reading many comments it sounds as though the admiralty sank more US subs than the enemy.
@@hereIam1965 admiralty!?
@@mikeholland1031 Colin is likely from the UK, and that's how they refer to their Navy 'brass'.
USS Tang comes to mind.
They did explode sometimes, unfortunately they also sometimes circled around and returned to sender..
Which one was that, the Scorpion?
It was the Tang! Fifth patrol, Oct 25 1944. O’Kane fired his last torpedo ( mk 18 electric) at a freighter he had damaged earlier. In WW2, US torpedoes we’re not equipped with anti-circular run devices. Prior to that event, the Tang had recorded 22/23 hits on enemy ships. I know this, because I finished read O’Kane’s “Clear the Bridge” yesterday.
Drachinifel's website has the story of the Mk14 mess, the overt incompetence of the Beaurau of Ordinance, and Admiral King's fight .
Did anyone go to jail over this? The incompetence is astounding, but not surprising for the time. It happened in a slew of different military sectors. Like the landing craft for D-Day was built by a shipping company that the Navy initially cursed out until they were proven wrong. I don't understand how someone could be so hard headed that they would rather risk sailors lives to be right in their minds instead of doing the right thing....
The title needs to change,because the cockup with the mark 14 didn't "almost" change World War II...It *DID* change World War II.
The Issues with the MK14 meant that the Imperial Japanese Navy ships weren't sunk earlier in the war, and especially the cargo ships that were Japan's lifelines weren't going the bottom fast enough to be the stranglehold it would be later in the war, which probably would have brought the war against Japan to a end possibly as much as a year earlier.
It's about time someone spoke out on this story! THANK YOU!
The story related here is what led to the establishment of the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington (APL-UW), one of a handful of University-Affiliated Research Centers (UARC’s). APL-UW was established and tasked to solve the torpedo fuse problem described in this and other documentaries. I worked for 40+ years at APL-UW. Sadly, I witnessed similar behavior by Government lab personnel, much of it associated with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Newport, RI. It convinced me that there is great danger in letting Navy labs (or any service’s labs) have complete control over the test and evaluation of systems they develop (or help develop to be accurate). Put differently, it is dangerous to let those who develop a technology also be the party responsible for final test and evaluation of that technology.
3:55 Man! Val Kilmer's been in Hollywood a long *LONG* time!
My dad and I are retired USN submarine service veterans and I am glad that we served when we did. I am sure that our fallen brothers was caused by this incompetence. "Fair winds and following seas", brothers.
Be safe and be 😎
10 grand a piece in the 1940's! Thats the equivalent of around 172k today. Those torpedoes were very expensive mini artificial reefs that littered the seabed!
June 11, 1943 - 11 US subs entered Tokyo harbor undetected. They launched all their Mark 14s, Zero ships sunk. Had they had functioning Torps, dozens of Japan's war and merchant fleet would have been destroyed resulting in the greatest raid of the war.
The Mark 14 is a big reason why a lot of WWII alternate history stories are 'a bit harsh' toward the USN's BuOrd. The situation could have been fixed much sooner, if the people in charge hadn't valued their own egos over the lives of US Navy sailors.
What also was left out was the failing contact detonator. One brave soul had to dive down, and attach a rope to a live torpedo which failed to detonate during trials. They then removed the warhead and saw that a pin in the detonator was falsely constructed and it did bend out of the way instead of striking the detonator on impact, causing the many dead torpedoes when the captains intentionally did not use the magnetic detonator and ran them basically on the waterline into the target.
The whole torpedo was as screwed as such a thing could be. Only the engine ran fine.
Explosions underwater are not the same as those in the air. Without going into specifics, the density (and, hence pressure gradient) and incompressibility of water means that a very large proportion of the blast is directed upwards. That is the reason why magnetic mines were a step change. By exploding right under the keel they could break a ship in two, while the same charge on contact detonation might blow a 4 ft hole in one, possibly two, watertight compartments.
Thanks for that insight that I've not seen mentioned in any of the documentaries I've watched about torpedoes
I have an article my late father wrote for a destroyer website. His father, my grandfather was CO of the torpedo station at Newport RI and there were a number of issues. Inaccurate depth control, an extremely fragile contact exploder, and the difference in the earth's magnetic field between New England and the South Pacific. In addition to the attitude that there was nothing wrong with our torpedos, the thought of actual live testing during the lead up to WWII in the thros of the great depression was another factor.
I think it’s hilarious you have to put a big red circle around that.
I'm retired Army. I was deployed to an overseas combat theater Navy camp for over a year. I can personally attest to their unwillingness to accept constructive criticism and change. They had what they called iirc, an "all hands" with the Admiral commanding the camp, who seemed like a good dude. Evidently they had planted sailors with questions in the mass crowd, as the answers to them were obviously pre-written and rehearsed. I raised my hand several times and wasn't addressed. At the end, he asked if there were any more issues or questions. I raised my hand. At that moment, I could feel every Navy officer's eye in the place glaring at me, as if to say, "What are you doing? That's not in the script". I asked a simple two part question about internet access, (I know, first world problems, right? You had to be there for context. But I asked my Soldiers what they wanted me to address if they didn't want to do it themselves, and that was their main gripe.) The Admiral said that he hadn't heard of any issues before and gave a boilerplate, "We'll look into that." response. The next day I was informed through my chain of command that the Navy wanted them to punish me for insubordination and disrespect. Article 15/Captains Mast "For what?!" was my response. My First Sergeant and Sergeant Major said they didn't get it either, but they were basically ordered to give me a local letter of reprimand that would disappear when we redeployed Stateside. So, they kind of had my back. I will hand it to the Admiral, though. In a couple of weeks, internet access got MUCH better. Mission accomplished. It was his staff that wanted my scalp. I have never been told, "We can't help you." so many times in my entire career as I heard on that deployment. I learned that only Chief Petty Officers or above get service when they ask. It took several months of dogged and repeated attempts and interactions to develop enough rapport with the various offices on camp that I was able to finally start getting things done.
My man, don't you know the Navy trades requests for cans of coffee? , or even 12 packs of bud lite.
@@stephensarkany3577 Haha! I'm no stranger to bartering. I know how to get things. But bartering to get folks to simply do their jobs was something new to me. Coffee was easy to come by. However, Bud Light, aside from being one of worst beers ever (I don't care HOW popular it is, it's flat, tasteless swill. haha!), or any other American beer, was pretty difficult to attain for Army personnel.
The lessons learned should be: talk to the Navy CPO ('Chief') - they're guys that get stuff done.
The Mark 14 torpedo fiasco of early WWII is a blotch on the US Navy.
Just to expand on the video a little:
1) As mentioned the torpedo ran deep
2) The magnetic exploder was unreliable. The Germans had the same problem with their design
3) The contact exploder firing pin would jam if the torpedo hit head on
These problems were ultimately fixed but as the video mentions Navy hubris massively delayed the fixes.
First I've heard of this. Shocking stuff. Almost seems deliberate.....
There is much more to this story than was presented here.
This is a simplistic explanation but is essentially accurate.
The torpedo problems were solved by the Pearl Harbor torpedo shop not the USN Ordinance Dept. After torpedos were test fired at a Hawaiian submarine cliff and retrieved the root cause of the failure to explode was determined. The magnetic exploder was disabled and inert torpedos were dropped from 90ft onto a steel plate to test the firing pin. The firing pin was subject to deformity which precluded it from initiating the warhead.
The Navy Ordinance department tested the findings of Admiral Lockwood’s torpedo shop and concurred with their findings. At that point the efficacy of our torpedos went up to the expected percentage of explosions.
Whereupon USN submarines proceeded to sweep the Pacific Ocean of Japanese shipping. This brought about an economic collapse in The Empire which combined with Allied military victories hastened the eventual end of the war.
It's an old adage in the military that time spent on training is never wasted. In science time spent on actual experimentation is never wasted. In engineering time spent on testing is never wasted. Time spent on building a bureaucracy... well it keeps bureaucrats employed.
I read once (American Heritage of Invention and Technology, I think) that there was a problem with the contact fuse and that it would jam if hit too hard. The 90-degree 'finishing off' shots slammed full force into the hull, causing that very jamming. However, the far more shallow angle on the initial crippling shot allowed the fuse to successfully detonate the warhead. The article that I read remarked on the irony that the submarine and her crew "were too good" at their jobs to sink the tanker.
Many stories from many sources regarding the MK14, all of them point to a shameful conduct and attitude by navy brass over the problem. One can only speculate what impact a functioning torpedo would have had on the war with enemy ships sunk and US sailors lives saved.
This is what lends validity to the information in ALL your videos. You not only show the wins, but also the losses. This, as it usually is, our own government is our worst enemy.
On the other hand, in 1982 HMS Conqueror sank the ARA General Belgrano with two British Mk 8 torpedoes, designed in 1927 and updated during WW2.
Drachinifel made a documentary video on the woes with the Mark 14 torpedo, "The Mark 14 Torpedo - Failure is like Onions", that covered everything wrong with the Mark 14. Each problem seemed to obscure the others which were only uncovered after a prior problem was fixed.
The magnetic influence exploder, Mark 6, you got right. The contact exploder problem was one of a weak firing pin which sheared rather than drove properly into the primer of the warhead. It had been made from aluminum rather than steel. A glancing hit didn't break the firing pin so detonations were good, but a textbook 90 degree hit was what would break the pin. The torpedo also ran a great deal deeper than it was set to, which problem was unknown at first because of the others. The Mark 14 also occasionally had a tendency to do circular runs, where the torpedo would not stay on the set course but would run in a circle, endangering the submarine it was fired upon. This is how USS Tang and other subs were lost. True, Tang was lost to a Mark 18 circular run, but the same problem applied to the Mark 14.
Don't know if it is fictional, or verbal history. But some ? Submarine commanders had the torpedomen convert it to contact detonator, and closer to the surface. At end of patrol convert them back. Would have taken genius torpedomen to do it without a manual. This action was totally against orders, but his guys stayed alive.
The problem wasn't exclusive to Mk 14 torpedoes. The Mk 13 (air dropped) and MK 15 (sufrace launched) also had the same problems.
The lack of testing was appalling. The costs in torpedoes wasted far exceeded the cost of testing a few dozen torpedoes.
The true cost was the investment to send force halfway around the world risking their lives to do nothing.
@@stephensarkany3577
Absolutely. The cost was paid in lives and material.
This is astonishingly similar to the German experience early in the war, when their supposedly advanced state-of-the-art torpedoes failed to detonate when engaging the RN during the Norwegian campaign.
I had a Great Uncle lost on a sub lost during WWII and that torpedo has always been in my mind as the reason! We could have taken out so much more tonnage of enemy ships if not for that one mistake!
Tommy Chew: Actually there were THREE mistakes in the design of the Mk 14: 1) Running depth problems 2) Magnetic exploder not working correctly 3) Contact exploder not working correctly
I saw a video (official Navy) of a MK 14 being dropped from a crane, fully fueled and armed, from about 50 feet up (guessing) to a concrete floor. When the torpedo landed it did NOT explode!
Lesson to be learned? Never assume. It tends to make an A$$ out of U and ME!
Interesting and well explained. Subscribed
Would've been nice to have a few minutes on the analysis and identification of the problem, and how it was rectified.
I seem to recall reading about contact exploders that would bend on impact instead of lighting off the TNT (or whatever they use in a warhead). It wasn’t just magnetic exploders.
7:25
Unsurprisingly?
It’s freaking amazing that any branch of the Service would send men
into battle with untested weapons.
What kind of miser calls weapons more valuable than men?
Your comment kinda reminded me of what we hear about Russia today. :)
You never served apparently. It is tribal wisdom to remember your equipment is made by the lowest bidder. Military gear sucking is not all that unusual. Look up the story of the M-16 in Vietnam, or the Bradley fighting vehicle. The latter is chronicled in Pentagon Wars, which is done as a comedy, but rings strongly of truth.
@@northpoint1039 yeah, I get that
@@John-qx1zi no, the draft board turned me down in 68. Hepatitis
Yes, I know all about the M16. Read “We were soldiers once…” Gallagher & Moore
It was a rhetorical question.
ps: don’t be so quick to assume that you’re the only one who knows shit. You aren’t.
They tested them without the warhead so the torpedo was not destroyed. That was not a true test, but budgets were very tight then. Without the warhead, the torpedo was lighter. With the warhead the torpedoes ran deeper than set, and would go under the target. The magnetic fuses rarely worked in the war zone. I guess they never bothered to test the impact fuses before the war. You would think lab tests of the impact fuses would be pretty cheap and easy.
The problem, as I understand it, was that the firing pin was too soft. A hit at 90 degrees caused the firing pin to crush. However, a hit at an angle did not cause the firing pin to crush and would detonate the warhead. This was finally fixed, and the torpedoes then worked just fine.
Note ET's comment below about circular run torpedoes. In the book "U. S. Submarines in World War II" by Larry Kimmett and Margaret Regis, they document the circular run of a torpedo fired by the USS Tullibee (SS-284) on 26 March 1944. All but two of the crew were killed when the Tullibee was struck by her own torpedo. One of the two survivors documented the circular run after the war. The other died in a Japanese prison camp. The USS Tang (SS-306) was similarly struck by its own torpedo on 24 October 1944 with only surviving. to me, this is worse than the MK14 failing to explode - US submariners killed by their own ordinance.
...THAT CAN STILL HAPPEN EVEN TODAY-!!!
Ho, ho! They're hardly unique in that regard. Look up "hoisted on your own petard."
As a former intelligence specialist, I can tell you that the worst argument you will ever be involved with is one where you criticize a contractor. There are too many layers of people with interests that run contrary to common sense. Unless by common sense, you mean money. Money they understand, but little else. In fact, you can come up with an idea that saves money and lives, and still get a heated argument. I can confidently tell you that to my knowledge this has always been true, and has never changed.
Failed to mention once those reports of the torps bypassed Bureau of Ordinance's control and landed Admiral King's desk, he was incredulous and after verifying those reports, he personally went to BuOrd and did a figurative massacre, demoting alot of the BuOrd brass and reassigning quite a few of them.
The video completely skipped over the fault with the contact detonator. The impact was deformed the mechanism and jammed the firing pin. The quick fix was to fire a "glancing blow" to the target instead of the textbook 90 degree.
Best history thats real is right here!
I don't know who does the youtube subtitles but this is how these English words are spelt: grey armour harbour. Thanks.
actually the contact detonator was used but it was mounted at a 90 degree angle to the nose of the torpedo with the result that the contact fuse usually was crushed before it could activate.
After suspecting their reliability, early in the war, one submariner story I read said the crew fired 4 torpedoes' straight into a sea side cliff. None exploded. Even the mechanical detonators were faulty.
The was part of the test Capt. Lockwood ordered. They also fired the torpedoes through light nets too. They found that the magnetic ecploders were too sensitive and went off early. The contact exploders were a poor design that on impact the firing pin housing crushed jamming the firing pin. They also found the the torpedoes did not hold a consistent depth but oscillated up and down. So to get a successful hit you had to fire at a range of 11 hundred yards, when the oscillation was coming back up to the proper depth. And have the torpedoes hit at about a 45 degree angle so the warhead would not crush before the firing pin detonated the explosives.
My dad worked on the torpedo contact fuse problem, in 1940 ish as a machinist using different types of metals for the contact fuses (firing pins ) they used some aluminum from a downed Jap zero from Pearl Harbor Raid and it worked the best
Some subs were sunk by the MK14 torpedo when they had the torpedo do a circular run. There was a preventer to keep it from happening but it was "only for peacetime use".
I had heard that Adm. King's comment on the bureau of ordinance went something like "they could not organize a feces throwing contest at a monkey zoo."
For a longer and more detailed video see Drachinifel's video "failure is like onions".
I think it was Admiral King who also said, "We have two enemies: The Germans, and the bureau of ordinance", or something like that
My junior Uncle flew in the Pacific c1943 B24'ing Japan from China. He said that navy torpedoes contained alcohol; and lack of performance could be "due to dilution". Blaming the sailors possibly, however there was no restriction on torpedo fuel refills imposed by the USN.
holding failures personally accountable always brings change.... the more accountable... the more change.
2mins 18 not the charge in the magnetic field but the CHANGE in the mag field
The Tullibee fired one on the surface. It did a 180 right back and sunk her. Only a lookout survived to tell the tale after the war when he was freed as a POW.
In the 70s on boomers we carried mk14s. In 1980 on the Billfish in the med we shot the last mk14 in the Atlantic and Med as a excercise shot. It failed to run after impulse and sank.
The log book for it had a signature of Jack Kennedy in WW2 signing for it. Don't know if it was JFK, still pretty cool.
I think you meant did a 180 not a 360.
@@stuartsiglain3972 thanks Stuart. I guess a 360 would have gone all the way around and hit the bow. That would have been a screwy pattern.
I recall reading in one of my many history books, a discussion of the failures of the MK-14. Another issue was the torpedo running deeper than the setting. During the testing of the scarce priceless torpedos, the Navy ran them at slower speeds than wartime settings/speeds. This slower speed caused (due to Bernoulli's principle) the sensor mechanism to adjust fins to cruise closer to the surface than at higher speeds. During war patrols, these sensors would sense lower pressure (Bernoulli Principle) from the faster water passing by the sensor opening and adjust the fins to a lower depth (unknown to the crew).
Another issue was the contact detonator. The 90 degree textbook angle was discovered to crush the fragile detonator mechanism before it triggered the explosive.
Hits at off angles were more successful at triggering the detonator as the mechanism was NOT crushed with a glancing hit.
The Mk14 had several design and adjustment problems that all contributed to these failures. But the worst, and most unforgivable problem was the stubbornness and arrogance displayed by Naval Bureau of Ordnance on the matter that prolonged the problems getting fixed during wartime.
The way they ignored the complaints of the crews was disgraceful.
So the USA also had a "Torpedokrise" like the German u-boats which were supposed to protect the norwegian coast line. If I remember correctly, their torpedos did not explode due to the very cold water, the german torpedos were not tested in such cold waters.
The British and Germans fixed there problems with in 1 year
At least the narrator pronounced submariners correctly
He butchers certain words in my book.
NO broom on the sail this time. How frustrating this must have been.
Dracinifel has a great video on the problem(s) with the Mk 14
It looks like the incompetence wasn't limited to the most expensive WW2 project, the Norden bombsight. The incompetence was pervasive and I'm afraid it still is.
"Torpedoes aren't working. Can we see the manual?"
"No"
Soldiers, Sailors, Marines< airmen Lost due to saving a buck??? welcome to the Military
Amazingly this Torpedo had 4 major faults that BuOrd steadfastly refused to acknowledge ( depth inaccuracies, magnetic exploder faults, contact exploder faults and circle running). Not only that but they refused for a long time to conduct live fire tests to confirm the problems.
WWII PT boats used this same torpedo, launched from tubes on their decks, with the same failure rates noted on this video.
The skipper of the PT157, Lt. Jg William F. ‘Bud’ Liebenow said on August 1, 1943 he launched 4 torpedos squarely and close in at enemy ships. None of them exploded. That same night Ron-9 PTs (squadron-9) fired 31-torpedoes and none detonated. The next days island coast watchers saw some of the spent torpedoes floating at sea, having run out of fuel, and other torpedoes up on the shores of nearby islands having run aground after running UNDER their targets.
A secret congressional investigation was convened and found that the torpedoes were much heavier than specified causing them to run about 11-feet lower than they should resulting in many running right under them ships plus they found the magnetic trigger mechanisms were prone to be faulty due to the difference the gravitation effect of magnets where nearer to the equator.
As for the PTs, on the Fall of ‘43 the torpedo tubes were removed and replaced with hanging racks from which torpedoes used by dive US bombers, which were a different design, were used to resolve this problem.
The problem remained however for US subs as they could not simply remove their torpedo tubes.
Just imagine being on that boat watching all them torpedoes coming straight at you and at that second you tense up waiting for the explosion to then hear a bump of metal hitting the side, and nothing, the relief must have been amazing but to then see the next one, then going through all that again, then again, then again,
After the last couple of torpedoes, you could relax even put the ship it the line of the torpedo, taking the piss out of this sub, getting the men on deck pulling a Moonie for the capital of the sub to see,
I read that in desperation one of the sub captains wrote a letter directly to FDR complaining about the defective torpedoes. FDR then ordered a test of the torpedoes. The test was conducted off the west coast of Australia. The torpedoes failed. This caused a major shakeup in the Navy ordnance bureau. The company making the torpedoes lost their monopoly and other companies began submitting bids. If this had been done at the beginning of the war more Japanese ships would have been sunk.
The Mk 15 torpedo used by US Destroyers suffered from many of the same issues and benefited from the work on the Mk 14.
To be fair, besides Navy's arrogance, Mark14 torpedoe have problems masking eachother. When the Navy finally tested these torpedoes it turned out they tend to run 9 feet deper than set. They fixed the problem, and thought everything was ok, still many failures happened. so they examined the magnetic fuse, and found it had to be fixed too (it detonated too early or did not detonate at all), along with contact fuse. When the fuse was fixed the torpedo reached an acceptable success rate. Still one problem remained: the faulty gyroscope what made the torpedo run circular and hit the submarine that launched it. All in all, Mark14 was likely the worst torpedo of WW2. Later torpedo version( Mark18) was also haunted by circular run.
By the end of World War II, the Mark 14 torpedo was a reliable weapon ultimately remaining in service for almost 40 years in the U.S. Navy, and even longer with other navies.
Hubris and unwillingness of the higher levels of command and, more specifically, the engineers et. al. back on the mainland would not believe, much less, attempt to find the problem for a year or so. As a longtime engineer, I learned early on to question ALL of my work and , by removing my ego, find solutions to 'real-world' problems. Yep, I've had some embarrassing moments of 'OH FK! THAT's what I didn't get right.'
For young engineers out there, put your ego away. You cannot EVER assume that your brilliant mind didn't convcieve of every possible variable. Be humble. Admit your mistakes. Fix them.
String Larson: That reminds me of the saying: "I am perfect. I thought I made a mistake one time ... but I was wrong!"
In addition to what you correctly stated: ... and TEST your assumptions! Just because you thought of it doesn't mean it's correct!
I don't know how many other subs were lost because of junk torpedoes,but we know for a fact at least one was.Uss Tang was sunk by its own torpedo when it circled back on them.The brass in charge should have been courts martialed! Edit,I was mistaken,it was not the MK14 that sank the Tang,it was a MK18,and they never did figure out with it circled back.
That was an entirely different issue though
Jammed rudder, over to one side?
@@waynesimpson2074 That's the problem,they never could figure out why it jammed.Most likely,a gyro problem.