U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
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U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
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Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#2They 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.
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#3> 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”
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#4The 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.
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#5WASHINGTON, 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.)
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#6> 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”
That isn’t at all what happened.
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#7It 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
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#8> 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”
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.
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#9There have been similar concerns about the US nuclear arsenal which are decades old and aging.
Re: U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998)
#10There have been similar concerns about the US nuclear arsenal which are decades old and aging.
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.