Terrible American torpedoes

[Axe99]

So, we know that Japan has a national focus to represent its good torpedoes (a result of actually testing the damn things) - but will the USA have something to represent how terrible the Mark 14 torpedo was? It really beggars belief that they took those things to war untested in the first place.

I think this is a good idea - everything I've seen on the topic (subs, MTBs, destroyers) has the US ship-launched torpedoes as truly terrible (MTBs apparently finally got better performance from their torpedoes when they started using a new launching system that meant they switched over to their air-launched torpedo).

Do we have more information on British torpedoes? Did they suffer the same problems? I know Dutch submarines used British torpedoes and were considered to not have anywhere near the problems the US subs in the same theatres suffered.

I'm going from vague recollection on most part (so take with grain of salt) but my understanding is that the British torpedoes were pretty good in performance, Germans were solid (I can't recall seeing anything on Italian or Soviet torpedoes), the Japanese torpedoes were top-notch, and the US torpedoes (sea launched) were terrible.

From Conways, I've got the quotes (from a few paragraphs discussing torpedoes in WW2):

"Although for a time torpedoes with oxygen enriched air were in vogue, the development of the highly efficient Brotherhood burner cycle engine caused a return to natural air well before the war, and except for the Japanese torpedoes which used pure oxygen*, British ones had the best performance of any. There were seldom enough modern torpedoes and they were not issued to older ships."

"As in most navies, non-contact pistols gave much trouble initially"

*This is my note, not Conways - but this is a reference to the Long Lance, their 24" torpedo which was a fast, long-range monster.

Conways, somewhat frustratingly, provides different ranges of data for different navies (probably because different data are available, rather than to troll ), but it includes a table containing the speed, weight, explosive weight and range of the British torpedoes used during the period. I'll see if I can find similar stats for the US, Japan and Germany.....

 

[krieger11b]

The German Type I torpedoes were decent with the magnetic pistol turned off.

Type IIs were never really fixed, they eventually had to call the perfected version Type IIIs they had such a bad record of depth keeping, often running beneath a ship, lucky for them they were electric torpedoes and at least didn't give away their position at the same time.



The British only did a little experimenting with electric and magnetic pistol torpedoes, they like Japan just went with what worked.

 

[Axe99]

The German Type I torpedoes were decent with the magnetic pistol turned off.

Type IIs were never really fixed, they eventually had to call the perfected version Type IIIs they had such a bad record of depth keeping, often running beneath a ship, lucky for them they were electric torpedoes and at least didn't give away their position at the same time.



The British only did a little experimenting with electric and magnetic pistol torpedoes, they like Japan just went with what worked.

At least according to this article, the magnetic pistol was only the first problem with German torpedoes, rather than the only. Donitz, bless his soul, was quick to intervene to get the problems fixed. Makes me think it might be worth penalising both German and US torpedoes early, but any German early-war penalty would need to be sensibly balanced so they'd still wreak havoc on the Brits (and not make any national focus to fix it too OP - ie, do national focus to win Battle of the Atlantic). Maybe a torpedo fix NF that can't be taken until war starts, so players keen on submarine-focussed game can fix it quickly, but players doing something else can take other NFs? Suggesting from a mod perspective only, although something in the base game would probably work with current mechanics.

http://www.public.navy.mil/subfor/underseawarfaremagazine/issues/archives/issue_47/torpedo.html

I don't think the problem would be easily solved with tech trees, as it was less the type of technology and more the technology being a bit wonky and in the case of the US, not fixed for longer than it need by because of institutional reasons.

 

[tommylotto]

I think every submariner complained about their torpedoes, and you will get anecdotes of failure about all of them. The Mark 14 had its problems (like they all did), but tell that to the four million tons of Japanese shipping it sunk. From E.W. Jolie's "A Brief History of U.S. Navy Torpedo Development" (1978):

With Mk 14 development completed and production started prior to the start of the second World War, approximately 13,000 torpedoes of this type were manufactured during the war years. The mainstay of the submarine force in the war until the advent of the wakeless, electric Torpedo Mk 18 about 1944, the Mk 14 is credited with sinking approximately 4,000,000 tons of Japanese shipping. Originally designed and produced for mechanical fire control setting, Torpedo Mk 14 was modified to be compatible with modern electrical-set fire control systems, and continues in service in today's submarine forces (as of 1978).
....
The overwhelming majority of torpedoes fired during World War II were from submarines in the Pacific theater. Approximately 14,750 torpedoes were fired from submarines at 3184 of the approximately 8200 ships sighted. Of these, 1314 ships were sunk for a total of 5,300,000 tons. In addition, submarines received "probable" credit for another 78 ships of 203,306 tons. The confirmed total included one battleship, eight aircraft carriers, three heavy cruisers and eight light cruisers. These Joint Army Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC) confirmed sinkings (1314) accounted for 55 percent of all Japanese ship losses. The remaining 45 percent were lost to Army and Navy aircraft bombs, mines, and other causes.

Seems odd to nerf a weapon with a track record like that. I get a Belton Cooper "Death Traps" feel from that Mark 14 wiki article.

 

[Axe99]

I think every submariner complained about their torpedoes, and you will get anecdotes of failure about all of them. The Mark 14 had its problems (like they all did), but tell that to the four million tons of Japanese shipping it sunk. From E.W. Jolie's "A Brief History of U.S. Navy Torpedo Development" (1978):

Seems odd to nerf a weapon with a track record like that. I get a Belton Cooper "Death Traps" feel from that Mark 14 wiki article.

The Germans also sunk a lot of Commonwealth ships (including aircraft carriers and Battleships) before they got their torpedo ducks in a row - doesn't mean their torpedoes didn't have problems though. I haven't read the wiki article, but the second page of the article I linked above that starts with German torpedoes finishes discussing US torpedoes.

http://www.public.navy.mil/subfor/underseawarfaremagazine/issues/archives/issue_47/torpedo_2.html

From the article, looking at the Mk 14 test in 1943:

Elimination of the influence detonator exposed grave defects in the impact detonator. On July 24, 1943, yet another skipper went to great lengths to document torpedo failures, systematically firing torpedo after torpedo at the same tanker under near-perfect conditions until he had recorded 11 hits with no effect. Lockwood then authorized the experimental firing of impact torpedoes against a Hawaiian cliff face, which began on Aug. 11.

Examination of the first failed torpedo revealed that the fragile detonator mechanism, distorted by the impact, prevented the firing pin from striking with sufficient force to initiate an explosion. Subsequent drop tests on land with dummy warheads showed that a perfect hit at 90 degrees crushed the detonator and prevented it from working, whereas a glancing blow at 45 degrees left it sufficiently intact to set off an explosion. Twenty-one months after Pearl Harbor, the last major torpedo malfunction was finally identified. While the fleet made interim fixes, the Torpedo Station conducted follow-up tests and ordered a redesign.

I've just seen too many references to the Mk 14 being a bad torpedo early on, from multiple sources (discussions of MTBs, submarines, the US Navy more generally) to feel that it's getting a "one source giving it a bad name" thing like the Sherman.

From Conways (not on the internet in a linkable form, so written out):

No account of the US submarine force can be complete without the mention of its misfortunes due to poorly functioning torpedoes; the torpedo problem was not really solved until 1943, after which the submarine force proved so successful that the programme for new tonnage was cut back in 1944.

In the context of the second quote, does your source provide any info on when all those Mk 14 sinkings took place, and when all those torpedoes were fired? The US did far more damage navally in 1943-45 than in 1941-43 - was it a case that while they did some damage with the dodgy Mk 14s early on, things didn't get going until they got it squared away in 1943? (These are questions, I'm just looking at general naval stuff, not Mk 14 torpedo material in particular).

 

[Alex_brunius]

In the context of the second quote, does your source provide any info on when all those Mk 14 sinkings took place, and when all those torpedoes were fired? The US did far more damage navally in 1943-45 than in 1941-43 - was it a case that while they did some damage with the dodgy Mk 14s early on, things didn't get going until they got it squared away in 1943? (These are questions, I'm just looking at general naval stuff, not Mk 14 torpedo material in particular).

This should get you fairly close:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_submarines_in_the_Pacific_War#Merchant_shipping_losses

Both sources seem to agree the US submarines sunk about 4 times more merchant shipping in 44 compared to 42.

 

[Axe99]

This should get you fairly close:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_submarines_in_the_Pacific_War#Merchant_shipping_losses

Both sources seem to agree the US submarines sunk about 4 times more merchant shipping in 44 compared to 42.

Cheers . That does look fairly suggestive, although the bump will likely also be partly because of the large US sub-building programme as well. I had a look on navweaps, and it had:

The failure of the US Magnetic Pistol and backup striker gear is well known. Much of this was due to peacetime economies, but excessive secrecy and far too little communications between the Naval Torpedo Station and the Fleet were also to blame, as well as the reluctance of the Bureau of Ordnance to accept good evidence of defects. The result was that it was not officially announced until August 1942 that the standard submarine torpedo Mark 14 ran 10 feet (3 m) below its depth setting and not until June 1943 that the magnetic pistol was ordered to be disabled. However, long before this time, many submarine commanders were putting to sea per orders with activated pistols only to deactivate them once out of sight of land. The contact exploder faults were finally rectified in September 1943 but magnetic exploders were distrusted as late as thirty years after the war ended.

From: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTUS_Notes.htm

I also found a fairly vague reference from a history of the Naval Undersea Warfare Engineering Station:

Because torpedoes being issued to the Fleet in 1943 tended to behave erratically, the APL, which was interested in the experiment and development of underwater weapons, components, and tracking systems, was commissioned to create a more reliable exploder for these weapons.

http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/torpedotown/chap5.htm

Oddly, I couldn't find any reference to technical issues at all in E.W. Jolie's "A Brief History of U.S. Navy Torpedo Development" (1978) (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/jolie/index.htm). Given the evidence spoken of elsewhere, and the references to the issues being well-known, I'm not sure what to make of this. It's about the only source on US WW2 torpedoes (with any level of detail on performance) I've seen that doesn't mention performance issues.

 

[hkrommel]

Maybe a torpedo fix NF that can't be taken until war starts, so players keen on submarine-focussed game can fix it quickly, but players doing something else can take other NFs?

Why only after the war starts? Can't countries conduct tests before the war?

 

[Porkman]

I think every submariner complained about their torpedoes, and you will get anecdotes of failure about all of them. The Mark 14 had its problems (like they all did), but tell that to the four million tons of Japanese shipping it sunk. From E.W. Jolie's "A Brief History of U.S. Navy Torpedo Development" (1978):


Seems odd to nerf a weapon with a track record like that. I get a Belton Cooper "Death Traps" feel from that Mark 14 wiki article.

I read a history of the Japanese Merchant Marine and it made a point that, in 1942, the Japanese shipping losses were precisely meeting Japan's own projections. This actually caused the Japanese to underestimate the submarine threat and allowed them to continue their low priority for escorts and commerce defense.

When US subs stopped being nerfed by their bad torpedoes, then things went really bad for Japan.

 

[RVallant]

Why only after the war starts? Can't countries conduct tests before the war?

I think that was suggested so that the US would get the initial war-penalty for their subs, and the player would then have to choose to either fix it (and tackle the bureaucracy) or leave it for other, potentially more important matters.

Having it available pre-war is an option, but one would wonder if it was a priority at all given that the US is going to be under some penalties already iirc from the dev diary, and would probably want to have things focused elsewhere, at least in the pre-war peace periods.

 

[Axe99]

Why only after the war starts? Can't countries conduct tests before the war?

Both Germany and the US didn't think (institutionally, there were individuals who were concerned) there was a problem until wartime use turned them up on a large enough scale for them to need fixing (and even then, the US took their sweet time). It's a bit like the UK and their lacklustre ASW efforts until the war was well underway - you could give the UK an NF to make more of an effort on ASW than they did historically, but it'd unbalance the Battle of the Atlantic, and like the torpedoes these were the kind of problems that tended not to get dealt with until combat had proven they were issues. I also think it'd be more interesting gameplay that way (Japan could be in real trouble if the US starting with their torpedoes running well from day 1, and depending how easy the mechanics make it to starve the UK, it could also be fairly brutal for them as well).

That said - if the other NFs were appropriately balanced, so that taking the 'get our torpedoes right' NF was appropriately offset by missing out on something else, then having it available at any time could work too.

Edit: As an aside, tests were conducted, but both nations did silly things with the testing. The linked article in my earlier post has some good examples - using test torpedoes of different weights, not using actual live torpedoes, things like that. There was a general under-appreciation of the complexities of operational use of the technologies that had been developed.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Why only after the war starts? Can't countries conduct tests before the war?

They did test them alot, and were confident they would work since the torpedoes worked in the tests. But their tests were not similar enough to real war conditions and failed to take into account alot of things that rendered the torpedoes at best unreliable and at worst almost useless.

 

[Sir Garnet]

The USA led the world in complacency and a feeling of security behind its broad oceans and powerful fleet. The torpedo issue is not a particularly remarkable technical difficulty but also a minor member of a cluster of factors driven by complacency.

Also paired well with economy - the continual striving between the wars to reduce military spending to more historical levels. When destructive live testing is impossible, less expensive proxy testing and paper analysis will have to do, and the assumptions will be reasonable (acceptable) ones that should lead to reasonable and expected conclusions.

As EU4 takes as a basic principle, we can expect losers to learn more in war than winners in war, and countriees at peace to learn little and forget much unless there is a pressure to do so, whether fear of a powerful invader or the desire to be a powerful invader. Failure forces the issue.

 

[hkrommel]

Edit: As an aside, tests were conducted, but both nations did silly things with the testing. The linked article in my earlier post has some good examples - using test torpedoes of different weights, not using actual live torpedoes, things like that. There was a general under-appreciation of the complexities of operational use of the technologies that had been developed.

I guess what I'm getting at is that even in "historical" mode, the player is going to do different things than what historically occurred. If I'm Germany, for example, I'm going to abandon Plan Z from the start and focus solely on submarines (Plan Z wasn't really possible in any other HoI game without gutting the rest of the military so I don't see how it would be possible here). If that happens, I'm going to totally devote naval resources to the development of submarines and torpedoes. With that in mind, consider that an extensive R&D program is taking place, without poor testing methods. So why should my torpedoes arbitrarily suck just because IRL the Germans didn't devote proper resources?

 

[Axe99]

I guess what I'm getting at is that even in "historical" mode, the player is going to do different things than what historically occurred. If I'm Germany, for example, I'm going to abandon Plan Z from the start and focus solely on submarines (Plan Z wasn't really possible in any other HoI game without gutting the rest of the military so I don't see how it would be possible here). If that happens, I'm going to totally devote naval resources to the development of submarines and torpedoes. With that in mind, consider that an extensive R&D program is taking place, without poor testing methods. So why should my torpedoes arbitrarily suck just because IRL the Germans didn't devote proper resources?

The Germans did a lot of high-tech torpedo work historically - they pioneered electric torpedoes (at the very least, pioneered them operationally, I'm not sure if other nations did experiments) and had what they thought was a very effective and cutting-edge magnetic detonator. In their view, they had dedicated a stack of research to torpedoes, and had amongst the best in the world (I'm not sure if they knew about the long lance or not, but had their torpedoes worked as designed, they'd have been right up there in terms of torpedoes) - so they did make an effort (both in submarines and torpedoes).

The link that talks about German torpedo issues in detail is:

http://www.public.navy.mil/subfor/underseawarfaremagazine/issues/archives/issue_47/torpedo.html

It's largely a hindsight thing. As far as I can see, none of the major combatants except the Japanese did the testing required for their impact pistols to be near as reliable as they'd expected, but this wasn't because they were slack (the Germans well knew the importance of torpedoes, as did the British, neither of which were complacent, although both had to manage limited resources), but because they underestimated the issues making what seemed to be good ideas on paper and on the testing grounds, operational. Allowing NF's with developments that were based on wartime experience before that wartime experience is gained runs into the hindsight problem (ie, we all know that the contact pistols were dodge, and the magnetic detonators even worse, but we only know that because of wartime experience).

It'd be a bit like allowing the Tizard mission NF before war breaks out (I'm assuming it's not allowed until then, and would be a little disappointed if it was) - the UK historically had underestimated the trouble it would be in, but players in hindsight know that a tech transfer and courting the US ASAP is a good idea - but that, in turn, makes life harder for the Axis, and it's not something the UK would plausibly have done in the lead-up to WW2.

Just my opinion of course, happy to be swayed one way or another . It' s not about preventing alt-history, but more about keeping it plausible.

 

[hkrommel]

Just my opinion of course, happy to be swayed one way or another . It' s not about preventing alt-history, but more about keeping it plausible.

Ok, that makes more sense then. I guess the important thing is finding the balance between historical plausibility and historical railroading. I hated the Pearl Harbor event in HoI3, for example, since half the ships that were removed had been reassigned to the Atlantic fleet years earlier (I use BBs in Atlantic, CVs in Pacific).

 

[Axe99]

Ok, that makes more sense then. I guess the important thing is finding the balance between historical plausibility and historical railroading. I hated the Pearl Harbor event in HoI3, for example, since half the ships that were removed had been reassigned to the Atlantic fleet years earlier (I use BBs in Atlantic, CVs in Pacific).

Oh aye, it's a tricky one and I'm just "talking it out" and very interested in your and others thoughts on it . It gets more complicated because some of the problems both the Germans and Americans had was because of fairly advanced magnetic detonators - so, in theory, if they don't research these by the time the war breaks out, then they shouldn't have as many problems with their torpedoes (they'd still have issues with impact detonators, but so did most of the world's navies except the Japanese, so this is probably better handled by a Japanese buff than an everyone-else nerf, and then another tech step or similar to get beyond the issue) - so, ironically, a 'torpedo research' NF before the war could plausibly result in less reliable torpedoes when hostilities break out (which, or course, no sane player would choose).

Given that, I'm leaning towards (for the naval mod I'm putting together, the base game will have what it already has in there at the moment I'd say, beta and all) the US and Germans having researched whatever torpedo tech gives them magnetic detonators at game start, along with some kind of 'new tech doesn't work like we'd hoped' malus, and then an NF to sort things out that can't be triggered until war breaks out - so at the start of the war their torpedoes will still sink a lot of ships (I'm currently going through the RN starting line-up ship-by-ship, and the KM sunk plenty of RN ships with their dodgy torpedoes) and then once they've sorted out the issues (if they choose to), they'll become even more deadly, with the same thing happening for the US. It is a bit 'railroaded', in that it assumes the US and Germany go for the advanced torpedoes before the game starts, but they were taking this approach pre-1936, so it's not crazy for them to do so. It may well work out that they could potentially rush the next tech to help limit whatever malus was in place.

Thinking it through - it'd probably be necessary to give the same malus to other nations of they decided to research those techs before war broke out - so if a UK or Italian player decides to go for advanced detonators as well, they have the malus added - otherwise they could start the war with even better torpedoes, which wouldn't make a lot of sense. Argh, complicated .

 

[No idea]

I think this is too small in scope to realisticly represent in the game.
Variant system will be able to deal with this in an abstract way. If you want good torpedoes, build your DDs/Subs with points on the sea attack value.

I am not sure if it is too small. The us subs fared not well at all against Japan until the two problems with the torpedoes were solved. Once they were solved, they really started to strngle the japanese economy. This game tries to depict that.

 

[Sir Garnet]

Ok, that makes more sense then. I guess the important thing is finding the balance between historical plausibility and historical railroading. I hated the Pearl Harbor event in HoI3, for example, since half the ships that were removed had been reassigned to the Atlantic fleet years earlier (I use BBs in Atlantic, CVs in Pacific).

The Pearl Harbor event in the HPP mode instead imposes a major ORG hit on the US for some months, which seems much more reasonable (given that many of the ships hit were only temporarily sunk) and playable, helping with that "run wild" period of opportunity but also the US steps preparing a strong comeback. It seems more organic to the situation then just knocking some ships off the fleet list.

Regarding National Focii, a naval focus might lead to a sealane denial stratgy NF involveing subs and a another further branch might involve large commitments in furtherance of preparation pre-war, which would mean modern, tested equipment, ample live practice as well as training, and not just torpedos but other development of the submarine arm to get it set for war. Then a last link might provide to aggressive R&D and upgrades based on sub experience in war (which might be skipped since the results were satisfactory already).

 

[Zaku]

I am not sure if it is too small. The us subs fared not well at all against Japan until the two problems with the torpedoes were solved. Once they were solved, they really started to strngle the japanese economy. This game tries to depict that.

The Japanese ships had crap radars and poor armor on the other hand, yet it is also not simulated in the game by penalties because the variant system let's you deal with these kind of issues.

Almost every nation had issues with their torpedoes, not just the USA.
Japan was the only one who had very relieable and good torpedoes at the start of the war, and that's why they get a national focus to represent that. Even so, they and the rest of the nations will need to work on their torps by spending time and resources to experiment with them.(naval EXP) Just like the USA did in the example you given.