The problem wasn't so much the torpedoes, those could be fixed in fairly short amounts of time once they were found. The main problem was the Bureau of Ordinance (BuOrd) refused to listen to the complaints of the people using them, insisting that the problem was that the submarine crews were incompetent. They only really started looking into the problems when head of the navy Admiral King, and head of the submarine branch Vice Admiral Lockwood forced BuOrd to act. Drachinifel has a fantastic video on the history of the Mk XIV torpedo and how it was made almost usable.
BuOrd… a.k.a. The “Gun Club”. They steadfastly ignored the real issue and insisted that the submariners were wrong. It took VADM Lockwood who enlisted CDR Dudley “Mush” Morton of the WAHOO to run a series of tests with the Mk. 14. Morton’s reputation by then was literally legendary, and his through testing of the Mk. 14 showed that the sub crews were doing their best, much to the chagrin of the Gun Club. Morton’s capabilities with the Wahoo was so superb, literally every member of his wardroom eventually became a sub captain and served with distinction. For instance, the navigator was George Grider, who succeeded Rubin Whitaker as captain of the Flasher, which ended the war with the highest total tonnage sank, which included a night attack on a Japanese convoy of three tankers during a night surface engagement that resulted in all three sunk (the Japanese shortage of fuel was critical at that time, and that loss severely impacted the Japanese ability to fuel it’s naval forces. Morton’s Executive Officer was Dick O’Kane, who would assume command of the TANG, which during it’s short career would lead the submarine service in total number of ships sunk… and then ended it’s run by sinking itself, the victim of a torpedo circular run (sorry, but it did indeed happen). The reason we know that was that O’Kane and seven others were topside and were blown into the water by the explosion. O’Kane and the survivors were picked up by the Japanese and interned in a POW camp. O’Kane survived the war and returned to the US after the end of the war. Most circular runs resulted in the destruction of the ship and complete loss of her crew. So, don’t say it didn’t happen… it did indeed.
Then there's the last hold out admiral in charge of the USN Subs based out of the Australian ports who in his completely disgraceful & frankly appalling attitude tried to blame his command staff & sub captains & crew of mass gross incompetence and mishandling of the weapon than admit maybe given he was on the team 10-15 years earlier that developed the Mk 14 might have made a mistake or multiple...
USS Tang, Dick O'Kane commanding, was sunk by a circular running torpedo. O'Kane was the top sub captain in terms of ship sinkings. Taken as a POW after the Tang sank. Received the MOH on return to US custody. I had 2 uncles on subs in WWII. The crews were extremely frustrated with the torpedoes. They were constantly trying to find solutions while the Newport torpedo factory insisted the Mk 14 was fine. Each problem was found in combat, deep running, magnet exploder, and contact exploder. Subs stationed in Australia hung a fisherman's net and fired a torpedo thru it to prove the traveling depth was 11' deeper than set. June 1942, after 6 months of war shots and duds. The depth problem was also caused by the new position of the depth sensor near the propeller. The water flow past the port created a low pressure area, making the torpedo think it was running shallow. Until the net test, the factory refused to retest the torpedo. The magnetic exploder was tried by the British and Germans. Both abandoned it, but the Newport torpedo factory insisted theirs would work. It took 2 years of war before it was ordered abandoned. Then the contact exploder was shown to fail. That took some more time to fix. I wonder how the war might have gone if the subs had working torpedoes at the start. Destroyer and air dropped torpedoes also had these problems and some others. Arleigh Burke, of Desron 23, made his torpedo attacks work by running them at the slow speed and shallower depth. Why could he figure it out but not Newport? Maybe that's why we spend millions on weapons testing now.
The folks in charge of the Bureau of Ordinance who designed the Mark 14 in the 30s were in charge of the Navy during WWII. They wanted to protect themselves to the point that any submarine captain with proof of their incompetence was threatened with court-martial. BTW, look up the service record of the Tang. It sank a record number of ships until its last torpedo. It was a circular run. Only 3 survived.
I was going to bring this up. The was a major cover up and a lot of blaming the submarine crews early in the war. I don't recall what finally got the brass attention to the real problems with these torpedoes. Just think of all the damage the US Subs could have done if they had a working torpedo.
This story makes my blood boil every time I hear it. If the ordinance department would have just admitted there was a problem and began fixing it early than who knows the war might have ended sooner. It only took hundreds of duds, missed opportunities, unofficial tests and Admiral King to kick their a$$ for them to actually admit to it and start fixing it.
I can’t imagine being in a WW2 era submarine, knowing you could die in a myriad of terrible ways if things go sideways and some idiots pride led to you getting faulty weapons.
yeah, it has even been speculated that the bureau of ordnance was America's most dangerous enemy during WW2 instead of Germany and Japan, lol. Drach's vid on the Mark14 holds no punches, and they more than earned it, lol.
@@pozzowon I highly recommend Drachinifel’s video on the Mk 14. It has a title something like “Failure is like an Onion.” Also, Clay Blair Jr. has an excellent account of how USN got into and out of the Mk 14 mess in “Silent Victory.”
The real problem was u.s. Navy leadership The Germans had a similar problem with their Torpedoes and had a similar reaction from their Bureau of Ordnance The people in charge of the German Bureau of Ordnance were court-martialed and sentenced to Long prison terms
How do you do a video on the Mk 14 without a mention of its greatest problem ... The Bureau of Ordnance. BuOrd was responsible for the initial faulty design and the decision not to conduct any "expensive" testing. After Pearl Harbor, when faced with data showing the failures, BuOrd blamed the sub captains, the manufacturing lines, the maintenance ... basically blaming anyone but BuOrd. This deliberate CYA tactic delayed any debug and remedy activities by months, maybe years. It got so bad that Admiral King himself had to go there and "discuss" the problem (if you are familiar with Admiral King, you know this is a serious matter). Please guys, research the history before presenting it. The BuOrd situation is fascinating and should have been in this video.
This guy has so many channels and all of them have poorly researched videos. I grew tired telling youtube to stop recommending me his channels. Didn't even watch this video, jumped straight to the comments looking for ones like this. Thanks!
The Mark 13 aerial torpedo was also a criminally bad dud. The torpedo bombers that were devastated at the Battle of Midway without scoring a single hit was a huge wake-up call for the outrageous penny-pinching of the Bureau of Ordinance. As with the Mark14, all the testing and updating that should have been done before the war eventually tuned it into a useful weapon.
I agree that the MK 13 torpedo probably wouldn't have done any damage even if they actually had hit one of the carriers at Midway. But.......and a huge BUT - they did the absolutely invaluable service of keeping the Japanese Carriers running evasive maneuvers because it's impossible to conduct flight operations while you're dodging torpedoes. That allowed the American dive bombers to find the Japanese carriers first and destroy three carriers before they could launch an attack . The Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers were mostly shot down and scored no hits, but their presence had a profound effect on the outcome of the battle.
And after the loss of so many naval aviators who died at Midway delivering their faulty Mk13’s to no avail, the submarine Nautilus fired a full spread of Mk14’s on the wounded Japanese carrier Kaga. Not one of them worked.
USS Dart was sunk by a circular running torpedo. Since it was a night attack the Dart was running on the surface when it made its final attack. Only the Captain and other members of the crew who were on the sail outside of the main hull survived ajd were thereby able to definitively explain what happened to Dart.
@@ronnelson7828 Fun fact: A Mk 48 ADCAP can still theoretically do a circular run if you break the wires. You can steer it with a joystick as long as it's connected to the boat, but if you lose the wire and it starts making its own decisions ... it goes to whatever's closest/loudest.
I was a Torpedoman during the Vietnam War, my first job was in the MK 14 shop. I was on a Polaris Sub Tender. The circular run problem was not the gyro, it was the rudder control would fail and go hard left or right, it was cured by only allowing limited rudder angle or Anti Circular Run ACR until the weapon was beyond the firing subs range. The detonator problem was cured by delaying detonation until the weapon was under the target ship. It had nothing to do with the earth's magnetic field, but the one generated by a ship traveling through the water. The contact detonator allowed too much energy to be wasted above the waterline. The Mk 14 was used aboard subs until the 1970's.
The BIG scandal was the refusal of the navy Bureau of Ordinance to admit the mk14 was defective. It took direct orders from two heads of the navy to force BuOrd. Thank you admirals Nimitz and King
@@allangibson2408 probably because it was just King ripping the ones in charge of BuOrd new ones in every meeting. Especially when he was getting information from his sailors that all of the torpedoes, not just the Mk 14 were having serious problems in you know, actually sinking Japanese ships.
They took way too long to do it The Germans were faced with a similar problem and a similar attitude The people in charge were court-martialed and their Replacements quickly fixed the problem
@@jamesricker3997 It still took the Germans 2 years to fix their problems (from September 1939 to September 1942). They just got an earlier start on live testing… (and their faults were not quite as severe - they were sinking some of the ships they shot at).
The intro guves new meaning to Admiral Farragut's famous quote "Damn the Torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Ratyer than wgat we think of as Torpedoes, he was likely referring to naval mines.
The British also had trouble with their magnetic torpedoes. HMS Sheffield was lucky, when aircraft from the Ark Royal mistook her for the Bismark. Their magnetic tips malfunctioned and the ship was spared being sunk by friendly fire. They were replaced for their second go, by contact fuses. Another thing is that caused trouble was that the Earth's magnetic field varies, which was another factor in torpedoes failing!
9:05 Seriously, all torpedoes fire at ships just sitting ducks didn't go boom?! I can only imagine the frustration those submariners felt when returned empty handed. Then someone approached them and said; Hey Captain, how was your attack on Tokyo harbor? and the captain the replied "Don't talk to me about Tokyo harbor!!"
BuOrd the Navy department in charge of the torpedoes refused to accept the 14 was defective. They kept claiming the sub crews weren't using them correctly. That went on for years. It took firing tests at cliffs and dropping torpedos on their noses before BuOrd accepted their might be a problem. REMFs are always a problem.
Good attempt at a short explanation of the Mk 14’s problems but the Mk 14 really defies short explanations. For anyone reading this and wanting to learn about these and the other issues the Mk 14 had I highly recommend Drachinifel’s video on the Mk 14. It has a title something like “Failure is like an Onion.” Also, Clay Blair Jr.has an excellent account of how USN got into and out of the Mk 14 mess in “Silent Victory.”
Short generalist explanations are what channels like this are for, they feed curiosity and lead those who desire to learn more towards more specialised channels like Drachinfel. I definitely recommend his "Like Onions" video for a deep dive into the 14
@@mulgerbill you came out of the gate like this should be everyones first stop. News for you, its not. These shorthand format videos are not informative. Leaving alot to be desired. No one reads half the book. You read it all.
Submarine veteran here. The one I know about is the USS TANG that was struck by its own torpedo off the coast of China in 1944. Not aware of other instances. Still, it's never good to be sunk by your own torpedo. It's a miracle we sunk as much as we did during WW2 with the MK14.
@@machinesofgod The sub in question would be USS Grunion (SS-216). The wreck was found in 2007 based off a contact report from a Japanese merchant, the Kano Maru. The merchant reported being attacked by torpedoes, one passing under her keel, two hitting the hull without exploding. A fourth was a clean miss. It is believed the fourth torpedo circled back and struck the Grunion at the periscope supports (again, without exploding) leading to a loss of depth control. I have not seen the evidence that is behind this assertion, but it is based on the pictures taken by a ROV that located the wreck.
In the first book destroyermen book series, the crew picks up a bunch condemned torpedoes from a storage shed. Including a Mark 14 which had been fired at a friendly vessel by mistake and did not work. They pull the torpedoes apart to find out whats wrong, repair them, use them only to find the same issues as above. They are also very happy to discover that one of the condemned torpedoes isn't a Mark 14 but a funktional Mark 10 stored for older submarines.
correction: Solid projectiles are "shot", hollow projectiles are "shells". It might sound like a minor difference, but when you start looking at things like the paixhans gun, it does become an issue.
And then you have things that blur the line like the 16" superheavy shell on Iowa-class battleships. 26,958 pound of steel, with 42 pounds of RDX inside, just barely enough to add insult to injury by splintering the shell itself after it turns the armour on the receiving end into razor-sharp matchsticks..
@@DeliveryMcGee That really is not blurring the line. Either something has a cavity inside it for explosives or it doesn't. What you are talking about simply represents part of the final evolution of massive shell firing guns.
@@whyjnot420 When the bursting charge is such a tiny fraction of the the weight, it's functionally shot in that the kinetic energy does all the work and the tiny bit of explosive is just a bonus, technically shell. (the 2000-pound High-Capacity shell only had 132ish pounds of boom in it, from memory, btw). Does APFSDS with a tracer count as shell?
@@DeliveryMcGee I think you might be conflating the words "all" and "only". I.e. kinetic energy is not the only thing doing damage when talking about ap designs. While all of the damage caused by shot is caused by kinetic energy. Talking about any round that has a tracer component. I think the distinction here is intent. While whatever is used to make the round visible might do some damage, the intent in design and use is about targeting not what happens when it does hit a target. (that might be a secondary consideration, but just that, secondary).
In 1942 the German Navy was nice enough to leave several electric torpedoes on the east coast of United States, unexploded. Westinghouse Electric reverse engineered the German G7e torpedo and by late 1943 U.S. Navy had a electric torpedo that had good depth control, was wakeless and used a reliable contact exploder. While the Mark 18 torpedo had its faults it did allow U.S. sub captains and crews to fight with an effective weapon.
The US started work on an electric torpedo (and a homing torpedo) in December 1941. And the German design was dismissed as overly complicated. For example: US version used standard car batteries instead of custom designed batteries. And the electric motor was a design that was already in widespread commercial usage. And the use of machined parts was minimized as there was no reason to use exacting tolerances on a device that was going to be used exactly - once.
What's amazing is how quickly the could design a new plane and iterate it through multiple versions in 6 years but they couldn't make simple changes to a relatively simple weapon.
The jokers that were in charge of "testing" flat out refused to believe that the torpedoes were defective the guy in charge of the sub fleet at the time was the same guy who said the torpedoes were ok in the 30's, same guy same bluff it's captain's faults not the torps and some were reprimanded.
Up until the installation of CTC on railroads in the US, they employed a small explosive called a "torpedo" which was placed on rails to alert the engineer of the train that something was happening ahead and to slow down. Failure to place a torpedo far enough down the track caused the wreck leading to the death of Casey Jones of song fame.
The way I heard the story Casey Jones was pushing his locomotive to its limit to make up time. If he had been going normal speeds, it would have been OK.
Imagine that your whole life is choking on diesel fumes and taking TURNS to get into a metal casket they call a bunk just to fire a torpedo that boomerangs.
This was not exclusively a USN problem. The Kriegsmarine had both similar problems and a similar reaction. Things didn't improve until GA Doenitz, a submariner, replaced GA Raeder.
Man I would not want to be the man who had to tell submarine crews that they had been engaged in one of the most unpleasant, dangerous, and terrifying duties in the navy for quite a while with the equivalent of an unloaded weapon. War is hell, but in a sub you are also treated to the opportunity to suffocate, explode, or even implode.
I remember seeing a comment on a previous video of yours suggesting this topic, i'm glad you got around to doing it as naval history is one of my favourite subjects. :)
Thank you Sir for a more in depth explanation of the Mk. 14 torpedo, I have another video of the Mk. 14 torpedo, but it wasn't as in depth as your video was.
More on this! "Thunder Below!", C 1992 and written by Eugene B. Fluckey, Rear Admiral and captain of the USS Barb submarine. Full first person descriptions of problems they had with the Mark 14. From Amazon - "Under the leadership of her fearless skipper, Captain Gene Fluckey, the Barb sank the greatest tonnage of any American sub in World War II. At the same time, the Barb did far more than merely sink ships-she changed forever the way submarines stalk and kill their prey.
Former TM1 (Torpedoman's Mate) here and I so much appreciate you for covering the MK14. You and your writers should look into the MK45 torpedo. I heard horror stories about it. It was a surface torpedo. It could be fired from ship, helicopter, and fixed wing aircraft. Helicopters crew said depending on the settings this thing would jump out of the water and for a short bit chase it. Probably a sea story but could be worth a look.
I grew up about 2 miles north of the Naval Ordnance Station Forest Park Amertorp Forest Park, Illinois. I toured the plant in the early 60's. I have been collecting items from there for about 10 yrs. The plant closed in 1971 and became a shopping mall.
I remember that when uss nautilus fired it’s torpedoes at a stricken carrier at the battle of midway, it didn’t detonate and the remains of the torpedoes was used by the Japanese crew as a life preserver
When I was in the navy 1970 -74 we still carried the MK14 until we came out the of overhaul,but redid carried the MK 37,anti sub, Mk 45 anti sub nuc and the SUB-ROC. No boats out of San Diego carried MK16 because no captains like it because the fuel was hydrogen peroxide based.
I worked in SUB-ROC as the supply clerk until I was able to go to the school. Those f-ers are really heavy when they run over your foot. Weapons elevator monorail crane was not in compliance, so we had to used bomb carts to push the weapon on and off the elevator. It was raining that day and I readjusted my stance before pushing. Tire rolled up the side of my foot hit the steel toe and after much screaming from me rolled, back down my foot. No broken bones but I think blood vessels were damaged. I know when winter is coming from how cold my foot gets.
The circling issue is supposed to have sunk one sub at least, but it is not a characteristic failure of the mk 14, it's a common problem with all kinds of torpedoes.
@coleparker This is a good informative video. However, I would point out to Simon, that as far as the magnetic exploder is concerned, the German Navy suffered the same problems with it that the Americans did. Also there were similar problems with the Contact torpedo exploders. This was especially evident during the Norway campaign. In fact I believe it was U-boat commander of U-47 that Gunther Prien that complained about going out hunting with dummy rifles. As for the rest, yes it was because of lack proper testing, but also the stubbornness of the Bureau of Ordnance, in admitting there was a problem with them.
I happen to have had the opportunity of shooting a MK14 exercise (no boom) while serving on a SSBN back in the mid-70s. Cantankerous antique by that time. We had to exercise the the gyro daily until we transited to the range otherwise we were afraid it would seize up. I think the higher ups were just trying to get rid of it.
Torpex (TORPedo EXplosive) was invented by British by adding 42 percent RDX (Research Department eXplosive) and 18 percent aluminum powder to 40 percent TNT for greater blast effect. It worked, Torpex is 50 percent . more effective than the same weight of TNT. They also came up with Minol for use in mines, depth charges and, yes, torpedoes Minol-1: 48% TNT, 42% ammonium nitrate, and 10% powdered aluminium. Minol-2: 40% TNT, 40% ammonium nitrate, and 20% powdered aluminium. Minol-3: 42% TNT, 38% ammonium nitrate, and 20% powdered aluminium. Minol-4: 40% TNT, 36% ammonium nitrate, 4% potassium nitrate, and 20% powdered aluminium.
Now do the US Navy aerial torpedo. The part where an engineering department determines the right way for aircraft to drop them by heaving them off a cliff into a lake is especially fun. And effective, they learned a high fast drop with a few additions worked much better than low and slow and now a torpedo bombing run was no longer a suicide mission.
You left out the number one most glaringly major problem with the Mk14 program, Simon. The fact that BuOrd refused, utterly refused to acknowledge the fact there was a problem in the first place. BuOrd even had the manuals locked up in a safe in a basement and refused to let the torpedo crews, you know, the guys that will have to use the damn thing, have copies so they could pull maintenance checks. The crews tried to puzzle it out and use field fixes and one sub Captain, against orders from BuOrd, tested the torpedo in harbor aimed at a torpedo net. What was BuOrds response? They tried to have the crews and the Captain brought up on charges for Court Martial. The conduct of BuOrd on the issue was criminal and they cost the U.S. more than a few Sailors lives and likely extended to war by 12-18 months.
As far as the circular runs, go read about the fate of the ill-starred USS Tullibee. She was sunk in 1944 when one of her Mk 14s made a circular run and, unfortunately, the contact detonator worked exactly as intended.
The sad thing is that the Mk 14 wasn't a horrible design; it just needed to be tested to work out the problems before being issued to the fleet. You never want to go into a fight using a weapon that's never been fired before.
Good heavens.. these torpedoes were just riddled with problem after problem, weren't they? I never knew that torpedoes were so complicated. Very interesting video.. well done Simon and team 😊 👏 ❤
If this had been a car and not a torpedo I'm pretty sure that the lemon laws would have covered this thing. What a piece of junk. Thanks for covering it!
German torpedos were, when first used at sea, WW2. They failed to explode. They were fixed that night and everything was just fine. Japan's typt 93 was a honey. Twice as fast, twice the range and twice the bang.
It was reported that the USS Tang was done in by its own torpedo One should note that surface naval forces were equipped with torpedo's that had anti-circling gear installed.
It wasn't until testing in 1943 that they found the problem: the "contact pistol" to detonate the torpedo explosive was found to be defective. And it was found by deliberately firing torpedoes into an underwater cliff side.
The Mk14 (and it’s sisters the airdropped Mk13 and surface Mk15) had four independent separate catastrophic faults. The contact pistol was just one one. The others were the depth control that had it run 14 ft deeper than set, the magnetic proximity fuse that either didn’t work or detonated as soon as it armed and finally a tendency to run in circles (that sank at least two US submarines by punching holes in their hulls (and then failed to detonate…)).
@@allangibson2408 But yet, by middle 1943 they finally fixed the problems. From then on, the Japanese merchant fleet suffered so much that by August 1945, US Navy submarines were essentially sinking small ferry boats in the Inland Seto Sea!
@@Sacto1654 But it does put a new light on why the torpedo bombers at the Battle of Midway were so utterly ineffective… Basically WW2 lasted at least a year longer because of BuOrd’s incompetence and intransigence. The deep running was first identified in December 1941. The problems with the Mk6 Magnetic Exploder were identified in April 1943 by decrypts of Japanese reporting after all the torpedoes fired by an American submarine inside Tokyo Bay failed. The Contact exploder fault was identified in July 1943 (it used the same basic design as the Mk6 Magnetic Exploder). This problem was fixed in September 1943. Circular runs are known to have sunk the Tullibee, Sargo and Tang. The gyro problems with the Mk14 were carried over to the Mk18. Basically the US didn’t have mostly reliable torpedoes until late 1943 / early 1944.
the main problem was BuOrd who insisted that the torpedo was fine and all problems were caused by the crews messing with them and using them incorrectly. This to the point that some submariners ended up court martialed for fixing their Mk.14s when it was expressly forbidden to do so by the Navy high command...
@@allangibson2408 Why only get one thing catrastophically wrong if you can get everything wrong? Might be easier to say what actually worked as intended.
The circle back problem was what sank the USS Tang and resulted in Dick O' Kane and his crew (the few that survived) spending a lot of time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
From what i understand, they think that at least 2 missing subs were victims of their own Mk14's circling back around. Or at least I read that somewhere.
As good as Simon's video is it didn't get into how the bureau of ordinance refuse to acknowledge that they had a problem. When the torpedoes magnetic detonators didn't work it was because they would have been mishandled and missed by inexperienced crews. The same for the gyroscope problem causing the torpedo to run in circles. The bureau of ordinance insisted it was not their fault their torpedo worked they said. The detonators not working we're blamed on manufacturing problems. During all these complaints the bureau ordinance did not take an actual torpedo out and actually test it. Finally an admiral got sick of this and got some actual torpedoes and actually tested them with the engineers who design the systems setting them up so that there could be no accusations of incompetence. And when the torpedoes failed to work surprise surprise he was able to get the bureau ordinance to start making design changes slowly reluctantly. Anyway watch this video if you're really interested in how bad the situation was. ua-cam.com/video/eQ5Ru7Zu_1I/v-deo.html
"If the Bureau of Ordnance can't provide us with torpedoes that will hit and explode, or with a gun larger than a peashooter, then for God's sake get the Bureau of Ships to design a boathook with which we can rip the plates off the target's sides." -Admiral Lockwood
Tells us about the Soviet 'Shkval' torpedo that can run at 300 knots underwater because it is essentially an underwater rocket flying in a steam bubble. Sure, it doesn't turn very well and it sounds like a.... well like a rocket flying underwater, but 300 knots is screamingly fast for a submerged weapon.
I took my own submarine out with a MK14 on Silent Hunter. They even coded in the hard over rudder causing the torpedo to circle back and blast your own sub.
You would have thought that the US Navy would have reverted to the contact detonated Mk 10 or at least an upgraded contact detonator long before 1942, let alone 1944
Actually, except for the mine that sank the USS Tecumseh, the mines had been so long in the water, they had been so long in the water that the gunpowder was soaked and wouldn't explode
- Heeeeeyyyyy, we have a new torpedo! ur gonna love it - Yeeeaaaaahhh, it woorrrkkkss, it doesnt go where it is suposed to, its major feature doesnt work, and it also doesnt blow up, but yeeaaaahhhh USN - Ill take your entire stock
It's criminal how the Navy blamed the sub crews for the torpedo's problems. Said they weren't aiming right, or using the torpedos correctly. How many good men did we lose in '42 and '43 before they were fixed? And how might the war have been different if our submarines had had good torpedoes from the start? As someone else pointed out, the torpedos were useless in the Battle of Midway. Those were just suicide missions. It was the dive bombers that sunk all four of the Japanese carriers.
If anyone would like a more detailed look at the MK 14 torpedo, the MK 6 exploder and their issues. Here is a link to Drachinifel's video on them. ua-cam.com/video/eQ5Ru7Zu_1I/v-deo.html
"If there was anything King hated more than enemies of the US navy, or the British which in his mind were synonymous, it was people who shortchanged his sailors." My all time favorite Drach line.
Thanks for explaining the difficult to grasp idea that a torpedo should detonate upon hitting an object. This video, for some reason, reminds me of something one would see in a Looney Tunes cartoon.
@10:36 The USS Tang and its survivors would disagree. They were captured by the Japanese so they couldn't tell anyone until after the war about the I sunk myself property of the Mk 14
10:45 "...then the torpedo would circle back around and hit the submarine that fired it. Again, there's no definitive proof that ever happended..." Perhaps not with the American Mark 14 torpedo. But a British warship, I believe it was a cruiser, on convoy duty to Murmansk (shortly before or after the famed PQ17 - if not that same - convoy) was sunk by it's own torpedo (so that torpedo must have run in circles).
The issue wasn't with the Navy, it was with the Bureau of Ordnance. And the torps were good and effective after the kinks had been worked out. As mentioned by others, the main problem were with the ID10Ts at BuOrd. Production facilities and production itself would have been improved if not because of the root cause (BuOrd).
And the shocker with the Mk14, it is also the longest active service torpedo the US Navy had (if I remember from the Drac Vid they only finally came out of stock in the 80's)
The worst part of this was that the submariners reported these problems, but their superiors, notably a certain Admiral Christie who had played a central role in the Mark XIV's development, steadfastly refused to acknowledge there was any problem at all, instead blaming the submariners as incompetent. He retired in 1949 as a Vice Admiral. In a just world, he would have been court-martialed.
Did our sword fish use the MK14? Thier attack on HMS sheffield was in affective do to the torpedo`s exploding early , because of the magnetic detonators .
In the words of the eponymous Naval Historian @Drachinifel "Today we look at what happens when you mix the Bureau of Ordnance with a cost-cutting Congress and a few people pathologically incapable of admitting to making a mistake, then try and get a working torpedo out of them." I'd highly recommend his video on the Mk 14 & his, at times hilarious, video released just yesterday on The Raid on St Nazaire which excellently demonstrates both his faultless knowledge and acerbic, dry, British Wit
It's hilarious how the USN had one of the worst torpedoes of the time if not ever but didn't believe their intel on the capabilities of the Japanese long lance because it was so much better. Fortunately for them it was still an unguided torpedo so firing it at long range also meant that hits were less likely.
Small correction, explosive shells were around before ironclads and were largely responsible for their wide spread adoption. The history of ironclad warships would make an interesting video.
The problem wasn't so much the torpedoes, those could be fixed in fairly short amounts of time once they were found. The main problem was the Bureau of Ordinance (BuOrd) refused to listen to the complaints of the people using them, insisting that the problem was that the submarine crews were incompetent. They only really started looking into the problems when head of the navy Admiral King, and head of the submarine branch Vice Admiral Lockwood forced BuOrd to act.
Drachinifel has a fantastic video on the history of the Mk XIV torpedo and how it was made almost usable.
Drach is the best
BuOrd… a.k.a. The “Gun Club”. They steadfastly ignored the real issue and insisted that the submariners were wrong. It took VADM Lockwood who enlisted CDR Dudley “Mush” Morton of the WAHOO to run a series of tests with the Mk. 14. Morton’s reputation by then was literally legendary, and his through testing of the Mk. 14 showed that the sub crews were doing their best, much to the chagrin of the Gun Club. Morton’s capabilities with the Wahoo was so superb, literally every member of his wardroom eventually became a sub captain and served with distinction. For instance, the navigator was George Grider, who succeeded Rubin Whitaker as captain of the Flasher, which ended the war with the highest total tonnage sank, which included a night attack on a Japanese convoy of three tankers during a night surface engagement that resulted in all three sunk (the Japanese shortage of fuel was critical at that time, and that loss severely impacted the Japanese ability to fuel it’s naval forces. Morton’s Executive Officer was Dick O’Kane, who would assume command of the TANG, which during it’s short career would lead the submarine service in total number of ships sunk… and then ended it’s run by sinking itself, the victim of a torpedo circular run (sorry, but it did indeed happen). The reason we know that was that O’Kane and seven others were topside and were blown into the water by the explosion. O’Kane and the survivors were picked up by the Japanese and interned in a POW camp. O’Kane survived the war and returned to the US after the end of the war. Most circular runs resulted in the destruction of the ship and complete loss of her crew. So, don’t say it didn’t happen… it did indeed.
Then there's the last hold out admiral in charge of the USN Subs based out of the Australian ports who in his completely disgraceful & frankly appalling attitude tried to blame his command staff & sub captains & crew of mass gross incompetence and mishandling of the weapon than admit maybe given he was on the team 10-15 years earlier that developed the Mk 14 might have made a mistake or multiple...
William H. P. Blandy
Submariners : "Man, our torpedo is so bad, better tell the BuOrd for this"
BuOrd : "Mark 14 bad? Naaahh just get gud with it"
USS Tang, Dick O'Kane commanding, was sunk by a circular running torpedo. O'Kane was the top sub captain in terms of ship sinkings. Taken as a POW after the Tang sank. Received the MOH on return to US custody.
I had 2 uncles on subs in WWII. The crews were extremely frustrated with the torpedoes. They were constantly trying to find solutions while the Newport torpedo factory insisted the Mk 14 was fine. Each problem was found in combat, deep running, magnet exploder, and contact exploder. Subs stationed in Australia hung a fisherman's net and fired a torpedo thru it to prove the traveling depth was 11' deeper than set. June 1942, after 6 months of war shots and duds. The depth problem was also caused by the new position of the depth sensor near the propeller. The water flow past the port created a low pressure area, making the torpedo think it was running shallow. Until the net test, the factory refused to retest the torpedo. The magnetic exploder was tried by the British and Germans. Both abandoned it, but the Newport torpedo factory insisted theirs would work. It took 2 years of war before it was ordered abandoned. Then the contact exploder was shown to fail. That took some more time to fix. I wonder how the war might have gone if the subs had working torpedoes at the start.
Destroyer and air dropped torpedoes also had these problems and some others. Arleigh Burke, of Desron 23, made his torpedo attacks work by running them at the slow speed and shallower depth. Why could he figure it out but not Newport?
Maybe that's why we spend millions on weapons testing now.
The folks in charge of the Bureau of Ordinance who designed the Mark 14 in the 30s were in charge of the Navy during WWII. They wanted to protect themselves to the point that any submarine captain with proof of their incompetence was threatened with court-martial.
BTW, look up the service record of the Tang. It sank a record number of ships until its last torpedo. It was a circular run. Only 3 survived.
I was going to bring this up. The was a major cover up and a lot of blaming the submarine crews early in the war. I don't recall what finally got the brass attention to the real problems with these torpedoes. Just think of all the damage the US Subs could have done if they had a working torpedo.
@@phprofYT Admiral King has entered the chat
How unlucky it wasn't a dud
This story makes my blood boil every time I hear it. If the ordinance department would have just admitted there was a problem and began fixing it early than who knows the war might have ended sooner. It only took hundreds of duds, missed opportunities, unofficial tests and Admiral King to kick their a$$ for them to actually admit to it and start fixing it.
The bureaucrats where later decorated with the iron cross.
How many sub captain's careers were ruined. That's the disgusting part.
I can’t imagine being in a WW2 era submarine, knowing you could die in a myriad of terrible ways if things go sideways and some idiots pride led to you getting faulty weapons.
The US Navy wasn't alone with dodgy torpedoes, what was supplied to the German U-boats is considered one of the greatest scandals in military history.
yeah, it has even been speculated that the bureau of ordnance was America's most dangerous enemy during WW2 instead of Germany and Japan, lol.
Drach's vid on the Mark14 holds no punches, and they more than earned it, lol.
Thank you for taking my suggestion for this video, sad when the real enemy is the admiral in the r&d department who helped design the thing...
That's a story I'd love to learn more about. Where can I find it?
@@pozzowon Drachinifel has a video on the mark 14 that covers it all
@@pozzowon I highly recommend Drachinifel’s video on the Mk 14. It has a title something like “Failure is like an Onion.” Also, Clay Blair Jr. has an excellent account of how USN got into and out of the Mk 14 mess in “Silent Victory.”
The real problem was u.s. Navy leadership
The Germans had a similar problem with their Torpedoes and had a similar reaction from their Bureau of Ordnance
The people in charge of the German Bureau of Ordnance were court-martialed and sentenced to Long prison terms
There was local political BS and union issues. BUORD was in total denial. Goat Island, Narragansett Bay . Newport. Still occasionally dredge up one.
How do you do a video on the Mk 14 without a mention of its greatest problem ... The Bureau of Ordnance.
BuOrd was responsible for the initial faulty design and the decision not to conduct any "expensive" testing. After Pearl Harbor, when faced with data showing the failures, BuOrd blamed the sub captains, the manufacturing lines, the maintenance ... basically blaming anyone but BuOrd. This deliberate CYA tactic delayed any debug and remedy activities by months, maybe years. It got so bad that Admiral King himself had to go there and "discuss" the problem (if you are familiar with Admiral King, you know this is a serious matter).
Please guys, research the history before presenting it. The BuOrd situation is fascinating and should have been in this video.
Oh....Drachinifel did that very well when HE did a vid on the Mark 14!
@@samsignorelli I enjoy his presentation on it and watch it from time to time. Yes, BuOrd absolutely screwed the pacific fleet.
I think most people grasp the more important problem of not doing extensive weapons testing more than who didn't ordered said testing.
@@SEAZNDragon and the WHY is money of course
This guy has so many channels and all of them have poorly researched videos. I grew tired telling youtube to stop recommending me his channels. Didn't even watch this video, jumped straight to the comments looking for ones like this. Thanks!
The Mark 13 aerial torpedo was also a criminally bad dud. The torpedo bombers that were devastated at the Battle of Midway without scoring a single hit was a huge wake-up call for the outrageous penny-pinching of the Bureau of Ordinance. As with the Mark14, all the testing and updating that should have been done before the war eventually tuned it into a useful weapon.
The Mk 13 was the airborne version of the Mk 14 it shared all the failures of the Mk 14 & Mk 15 but had few surviving users to complain about it.
I agree that the MK 13 torpedo probably wouldn't have done any damage even if they actually had hit one of the carriers at Midway. But.......and a huge BUT - they did the absolutely invaluable service of keeping the Japanese Carriers running evasive maneuvers because it's impossible to conduct flight operations while you're dodging torpedoes. That allowed the American dive bombers to find the Japanese carriers first and destroy three carriers before they could launch an attack . The Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers were mostly shot down and scored no hits, but their presence had a profound effect on the outcome of the battle.
And after the loss of so many naval aviators who died at Midway delivering their faulty Mk13’s to no avail, the submarine Nautilus fired a full spread of Mk14’s on the wounded Japanese carrier Kaga. Not one of them worked.
I went through three videos that just said "they didn't detonate" without bothering to tell why they didn't. Thank you Simon.
While the Fleet Submarine patrols were failing due to the mk14 deficiencies the older mk10 torpedoes were sinking Japanese ships in Alaskan waters
USS Dart was sunk by a circular running torpedo. Since it was a night attack the Dart was running on the surface when it made its final attack. Only the Captain and other members of the crew who were on the sail outside of the main hull survived ajd were thereby able to definitively explain what happened to Dart.
USS Tang
@@ronnelson7828 I stand Corrected as to the identity of the ship. I don't Know why I thought it was the Dart.
I knew someone who's grandfather was on Tang. He was on several patrols, including the previous one before she was sunk by her own torpedo.
@@ronnelson7828 Also the USS Tullibee.
@@ronnelson7828 Fun fact: A Mk 48 ADCAP can still theoretically do a circular run if you break the wires. You can steer it with a joystick as long as it's connected to the boat, but if you lose the wire and it starts making its own decisions ... it goes to whatever's closest/loudest.
I was a Torpedoman during the Vietnam War, my first job was in the MK 14 shop. I was on a Polaris Sub Tender. The circular run problem was not the gyro, it was the rudder control would fail and go hard left or right, it was cured by only allowing limited rudder angle or Anti Circular Run ACR until the weapon was beyond the firing subs range. The detonator problem was cured by delaying detonation until the weapon was under the target ship. It had nothing to do with the earth's magnetic field, but the one generated by a ship traveling through the water. The contact detonator allowed too much energy to be wasted above the waterline. The Mk 14 was used aboard subs until the 1970's.
The BIG scandal was the refusal of the navy Bureau of Ordinance to admit the mk14 was defective. It took direct orders from two heads of the navy to force BuOrd. Thank you admirals Nimitz and King
Yeah, BuOrd was corrupt as hell back then.
It took multiple meetings with Admiral King to get the problems fixed.
Oddly no minutes of these meetings have ever been located in US Navy archives…
@@allangibson2408 probably because it was just King ripping the ones in charge of BuOrd new ones in every meeting. Especially when he was getting information from his sailors that all of the torpedoes, not just the Mk 14 were having serious problems in you know, actually sinking Japanese ships.
They took way too long to do it
The Germans were faced with a similar problem and a similar attitude
The people in charge were court-martialed and their Replacements quickly fixed the problem
@@jamesricker3997 It still took the Germans 2 years to fix their problems (from September 1939 to September 1942). They just got an earlier start on live testing… (and their faults were not quite as severe - they were sinking some of the ships they shot at).
i love the mark 14. its like the Canadian version of a torpedo it hits your ship and yells "Hey buddy better get out of the water!"
I love your avatar, u still play eve?
Only it's an US torpedo....I doubt the Canadians are that dum
@@Hitchhiker05494 haha I do indeed
Can’t park here mate!
The intro guves new meaning to Admiral Farragut's famous quote "Damn the Torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Ratyer than wgat we think of as Torpedoes, he was likely referring to naval mines.
The British also had trouble with their magnetic torpedoes. HMS Sheffield was lucky, when aircraft from the Ark Royal mistook her for the Bismark. Their magnetic tips malfunctioned and the ship was spared being sunk by friendly fire. They were replaced for their second go, by contact fuses. Another thing is that caused trouble was that the Earth's magnetic field varies, which was another factor in torpedoes failing!
9:05 Seriously, all torpedoes fire at ships just sitting ducks didn't go boom?!
I can only imagine the frustration those submariners felt when returned empty handed. Then someone approached them and said; Hey Captain, how was your attack on Tokyo harbor? and the captain the replied "Don't talk to me about Tokyo harbor!!"
BuOrd the Navy department in charge of the torpedoes refused to accept the 14 was defective. They kept claiming the sub crews weren't using them correctly. That went on for years. It took firing tests at cliffs and dropping torpedos on their noses before BuOrd accepted their might be a problem. REMFs are always a problem.
No 💩💩 about REMF's being a problem. Can anyone spell Nam, and Iraq?
Good attempt at a short explanation of the Mk 14’s problems but the Mk 14 really defies short explanations. For anyone reading this and wanting to learn about these and the other issues the Mk 14 had I highly recommend Drachinifel’s video on the Mk 14. It has a title something like “Failure is like an Onion.” Also, Clay Blair Jr.has an excellent account of how USN got into and out of the Mk 14 mess in “Silent Victory.”
Short generalist explanations are what channels like this are for, they feed curiosity and lead those who desire to learn more towards more specialised channels like Drachinfel. I definitely recommend his "Like Onions" video for a deep dive into the 14
@@mulgerbill you came out of the gate like this should be everyones first stop. News for you, its not. These shorthand format videos are not informative. Leaving alot to be desired.
No one reads half the book. You read it all.
There were several instances of US Navy submarines being sunk by their own circle-about torpedoes, including one off the Aleutian Islands of Alaska
Submarine veteran here. The one I know about is the USS TANG that was struck by its own torpedo off the coast of China in 1944. Not aware of other instances. Still, it's never good to be sunk by your own torpedo. It's a miracle we sunk as much as we did during WW2 with the MK14.
I guess you'd curse the defective detonators until you got hit by your own torpedo.
@@machinesofgod The sub in question would be USS Grunion (SS-216).
The wreck was found in 2007 based off a contact report from a Japanese merchant, the Kano Maru. The merchant reported being attacked by torpedoes, one passing under her keel, two hitting the hull without exploding. A fourth was a clean miss.
It is believed the fourth torpedo circled back and struck the Grunion at the periscope supports (again, without exploding) leading to a loss of depth control.
I have not seen the evidence that is behind this assertion, but it is based on the pictures taken by a ROV that located the wreck.
In the first book destroyermen book series, the crew picks up a bunch condemned torpedoes from a storage shed. Including a Mark 14 which had been fired at a friendly vessel by mistake and did not work. They pull the torpedoes apart to find out whats wrong, repair them, use them only to find the same issues as above. They are also very happy to discover that one of the condemned torpedoes isn't a Mark 14 but a funktional Mark 10 stored for older submarines.
correction: Solid projectiles are "shot", hollow projectiles are "shells".
It might sound like a minor difference, but when you start looking at things like the paixhans gun, it does become an issue.
And then you have things that blur the line like the 16" superheavy shell on Iowa-class battleships. 26,958 pound of steel, with 42 pounds of RDX inside, just barely enough to add insult to injury by splintering the shell itself after it turns the armour on the receiving end into razor-sharp matchsticks..
@@DeliveryMcGee That really is not blurring the line. Either something has a cavity inside it for explosives or it doesn't. What you are talking about simply represents part of the final evolution of massive shell firing guns.
@@whyjnot420 When the bursting charge is such a tiny fraction of the the weight, it's functionally shot in that the kinetic energy does all the work and the tiny bit of explosive is just a bonus, technically shell. (the 2000-pound High-Capacity shell only had 132ish pounds of boom in it, from memory, btw). Does APFSDS with a tracer count as shell?
@@DeliveryMcGee I think you might be conflating the words "all" and "only". I.e. kinetic energy is not the only thing doing damage when talking about ap designs. While all of the damage caused by shot is caused by kinetic energy.
Talking about any round that has a tracer component. I think the distinction here is intent. While whatever is used to make the round visible might do some damage, the intent in design and use is about targeting not what happens when it does hit a target. (that might be a secondary consideration, but just that, secondary).
In 1942 the German Navy was nice enough to leave several electric torpedoes on the east coast of United States, unexploded. Westinghouse Electric reverse engineered the German G7e torpedo and by late 1943 U.S. Navy had a electric torpedo that had good depth control, was wakeless and used a reliable contact exploder. While the Mark 18 torpedo had its faults it did allow U.S. sub captains and crews to fight with an effective weapon.
Your correct in that the Mk 19 had a "fault". One circled around and sank The USS Tang, the most productive boat in the Pacific fleet.
The US started work on an electric torpedo (and a homing torpedo) in December 1941. And the German design was dismissed as overly complicated. For example: US version used standard car batteries instead of custom designed batteries. And the electric motor was a design that was already in widespread commercial usage. And the use of machined parts was minimized as there was no reason to use exacting tolerances on a device that was going to be used exactly - once.
What's amazing is how quickly the could design a new plane and iterate it through multiple versions in 6 years but they couldn't make simple changes to a relatively simple weapon.
Being designed and built by the government explains it.
The jokers that were in charge of "testing" flat out refused to believe that the torpedoes were defective the guy in charge of the sub fleet at the time was the same guy who said the torpedoes were ok in the 30's, same guy same bluff it's captain's faults not the torps and some were reprimanded.
Just go to show how stubborn and prideful people can be
But doing so would admit they made a mistake and damage their careers
Up until the installation of CTC on railroads in the US, they employed a small explosive called a "torpedo" which was placed on rails to alert the engineer of the train that something was happening ahead and to slow down. Failure to place a torpedo far enough down the track caused the wreck leading to the death of Casey Jones of song fame.
The way I heard the story Casey Jones was pushing his locomotive to its limit to make up time. If he had been going normal speeds, it would have been OK.
@@phlodel yep mail train brought in late ordered to get it back on time
Imagine that your whole life is choking on diesel fumes and taking TURNS to get into a metal casket they call a bunk just to fire a torpedo that boomerangs.
Porpoises
This was not exclusively a USN problem. The Kriegsmarine had both similar problems and a similar reaction. Things didn't improve until GA Doenitz, a submariner, replaced GA Raeder.
I have stopped seeing your notifications for some reasons I've got everything turned to On ... Good stuff as always 👍
I F’n love this guy. All his channels kick ass 🤘🏻
Man I would not want to be the man who had to tell submarine crews that they had been engaged in one of the most unpleasant, dangerous, and terrifying duties in the navy for quite a while with the equivalent of an unloaded weapon. War is hell, but in a sub you are also treated to the opportunity to suffocate, explode, or even implode.
I remember seeing a comment on a previous video of yours suggesting this topic, i'm glad you got around to doing it as naval history is one of my favourite subjects. :)
Wanna add too that I love your videos man !
highly recommend Drachinifel’s videos
Should have called it the Torpedon't
1:10 - Chapter 1 - War on the waters
4:10 - Chapter 2 - Contact failure
8:00 - Chapter 3 - Marginal improvments
11:05 - Chapter 4 - Progress through time
Thank you Sir for a more in depth explanation of the Mk. 14 torpedo, I have another video of the Mk. 14 torpedo, but it wasn't as in depth as your video was.
More on this! "Thunder Below!", C 1992 and written by Eugene B. Fluckey, Rear Admiral and captain of the USS Barb submarine. Full first person descriptions of problems they had with the Mark 14. From Amazon - "Under the leadership of her fearless skipper, Captain Gene Fluckey, the Barb sank the greatest tonnage of any American sub in World War II. At the same time, the Barb did far more than merely sink ships-she changed forever the way submarines stalk and kill their prey.
*Mk-14 fails to explode*
Submarine captain: Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be a ship shattering kaboom!!
The Torpedon't...missed opportunity.
Former TM1 (Torpedoman's Mate) here and I so much appreciate you for covering the MK14. You and your writers should look into the MK45 torpedo. I heard horror stories about it. It was a surface torpedo. It could be fired from ship, helicopter, and fixed wing aircraft. Helicopters crew said depending on the settings this thing would jump out of the water and for a short bit chase it. Probably a sea story but could be worth a look.
I grew up about 2 miles north of the Naval Ordnance Station Forest Park Amertorp Forest Park, Illinois. I toured the plant in the early 60's. I have been collecting items from there for about 10 yrs. The plant closed in 1971 and became a shopping mall.
I remember that when uss nautilus fired it’s torpedoes at a stricken carrier at the battle of midway, it didn’t detonate and the remains of the torpedoes was used by the Japanese crew as a life preserver
When I was in the navy 1970 -74 we still carried the MK14 until we came out the of overhaul,but redid carried the MK 37,anti sub, Mk 45 anti sub nuc and the SUB-ROC. No boats out of San Diego carried MK16 because no captains like it because the fuel was hydrogen peroxide based.
The Kursk was sunk by a hydrogen peroxide leak from a torpedo…
I worked in SUB-ROC as the supply clerk until I was able to go to the school. Those f-ers are really heavy when they run over your foot. Weapons elevator monorail crane was not in compliance, so we had to used bomb carts to push the weapon on and off the elevator. It was raining that day and I readjusted my stance before pushing. Tire rolled up the side of my foot hit the steel toe and after much screaming from me rolled, back down my foot. No broken bones but I think blood vessels were damaged. I know when winter is coming from how cold my foot gets.
The circling issue is supposed to have sunk one sub at least, but it is not a characteristic failure of the mk 14, it's a common problem with all kinds of torpedoes.
wishing the Admiral King/Bureau of Ordinance meetings were recorded .... probably would challenge any slasher horror movie for gore!
@coleparker
This is a good informative video. However, I would point out to Simon, that as far as the magnetic exploder is concerned, the German Navy suffered the same problems with it that the Americans did. Also there were similar problems with the Contact torpedo exploders. This was especially evident during the Norway campaign. In fact I believe it was U-boat commander of U-47 that Gunther Prien that complained about going out hunting with dummy rifles. As for the rest, yes it was because of lack proper testing, but also the stubbornness of the Bureau of Ordnance, in admitting there was a problem with them.
Hard to believe the makers wouldn't field test the torpedoes. Criminal negligence.
You forgot to mention the fact the the Bureau of Ordnance was particularly intransigent about making any changes to the Mk 14.
I happen to have had the opportunity of shooting a MK14 exercise (no boom) while serving on a SSBN back in the mid-70s. Cantankerous antique by that time. We had to exercise the the gyro daily until we transited to the range otherwise we were afraid it would seize up. I think the higher ups were just trying to get rid of it.
Torpex (TORPedo EXplosive) was invented by British by adding 42 percent RDX (Research Department eXplosive) and 18 percent aluminum powder to 40 percent TNT for greater blast effect. It worked, Torpex is 50 percent . more effective than the same weight of TNT. They also came up with Minol for use in mines, depth charges and, yes, torpedoes
Minol-1: 48% TNT, 42% ammonium nitrate, and 10% powdered aluminium.
Minol-2: 40% TNT, 40% ammonium nitrate, and 20% powdered aluminium.
Minol-3: 42% TNT, 38% ammonium nitrate, and 20% powdered aluminium.
Minol-4: 40% TNT, 36% ammonium nitrate, 4% potassium nitrate, and 20% powdered aluminium.
Now do the US Navy aerial torpedo. The part where an engineering department determines the right way for aircraft to drop them by heaving them off a cliff into a lake is especially fun. And effective, they learned a high fast drop with a few additions worked much better than low and slow and now a torpedo bombing run was no longer a suicide mission.
You left out the number one most glaringly major problem with the Mk14 program, Simon. The fact that BuOrd refused, utterly refused to acknowledge the fact there was a problem in the first place.
BuOrd even had the manuals locked up in a safe in a basement and refused to let the torpedo crews, you know, the guys that will have to use the damn thing, have copies so they could pull maintenance checks.
The crews tried to puzzle it out and use field fixes and one sub Captain, against orders from BuOrd, tested the torpedo in harbor aimed at a torpedo net. What was BuOrds response? They tried to have the crews and the Captain brought up on charges for Court Martial.
The conduct of BuOrd on the issue was criminal and they cost the U.S. more than a few Sailors lives and likely extended to war by 12-18 months.
Yup, the biggest defect was the BuOrd believed themselves to be utterly infallible. It was all somebody else's fault.
As far as the circular runs, go read about the fate of the ill-starred USS Tullibee. She was sunk in 1944 when one of her Mk 14s made a circular run and, unfortunately, the contact detonator worked exactly as intended.
Drachinifel does an excellent analysis of the failure of the Mk14.
The sad thing is that the Mk 14 wasn't a horrible design; it just needed to be tested to work out the problems before being issued to the fleet. You never want to go into a fight using a weapon that's never been fired before.
Good heavens.. these torpedoes were just riddled with problem after problem, weren't they? I never knew that torpedoes were so complicated. Very interesting video.. well done Simon and team 😊 👏 ❤
Torpedo: A self driving water robot that just wants to boop your boat and give you a very explosive hugg
If this had been a car and not a torpedo I'm pretty sure that the lemon laws would have covered this thing. What a piece of junk. Thanks for covering it!
I highly recommend the video by Drachnifel. Very witty presentation.
The Navy missed an opportunity with the naming of the Mark 48. Calling it the Mark 41 would have been just too good.
German torpedos were, when first used at sea, WW2. They failed to explode. They were fixed that night and everything was just fine. Japan's typt 93 was a honey. Twice as fast, twice the range and twice the bang.
It was reported that the USS Tang was done in by its own torpedo One should note that surface naval forces were equipped with torpedo's that had anti-circling gear installed.
It wasn't until testing in 1943 that they found the problem: the "contact pistol" to detonate the torpedo explosive was found to be defective. And it was found by deliberately firing torpedoes into an underwater cliff side.
The Mk14 (and it’s sisters the airdropped Mk13 and surface Mk15) had four independent separate catastrophic faults.
The contact pistol was just one one.
The others were the depth control that had it run 14 ft deeper than set, the magnetic proximity fuse that either didn’t work or detonated as soon as it armed and finally a tendency to run in circles (that sank at least two US submarines by punching holes in their hulls (and then failed to detonate…)).
@@allangibson2408 But yet, by middle 1943 they finally fixed the problems. From then on, the Japanese merchant fleet suffered so much that by August 1945, US Navy submarines were essentially sinking small ferry boats in the Inland Seto Sea!
@@Sacto1654 But it does put a new light on why the torpedo bombers at the Battle of Midway were so utterly ineffective…
Basically WW2 lasted at least a year longer because of BuOrd’s incompetence and intransigence.
The deep running was first identified in December 1941.
The problems with the Mk6 Magnetic Exploder were identified in April 1943 by decrypts of Japanese reporting after all the torpedoes fired by an American submarine inside Tokyo Bay failed.
The Contact exploder fault was identified in July 1943 (it used the same basic design as the Mk6 Magnetic Exploder). This problem was fixed in September 1943.
Circular runs are known to have sunk the Tullibee, Sargo and Tang. The gyro problems with the Mk14 were carried over to the Mk18.
Basically the US didn’t have mostly reliable torpedoes until late 1943 / early 1944.
the main problem was BuOrd who insisted that the torpedo was fine and all problems were caused by the crews messing with them and using them incorrectly.
This to the point that some submariners ended up court martialed for fixing their Mk.14s when it was expressly forbidden to do so by the Navy high command...
@@allangibson2408 Why only get one thing catrastophically wrong if you can get everything wrong? Might be easier to say what actually worked as intended.
The circle back problem was what sank the USS Tang and resulted in Dick O' Kane and his crew (the few that survived)
spending a lot of time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
From what i understand, they think that at least 2 missing subs were victims of their own Mk14's circling back around. Or at least I read that somewhere.
As good as Simon's video is it didn't get into how the bureau of ordinance refuse to acknowledge that they had a problem.
When the torpedoes magnetic detonators didn't work it was because they would have been mishandled and missed by inexperienced crews. The same for the gyroscope problem causing the torpedo to run in circles. The bureau of ordinance insisted it was not their fault their torpedo worked they said. The detonators not working we're blamed on manufacturing problems. During all these complaints the bureau ordinance did not take an actual torpedo out and actually test it. Finally an admiral got sick of this and got some actual torpedoes and actually tested them with the engineers who design the systems setting them up so that there could be no accusations of incompetence. And when the torpedoes failed to work surprise surprise he was able to get the bureau ordinance to start making design changes slowly reluctantly.
Anyway watch this video if you're really interested in how bad the situation was.
ua-cam.com/video/eQ5Ru7Zu_1I/v-deo.html
USS Tang sank itself when a torpedo circled back...
There was one live-fire test. One worked, one didn't.
I have read that the exploder problem so baffled the Navy that Albert Einstein was called in to find a fix.
"If the Bureau of Ordnance can't provide us with torpedoes that will hit and explode, or with a gun larger than a peashooter, then for God's sake get the Bureau of Ships to design a boathook with which we can rip the plates off the target's sides." -Admiral Lockwood
Once the bugs were worked out, they kept it for a while. We traded MK14's in for KM 48's in 1974 during a yard period
Sub crew: This Japanese transport is so dead, our torpedoes are right on target!
Mark 14: *bonk*
Tells us about the Soviet 'Shkval' torpedo that can run at 300 knots underwater because it is essentially an underwater rocket flying in a steam bubble. Sure, it doesn't turn very well and it sounds like a.... well like a rocket flying underwater, but 300 knots is screamingly fast for a submerged weapon.
I took my own submarine out with a MK14 on Silent Hunter.
They even coded in the hard over rudder causing the torpedo to circle back and blast your own sub.
How deadly is a torpedo? Vintage 1890's Whitehead torpedoes helped to sink KM Blucher at Oscarborg Fortress, April 1940.
I understand the director of BuOrd had a personal and financial investment in the torpedo and was VERY motivated to keep it in service.
You would have thought that the US Navy would have reverted to the contact detonated Mk 10 or at least an upgraded contact detonator long before 1942, let alone 1944
"Damn the (Mark-14) torpedoes! It's not like they're going to do anything anyway" -David Farragut, probably
Actually, except for the mine that sank the USS Tecumseh, the mines had been so long in the water, they had been so long in the water that the gunpowder was soaked and wouldn't explode
- Heeeeeyyyyy, we have a new torpedo! ur gonna love it
- Yeeeaaaaahhh, it woorrrkkkss, it doesnt go where it is suposed to, its major feature doesnt work, and it also doesnt blow up, but yeeaaaahhhh
USN - Ill take your entire stock
It's criminal how the Navy blamed the sub crews for the torpedo's problems. Said they weren't aiming right, or using the torpedos correctly. How many good men did we lose in '42 and '43 before they were fixed? And how might the war have been different if our submarines had had good torpedoes from the start? As someone else pointed out, the torpedos were useless in the Battle of Midway. Those were just suicide missions. It was the dive bombers that sunk all four of the Japanese carriers.
What was the first shift with an iron hole to be used and or tested that's probably one hell of a tale
If anyone would like a more detailed look at the MK 14 torpedo, the MK 6 exploder and their issues. Here is a link to Drachinifel's video on them. ua-cam.com/video/eQ5Ru7Zu_1I/v-deo.html
The MK 6 exploder rings a bell. But I'm probably thinking of the exploder of the MK 37
Came here to suggest Drach. He gets rather heated about the MK14 lol.
@@erinjackson6243 it’s either the MK 14 or the Indefatigable of WWI
@@ajax_the_great1527 Discussing those topics are some of the few times he escalates from typical British snark, to downright cross. 😅
"If there was anything King hated more than enemies of the US navy, or the British which in his mind were synonymous, it was people who shortchanged his sailors." My all time favorite Drach line.
You forgot the 4th problem. Those in charge of testing refusing to believe there was a problem.
Thanks for explaining the difficult to grasp idea that a torpedo should detonate upon hitting an object. This video, for some reason, reminds me of something one would see in a Looney Tunes cartoon.
Actually France and Germany like most other nations licenced the "secret" (the depth holding device) from Whitehead
@10:36 The USS Tang and its survivors would disagree. They were captured by the Japanese so they couldn't tell anyone until after the war about the I sunk myself property of the Mk 14
10:45 "...then the torpedo would circle back around and hit the submarine that fired it. Again, there's no definitive proof that ever happended..." Perhaps not with the American Mark 14 torpedo. But a British warship, I believe it was a cruiser, on convoy duty to Murmansk (shortly before or after the famed PQ17 - if not that same - convoy) was sunk by it's own torpedo (so that torpedo must have run in circles).
The issue wasn't with the Navy, it was with the Bureau of Ordnance. And the torps were good and effective after the kinks had been worked out. As mentioned by others, the main problem were with the ID10Ts at BuOrd. Production facilities and production itself would have been improved if not because of the root cause (BuOrd).
Thank you Simon, you are Great.
And the shocker with the Mk14, it is also the longest active service torpedo the US Navy had (if I remember from the Drac Vid they only finally came out of stock in the 80's)
Love the Military mindset of the American Defense industry of the 30's&40's
Theres a movie in that chap!.....no 'Long Lance' the 14
The worst part of this was that the submariners reported these problems, but their superiors, notably a certain Admiral Christie who had played a central role in the Mark XIV's development, steadfastly refused to acknowledge there was any problem at all, instead blaming the submariners as incompetent. He retired in 1949 as a Vice Admiral. In a just world, he would have been court-martialed.
Did our sword fish use the MK14? Thier attack on HMS sheffield was in affective do to the torpedo`s exploding early , because of the magnetic detonators .
Warships haven't had hulls made of iron in well over 100 years, steel is the material of choice since before 1900
John Wayne is really the person who solved the torpedo problem. I know it for a fact: A great Hollywood movie was made about it.
So the navy almost made a boomarang torpedo. Cool. Lol
In the words of the eponymous Naval Historian @Drachinifel
"Today we look at what happens when you mix the Bureau of Ordnance with a cost-cutting Congress and a few people pathologically incapable of admitting to making a mistake, then try and get a working torpedo out of them."
I'd highly recommend his video on the Mk 14 & his, at times hilarious, video released just yesterday on The Raid on St Nazaire which excellently demonstrates both his faultless knowledge and acerbic, dry, British Wit
The Mark 14 did not stop working, it never worked reliably until the middle of WWII.
If you liked this video, check out the Drachinifel video "Failure is like Onions" - it covers the Mk. 14 in detail
It's hilarious how the USN had one of the worst torpedoes of the time if not ever but didn't believe their intel on the capabilities of the Japanese long lance because it was so much better.
Fortunately for them it was still an unguided torpedo so firing it at long range also meant that hits were less likely.
Sounds like a title for one of my Saturday nights 😅
Small correction, explosive shells were around before ironclads and were largely responsible for their wide spread adoption.
The history of ironclad warships would make an interesting video.
Thrilled that Sideprojects did a video on a failed project. How about a video on an under-appreciated project: Light-Carriers.?