Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Oliver Heindorf

I fired 40 Mk 14 Toprs so far, scoring one hit.

got some milk ?

quote:

Blame for the inadequate weapon must be laid at the feet of the Bureau of Ordnance, which specified an unrealistically rigid magnetic exploder sensitivity setting and oversaw the feeble testing program. BuOrd hampered wartime investigation into Mark VI exploder problems by assigning the mechanism "secret" status, limiting knowledge of its inner workings to a few high-ranking officers, refusing to believe word of active duty sailors,[18] laying blame for failures on these very same men,[19] even deliberately mis-setting torpedoes to conceal defects.[20] Servicemen were forbidden to disassemble the exploder.[21] Additional responsibility must be assigned to the United States Congress, which cut critical funding to the Navy during the interwar years, and to NTS, which inadequately performed the very few tests made.[22] BuOrd failed to assign a second naval facility for testing, and failed to give Newport adequate direction.

quote:

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

Not until one of the sub captains reported a well documented and signed report involving him firing individual torpedoes at a cargo ship tied to a pier under perfect circumstances (less than 1000 yds range, target broadside and not moving, in a harbor, etc) did BuOrd start taking all the torpedo complaints seriously. IIRC the captain fired nearly his entire arsenal of torpedoes at the cargo ship, reporting each miss, dud hit, low order detonation, etc, and included depositions from his exec and other officers saying the same exact thing about how bad the torpedoes were.

Even then it took a controlled test where a torpedo was fired into a cliff face and then retrieved before BuOrd realized how defective the weapons were.