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rtrapasso -> RE: Know Your Japanese Cruisers (10/18/2010 2:53:56 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Cyber Me
The Japanese lost five CA that had long lance torpedoes exploding in their tubes as a major contributing factor to their loss and one CA was beached to prevent sinking before heading to Truk for repairs. Also Furutaka sank after her long lance torpedoes detenated, but she probably was finished even without that extra damage.
Chokai: In the Battle of Samar she was struck by a 5 inch shell which caused a sympathetic explosion in the long lance torpedo tubes knocking out the engines and rudder. Falling out of formation she was attacked by planes which gained a 500lb bomb hit. Chokai became dead in the water and was scuttled next day.
Abukuma:On 26thOct, 1944, Abukuma was struck by two 500lb bombs dropped by B-24s. A fire broke out in the engine room and soon spread to the aft torpedo room, where four long lance torpedoes exploded. 5 mins later she sank.
Aoba: April 3, 1943, was hit by a single bomb dropped by a B17. Two long lance torps exploded. She had to be beached to prevent sinking while repairs were carried out to allow Aoba to return to Truk.
Furutaka: During the Battle of Cape Esperance Furutaka was hit by nearly 100 shells, some of which caused the long lance torps to explode. She sank that night.
Mikuma: After colliding with Mogani during the opening day of Battle of Midway, Mikuma was returning to Wake when attacked by carrier planes on 5th June, 1942. Mikuma received five hits , including one among the long lance torp tubes, the resulting explosion destroyed the ship.
Mogami: During the Battle of Midway Mogami collided with Mikuma which caused considerable damage to her. She was ordered to Wake, and was attacked en-route by carrier planes. Fortunately the Mogami's crew had managed to jettison the torpedoes moments before a bomb landed near the torpedo tubes.
During the Battle of Surano Strait Mogami was involved in another collision (this time with Nachi) resulting in a fire which spread among the torpedo tubes soon exploding five torpedoes that crippled the ship.
Suzuya: A near miss bomb caused the long lance torpedoes to explode. Within an hour she was abandoned and two hours after that she sank.
The compressed oxygen fuel system gave the Japanese long lance torpedo several advantages over their enemies' designs including much better range, better speed, more payload, wakeless, allowing the Japanese to launch their torpedoes from unexpected ranges. The Japanese considered these advanatges so great they classified it as a top secret weapon. Eventually the allies captured a long lance torpedo in 1943, revealing to them it's qualities. But the compressed oxygen fuel system needing high amounts of maintenance, specially trained crew, oxygen generators on board the warship, and also the compressed pure oxygen prooved to be very volitile- exploding spontaneously when exposed to flame.
IIRC, some analysis have shown that the IJN actually lost more of its own warships to Long Lance explosions (after being struck by gunfire, bombs, etc.) than it sank Allied warships with them... and this doesn't include other instances where the long range of the Long Lance worked against the Japanese: i.e., in the final engagement of the USS Houston where the Long Lance torps missed the Allied ships and ended up exploding against the hulls of the IJ transports unloading troops...
AFAIK, the "sympathetic detonation" of torpedoes stored on ships is not modeled in the game.
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