[gadtfly]

See also the Mark 14 torpedo, the primary American torpedo in WWII, which didn't actually work for the first 2 years of the war because they had never bothered to actually test it because it would be too expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo

[mrguyorama]

>because it would be too expensive.

Specifically, they didn't want to waste 1-10 torpedoes for testing, which maybe that can be defensible, but it became utterly indefensible when every single submarine came back from patrol with reports of "we launched a spread of 4 torps, 2 hit the hull of the enemy ship, zero detonations".

The lost value in un-sunk enemy shipping, the number of dead seaman that should have come back victorious, the number of subs that got sunk after an attack utterly failed, all were individually prices that dwarfed a single Mk14 torpedo, and together had a measurable impact on war performance.

All because the bureau of ordinance basically refused to hear any feedback.

Nearly every single component of the torpedo was unfit for service. The magnetic exploder didn't work. The contact detonator was nearly incapable of working because of the physics of torpedo impacts in a way that meant getting a perpendicular hit, which was considered optimal, actually was less likely to detonate. The depth keeping system was calibrated incorrectly, due to module integration mistakes, and ran 10 feet deeper than it was supposed to in some cases.

It's actually kind of common for US military procurement to produce a somewhat failed piece of equipment initially, but it usually gets modified and iterated on and improved to the point of being very respectable hardware in short order. The refusal of BuOrd to hear feedback is the real problem here. Their insane delays in fielding and responding to feedback cost real US lives. Once the torpedo was fixed up, the American sub fleet in the pacific ran roughshod over Japanese supply and utterly crippled their abilities to maintain control over the island chains.

The reason BuOrd gave for refusing to double check their work as these scathing reports came in? You see, the navy was struggling to produce enough torpedoes to meet requirements, so we can't waste a couple for testing. Instead, HUNDREDS of outright non-functioning torpedoes were sent to the bottom of the pacific, completely wasted, with almost no hope of actually working, because they were never tested.

The entire situation should be required reading for anyone in management, anywhere. Textbook case of penny smart, pound foolish.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Makes perfect sense to me. If you don't test, then there are no bugs. Field reports can be written off as user error.

/s

[TomatoCo]

There's a lovely youtube historian, Drachinifel who covered this https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=eQ5Ru7Zu_1I

[cdot2]

If I remember correctly part of the issue was that they used magnetic detector based firing systems and only tested them off the coast of California. When they fired them elsewhere the Earth's magnetic field was different enough that the detonators failed.

[knute]

Not only did the magnetic fuses not work, the impact fuses would collapse and fail if the torpedo made a direct hit. And the torpedoes would consistently run deeper than they were set to. US torpedoes in the early stages of the war were nearly completely ineffective.

[jvanderbot]

I had never heard that theory before!

FWIW, everyone in the beginning of WWII had magnetic detonator / torpedo problems, so it couldn't be just that. They were difficult to depth-keep just right to pass under a ship but within detection, for one thing. The sub captain had to correctly identify the ship, look up the draft, and call down to manually set the depth keeping. (Good luck in the swells of north atlantic). Often it just didn't use that depth anyway, due again to issues with design/testing.

The contact detonators had their own issues, for one they couldn't explode at an oblique angle, instead needed near-right-angle impact - but even then had a high dud ratio.

So, in theory the magnetic ones were preferable, even though standard doctrine was to fire for right-angle impact regardless (it makes evasion much more difficult, for one thing).

[CoastalCoder]

There's a building at NUWC Division Newport that's designed to survive a direct hit from a 500 lb bomb.

The joke is they had to build it to survive attack from Navy crews that were livid about the quality of the torpedoes built there.