Quote:
Originally Posted by gutted
(Post 1335693)
If you are talking about shooting a torpedo.. you cant fire torpedo's past around ~30m depth. Don't think the inner torpedo doors can take the pressure.
But even if i could.. once i got the necessary arming distance away, i wouldn't be able to see him through the murk. Then there's the whole issue of torpedo running depth.
it's just not pratcial
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It's not a problem of doors but of how the launch system was engineered.
It used compressed air to push a piston behind the torpedo. If the outside pressure was too high the air wouldn't expand pushing the piston and, in turn, the torpedo out of the tube.
The piston arrangement, while heavy (each time the torpedo tube was reloaded, the piston had to be removed first) allowed the submarine to release the missile without creating a massive bubble of air escaping the tube, giving away the boat position on the surface.
I think on type XXI this arrangement was dropped in favor of water ramming the torpedo out of the tube. (But I'm not sure if this arrangement was experimental or used on all the boats). This allowed the submarine to fire torpedoes at any depth regardless of the external pressure. |
