Last Real Life Torpedo Sinking?
 

Just curious: :hmm:
What was the last time that a ship was sunk by an enemy torpedo from a submarine/U-boat in real life? Has this occurred since WWII?

I'm interested in actual hostile action, no training exercises. And no speculative sinkings please.

Not sure, I think there was at least one british sub attacking an argentinian cruiser during the war for the falkland islands?

British sub during the Falkland war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2480241.stm

General Belgrano
 

HMS Conqueror sank the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano.To me the controversial thing wasn't the sinking. What really got people upset was the Conqueror coming back to port flying a Jolly
Roger flag. A time honored tradition but one that appeared to many as a callous act.( Personally I don't subscribe to that view) :arrgh!:

As a Brit, I shouldn' t be disloyal to the BBC, But the article wrongly supposed that the modern wire guided Tigerfish torpedo was used in the attack.

In fact, the 'General Belgrano' was sunk by two Mark VIII torpedoes which was the main British torpedo used in both World Wars and thought to be more reliable than the Tigerfish. I believe the attack was made at less tham 1000 metres, in a manner which would have been very familiar to U-Boat captains.

The Argentine cruiser formerly belonged to the Americans and dated back to WWII - A survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...no_sinking.jpg

Found this cool picture of the sinking of ARA Belgrano, you can see how the bow has been destroyed.

3 Conventional MK 8 mod 4 torpedos were fired, two of which scored a hit. The first (and only I think) sinking of a surface warship by a nuclear sub.

Dunno why straight running torps were used? I would have thought in 1983 better alternatives were available. Reliability maybe as stated above?

sorry, slightly off topic but maybe interesting.

some more ships ran into trouble that war...
http://www.naval-history.net/F62brshipslost.htm

so how about shooting planes down with an uboats flak gun? :rotfl:
Do you think that ships didn´t had air defence systems?
Sorry for completly hijacking the thread now.

USS Phoenix, to be exact. Here she is on that day.

http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/3...ixpearl2ij.gif

HMS Conqueror remains the only nuclear submarine ever to engage an enemy warship with torpedoes.

Re: General Belgrano
 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._%28S48%29.jpg

YARRR!!

A nuclear submarine firing a wwII torpedo at black point range against a ww2 cruiser... :o

Belgrano don´t have any destroyer scort ???

She had two frigates in company, but they failed to detect Conquerors presence.

The escorts' sonar system, which could have detected the 'Conquerer'
was switched off at the time. (The 'General Belgrano' did not possess a sonar system)

One, the 'Hipolito Bouchard' was hit by a torpedo which failed to explode. The second escort, the 'Piedra Bueno', dropped some depth charges, but, as stated, probably never detected the British sub.

The Argies didn't have the technology on those two destroyer escorts to detect a nuclear sub.

Also they did not know it was in the vicinity (how would they)?

After the attack the two destroyers left the area quickly one in each direction to save themselves (lacking good ASW gear). This is one reason why the Belgrano crew had to wait in the water for 2 day (I think) and many drowned.

Don't think the torps were fired at point blank range. I mean one missed and looks like at least one just hit (right on the bow). We know from playing SHIII (if you use manual at least!) how hard it is to hit a war ship. Captains of Nuclear hunter-killers to have a the ability to do 30 knots underwater though!

I read that modern torpedos have a long copper wire that is still attached to to the ship after fired, so it can recieve constant updates on positioning right up untill it hits.

There was a show about this on the History/Military/Science/Yadda Yadda Channel about four months ago.

The cruiser was the pride of the Argentine Navy and the rest of the ships were not really up to par with the Royal Navy.

What the Argentine Navy lacked, their air force made up for in the French 'Exocert' A/S missile which the Royal Navy would soon discover.