[swdw]

From doing RFB it always amazes me how many people are surprised to learn how bad our torpedoes actually were.

Wish I still had all the files when I researched this, but if someone has some historical questions, I'd be glad to answer.

So people know, a target angle of 90 degrees (perpendicular) had a <10% chance of detonating when run at high speed. As the angle changed, the chance of detonation increased. If I remember right (been a while so these may be off) it was 70% at 45 degrees and 90% with an angle of 20 degrees or less. There was little change in the dud rate until an angle of 70-75 degrees was reached. There were other numbers I found, but those are the ones I remember.

Going to slow speed didn't double the chances of detonation, but did increase them.

My understanding is someone came along after I turned over the RFB project and changed the numbers, getting them wrong. Too bad. But man did I catch hell for the torpedo changes and had to post the story of the Tinosa and a couple others for people to back off.

Note: this doesn't even take into account the depth problem or the magnetic exploder issue