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Originally Posted by M. Sarsfield
As Nuc said, they used the torpedo loading hatches in the deck and some rafts, but it still sounds like more trouble than it's worth. Maybe the crews were asked to do it to study the feasibility. I'm still wondering how a few life rafts were able to hold up something that heavy.
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I remember from the manual on torpedo tube operation that the weight lost by firing the torpedo would be compensated for by the weight of water taking its place in the torpedo tube after firing. I just did a rough calculation and based on a density of sea water of 1.025 kg per litre and a cylinder 21" in diameter and 20'6" long and that comes out to 3,148 pounds for the weight of sea water displaced. Take a bit off that for the roundness of the nose and the stubby propeller at the end and really roughly that's about 3,000 sea water displaced by a torpedo, so the weight of a 3,280 mark 14 torpedo in the water would be about 280 pounds. So, if the torpedo were suspended from rafts, or rafts slung underneath as buoyancy aids and lightly inflated, it should be possible, if a bit risky if one of the rafts slips round the torpedo.