Real Submarine Technology & History Q&A

[FADM Gryphon]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Thanks for reviving the thread, FADM Gryphon. I somehow missed the following at the time, but I do have the answer.

No problem. It is great to be part of a thriving community.

[White Owl]

Originally Posted by Oleif

How was information loaded into the tube before firing? I assume there was a connection to the torpedo while the torpedo was in the tube to allow instant updates from the TDC and split second firing. Was there a wire leading to the motor? would a crewmember have to turn a knob or something then quick shut the door?

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Thanks for reviving the thread, FADM Gryphon. I somehow missed the following at the time, but I do have the answer.


There was a connection that ran through the tube wall to controls on the torpedo itself.
http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/tubes/chap7.htm

I'm in the process of reading through the USS Pickerel's (SS-177) patrol logs, and thought of your question when I got to this part, excerpted from the 4th patrol log on June 9th, 1942:

Not a specific casualty but considered worthy of mention is the fact that power setting of gyro angles on torpedoes has been impossible on this vessel since more than three months before war was declared. Attempts to remedy this condition had been continuous during that time with tender experts and the Arma Co. representative called in for advice. The friction and drag of the setting gear on the tubes is excessive and stalls the motor in the gyro angle setter, the latter operating perfectly when individual clutches on the tubes are disengaged. Hand operation has been used sucessfully throughout the war and is adequate under normal attack conditions. However, due to very low gear ratio, hand setting is slow and, for a quick change of targets, might cause some delay. Hand operation is definitely much more quiet than power and is equally as accurate as power operation since these gyro angle setters are power-operated hand-controlled in contrast to the fully automatic type installed in later submarines. In view of the forgoing, it is recommended that, if a Navy Yard cannot make power setting of a full tube nest certain and dependable, the power setting system be removed and the hand setting gear ratio be increased. This alteration could provide the reliability required of this instrument under war conditions.

[Sailor Steve]

Good find. Reports like that are always fun.

[carboneum]

Originally Posted by FADM Gryphon

Probably not a new link but just incase. I was viewing the SS-383 USS Pampanito web site and came across the Fleet Type Submarine Manual Online. Here is the link to the online manual.

http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/index.htm

Awesome pages. Thanks a lot!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by carboneum

Awesome pages. Thanks a lot!

WELCOME ABOARD!

Yeah, the fleet boat manual is old news for a lot of us, so much so we forget that a lot of folks haven't heard of it, let alone read it. Have fun.

[soopaman2]

I always wondered some things, and once again draw upon the collective knowledge here.

How did they get torpedoes from external storage and into the ship. Is there some kind of winch they had to help, or brute manpower. Torps had to be close to 400-500 pounds, no? Bruteing them in rough, or even slightly pitching seas had to be tough.

Did it have to come in through the conning tower hatch? Was that the only hatch?

Are external storage systems still in use today?

Sorry to bombard you with questions, just curious is all.

[Dread Knot]

US subs didn't use externally stored torpedoes, but U-Boats did.

First the boat had to find flat seas in an area where it was safe to be on the surface for that long. Just finding calm enough water in the North Atlantic could be quite difficult and as the war progressed finding someplace safe from detection for long enough to do it also became difficult. Once the torpedo was positioned in the open torpedo loading hatch the boat couldn't dive and that left it extremely vulnerable to attack, especially from the air.

Step one was to rotate the canister to the proper angle and open it. Then the portable winch had to be attached and the cables for the pulley system secured. Next, the torpedo had to be winched out of its container and onto a cradle that could then be positioned in front of the torpedo loading hatch. Lastly the torpedo had to be lowered into the boat through a forward hatch in the hull and stowed away just as they were when they were loaded directly into the boat back at base. U-boats generally dived in order to reload the torpedo tubes as the motion of the boat on the surface at sea made it too dangerous to try to do it there, especially after the detonator had been installed.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

Are external storage systems still in use today?
.

I'm not sure, but I doubt it given the hull shape of submarines today. It'd be almost impossible to stand on the those cyclindrical hulls while underway.

[Sailor Steve]

@ Dread Knot: Thanks for that picture! It's one I didn't have in my collection.

@ soopaman2: Here is a diagram of the process. Unfortunately it's not in English, but I think it gets the idea across.



And if you think that was bad, here's a series showing what it took to transfer each torpedo from a milch kuh.

[soopaman2]

Thanks you 2 (Dread Knot and Sailor Steve.)

I was looking at the pictures with the milk cow tranfers, and just pictured the sheer loss from a lucky allied airplane.

They almost remind me of the old pictures from the Pacific Northwest loggers walking on a river of floating logs and prodding them downstream.

Some of us can never truly understand the constant fear, that these men laughed about.

[Arlo]

Anybody here participate in WWII submarine living history (reenactment)?

http://www.ss310.com/index.html

[Captain J. Borne]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The stories are many times more precious. But they are dying daily. I have spent dozens of hours on the "Through the Looking Glass" site. I've seen half of it. If these subvets don't look and trust some people outside their own rapidly dwindling number, all these stories will die with them. With the stories will go the truth about how they fought on both sides of the war.

Like any other real captain, it will go down with the ship!

[Grooveclubhouse]

Just wanted to say that I have read this thread from begining to end and have been absolutely facinated by it. The shear wealth of personal knowledge here and its accompanying links have taught me more than I ever thought possible and has been more interesting than playing the acutal game!
Being new to this forum I thought I'd say Thank you to everyone who made this a great thread.

[TorpX]

I found a interesting link on the Matrix forum. It isn't submarine related, strictly speaking, but I thought this would be a good place to post it. It's a 1945 training film about the Mk 13 ariel torpedo, which goes into considerable detail about the late war developments in the Mk 13.

[DaveyJ576]

Hey there! I have been away for a while, the Navy has kept me quite busy. I will be in and out for the next several months so I will try to participate the best I can.

However, I have been able to complete a few projects. One of them is Part Three of A Visual Guide to the U.S. Fleet Submarines series. Here is the link: http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/10idx.htm

This part covers the Balao and Tench class boats. If it seems that I am jumping around a little, you are right! I wrote the articles out of sequential order because I wanted to cover the boats that were the most frequently mis-identified first. I have started Part Four, which will cover the Porpoise/Perch class but it will be several months before that one hits the streets.

Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated! Enjoy!

Dave