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http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/ says the following "All information on this site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested" so should be OK. Robneild 09:22, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Contents 1 Pounds per Square Inch? 2 picture 3 conflict of info 4 Near miss really a near miss? 5 Calibers 6 Specifications 7 Design issues 8 Launch methods 9 Clarity? 9.1 Hydrogen Peroxide 9.2 Hot run? 9.3 Clarification of Effect of Detonation Beneath the Target (as opposed to Impacting the Target) 10 Whitehead 10.1 Mark?

[edit] Pounds per Square Inch?

In the History section, in the 6th paragraph down, it says:

"The air was compressed to around 1,300 lb/in² (9 MPa)"

Isn't compressed air measured in pounds per cubic inch rather than square inch? If I'm wrong, lemme know, otherwise, just replace the exponent 2 with an exponent 3. Phil 09:52, 23 May 2005 (CDT)

pounds per square inch is pressure, pounders per cubic inch would be a (strange) density measurement. I'd dump the MPa and stick with Bar or Atmospheres for better understanding, only engineers and scientists think in Pascals.

[edit] picture

Shouldn't the first image on this page be a picture of a torpedo, not an explosion resulting from one? Night Gyr 06:55, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] conflict of info

This article conflicts in some places , (use of self propelled torpedo) with torpedo boat.

Can you elaborate? I don't understand what you mean. --Joy [shallot]

PS what happened to the etymology ? GraemeLeggett 11:43, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That was due to vandalism, I've reverted it now. --Joy [shallot] 16:43, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Near miss really a near miss?

The picture of torpedo near miss looks much more like a torpedo launch from a torpedo boat to me. The stern visible is clearly a torpedo boat, which wouldn't be a target anyway, and wouldn't play chicken with torpedoes. I suspect the picture is taken from a torpedo boat just after it has launched one of it's own torpedoes, and the picture description was either changed to make it "sexier", or someone who saw the picture with no description mistook a launch for a dodge. Should the description be changed?

Additionally, torpedoes in WWI already had depth controls, and wouldn't travel on the surface, which also wouls suggest this torpedo has only just been launched and hasn't dived to it's run depth yet.--GNiko 22:25, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Calibers

The calibers (diameters) of early Whitheads should be included; every source on early torpedo development I've ever seen does... Trekphiler 17:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Specifications

The article says:

"The air was compressed to around 1,300 lb/in² (approx 90 atmospheres) and drove two propellers through a three cylinder Brotherhood engine. Considerable effort was taken in trying to ensure that the torpedo self-regulated its course and depth."

Why do I care it was 90 atmospheres? What was the fuel? (I'd guess ethanol.) And what was the "considerable effort"? Depth sensor? Gyro? A variety of elevator? (Actually, all would be used eventually.) More detail is in order.

In addition, I've corrected the use of "magnetic trigger" or "detonator"; the term is exploder. Trekphiler 17:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Design issues

The article said:

"The strategic thinking of the US Navy was that enemy capital ships (warships) would be the primary targets of US submarines, in a classic fleet action on the high seas. The idea of targeting enemy merchant shipping was considered inappropriate, more akin to piracy. Due to the heavy armor of enemy warships, there was concern that the torpedoes of that time would be ineffective. The potential solution to this was magnetic triggers which would cause the torpedoes to detonate in the water beneath a ship, instead of striking the side of a ship on its armor. In principle, this was the correct approach, as modern torpedoes function in this manner. An explosion below a ship causes the formation of a gas bubble, and the ship then splits in two as the lightly armored bottom of the ship is not supported over the bubble and falls into it. For this approach to function, the torpedo has to be set deep enough to run below the ship, and the magnetic trigger has to activate at the correct time.

This was tested many times before the war with success, but in practice it was a failure. Merchant shipping did not have the metal mass needed to activate the magnetic trigger, variations in the earth's magnetic field caused problems, and the depth controllers on torpedoes were faulty, resulting in the torpedo running too deep to pick up the magnetic field of the ship above. Live warheads were heavier than test warheads, causing problems with the depth setting. Sometimes the magnetic trigger was too sensitive, resulting in the torpedo exploding before it reached the target. The result was a long dispute between the front-line submariners who complained of the problems, and the US Navy Bureau of Ordinance which insisted their tests showed that the torpedoes worked and the failures were due to poor aiming by the submarine commanders. Some commanders ignored orders, and disabled the magnetic triggers once they were out on patrol.

Finally the US Navy realized there was a problem, and ordered the torpedoes to use contact fuses only. This also caused problems, as the contact fuzes of US Navy torpedoes would not detonate with straight-on, but only at an angle, while those of the German navy had directly the opposite problem. The Royal Navy had problems as well. Only after some imaginative field testing in Hawaii revealed the problem with the contact triggers was the problem solved, after two years of lost opportunities."

I've rewritten it, as well as the vague note on German depth-keeping gear, which is related. Trekphiler 17:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Launch methods

I've rewritten this:

"Torpedoes are most commonly launched in one of four ways:

• From the deck-mounted torpedo launcher of a vessel on the surface.
• From a torpedo tube mounted either below the waterline of a vessel on the surface, or on a submarine."

Deck-mounted launchers are torpedo tubes, unless it means the shackles or drop collars used by USN PT boats (which isn't clear), or the drop collars used by (some) early submarines, which were named for their Polish inventor (& which should thus have been named). Moreover, not all torpedo tubes were below the w/l or on deck... Trekphiler 19:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

What about the launch methods employed by the CAPTOR mine?

ASROC, Ikara, naval fortresses etc GraemeLeggett 08:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarity?

I've reread my previous edit on merchatmen & rules of war, & realized, the rules only applied to unarmed merchies. W/o getting into the intricacies of the Hague Con & the London Treaty, anybody want to take on explaining? Or do we need a page, or link, or something, to elucidate? I only know, I can't do it as succinctly as the article calls for... Trekphiler 12:21, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hydrogen Peroxide

Under the propulsion section of this article I don’t see any mention of hydrogen peroxide being used as a propellant. I know it was used for a while and it is even mentioned on the page for hydrogen peroxide. However, I feel I don’t know enough information about it’s use to make a change to the article.

Russian_submarine_Kursk_explosion Peroxide was the assumed cause of this, platinum catalyst splits it into steam and oxygen gas to drive turbines

[edit] Hot run?

What exactly is a "hot run" on a torpedo? Should this info be included somewhere in the article?

[edit] Clarification of Effect of Detonation Beneath the Target (as opposed to Impacting the Target)

Just a quick poll for consensus regarding the section:

The potential solution to this was a magnetic exploder which would cause the torpedoes to detonate beneath a ship, breaking its back. This had been demonstrated by magnetic influence mines in World War One. (In principle, this was correct; modern torpedoes function in this manner. An explosion below a ship causes the formation of a gas bubble, and the unsupported hull splits and falls into it.)

From my understanding of explosives and physics, the section "..causes the formation of a gas bubble, and the unsupported hull splits and falls into it." doesn't quite sound right. My understanding is that, when the charge detonates below the target vessel, there is the initial shockwave (Brisance) which could possibly cause structural damage to the target. This is then followed by what is sometimes referred to as the "heave" (can't find references for that), which is the expansion of the gaseous byproducts of the explosion and the heated/expanded surrounding material (gas or liquid). And, from the images I have seen of torpedo tests, it is the upward force of the heave (which is focused due to the density of the water and the gases, causing it to blow almost directly upwards) which seems to have, at least the most obvious effect on the target vessel.

From my reading of the above quoted passage, the author is suggesting that the explosive causes a void below the vessel which it falls into causing it to split up. I think that the opposite, if anything is true. That the explosion beneath the target forces the section above the explosion upwards quite violently and, due to the structure of the vessel, and the localisation of that force, it's "back" is then broken (normally causing the catastrophic failure of the ship and it's sinking, often in two parts).

Any views, suggestions, experts to correct me?

According to my understanding of the way torpedoes function, you're exactly correct. Because water is non-compressible, the explosion most certainly does not create gas bubble underneath that the ship falls into. Rather, the water focuses the entire explosion in the most compressible direction, the tin can directly above.

Before under-keel explosions could be reliably guaranteed, and torpedoes were expected to explode near or in contact with the side of a ship, the explosion could vent both upward and sideways into the ship, but not downward or to other sides. This is why the explosion of a torpedo or near-miss bomb is so devastating compared to a nearby above-water explosion, even though it is less destructive than an under-keel explosion. TomTheHand 17:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Whitehead

It is a little bit nationalized-history to say: The first real torpedo was developed in the mid 1800's in Europe by Mr Robert Whitehead, who created the "Whitehead Torpedo", ... by not telling anything about Ivan Lupis-Vukić, the man with whitch Whitehead worked together. Whitehead himself always insist on the priority of Ivan Lupis-Vukić and his basic ideas.--WerWil 21:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark?

Why are torpedoes classified as "Mark" or "MK" (such as Mark-46, Mark-48, Mark-60)? How did this nomenclature arise? Does it refer to circumference or something? Thanks, Maikel 13:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's like a version number. See Mark (designation), though that article isn't that great. That doesn't mean that the Mark 48 is "two versions better" than the Mark 46, but rather that it was designed later. Not all marks actually enter service; no "Mark 47" entered service. The "Mark 47" may have been a paper study, may have had a prototype built and rejected, or may have been skipped for one reason or another. TomTheHand 15:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I wonder who issues these marks. It seems to be a US-American classification, there is also a Mark 77 bomb. Maikel 16:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)