Bullethead, torpedoes of the day

[rick614]

Just to keep things from becoming totally dead tell us something about them.

[mbv]

These are some Japanese examples of the period.....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Misc%20Warships/JapaneseTorpedos.jpg

The torpedoes of the Russo Japanese war were basically developments of the original self-propelled torpedo designed by the Englishman Robert Whitehead in December 1866. Early examples had poor range and the Fiume (Trieste, Italy) manufactured 14 inch Mark I could only reach 600 yards at 17.5 knots. By 1890 they could reach a speed of 30 knots and exceed 1000 yards. Most countries bought the early Fiume manufactured torps for fleet action and harbour defence and by 1891 Whitehead had a new factory at Portland in the UK. The first torpedo boat called Lightning was manufactured in the UK by Thornycroft in 1876. Destroyers essentially developed from 1892 onwards to catch and destroy these torpedo boats.

By the time of the Russo-Japanese war 14" MK IX and 18" MK V torps with gyros were being used. The 18" was 19 feet long and made of polished steel or phosphor-bronze with a 200lb gun cotton warhead. These models had two propellers.

[airBiscuit]

Great background info! Even as we anxiously await DG's release, it's good to have some technical meat to chew on. The old photographic plates are neat to look at as well.

[mbv]

Just been reading 'Technical Lessons of the Russo-Japanese War' by DK Brown (Warship 1996) and it has some very interesting info. on the highly ineffective use of torpedoes throughout the whole war. Here is a summary......

During the war the Japanese fired around 350 torpedoes scoring just a few hits. The Russians scored no hits at all.

During the initial surprise attack on the Russian fleet at anchor in Port Arthur 19 torps were fired on completely unsuspecting Russian ships and scored only 3 hits on stationary targets using 18 inch torps with a warhead of 198lbs of gun cotton. None of the Russian ships were sunk and all were repaired.

When the Russian fleet was returning to Port Arthur on 23-24 June 67 torps were launched at them. Sevastopol, Pobeida and a cruiser were damaged but repaired. On 10th August 17 destroyers and 29 torpedo boats launched 74 torps against the Russians and there were no hits! Lack of success was blamed on lack of co-ordinated attacks and firing at too great a range in the confusion of night action.

In December 1904 the moored up Sevastopol was the subject of repeated attacks. 104 torps were launched against her for one hit and two which exploded in the anti-torp/mine nets.

Tsushima was the only battle when the big ships used their submerged tubes. Mikasa fired four, Shikishima two and Iwate four. These were the only gyro-fitted torps used in the whole war and they scored no hits.

Japanese destroyers and torpedo boats fired a large number of torps at Tsushima for only one hit on the already disabled and helpless Suvorov which then sank.

The weather was bad at Tsushima and and most of the smaller torpedo boats had sheltered during the day. They only appeared at night to join the destroyers in uncoordinated attacks on Russian survivors. Possibly as many as 87 torps were fired in this night action which resulted in a hit on the cruiser Monomakh (scuttled next day to avoid surrender). This was the only hit of the war on an undamaged moving ship. Nakhimoff, already damaged, was hit and scuttled the next day and Sissoi was hit in the stern disabling her rudder and one prop (she sank the next day).

Thus 350 Japanese torpedoes had very little impact on the outcome of the war. The speed of the torps was only 1.5 to 2 times the speed of the target ship and the lengthy running time made the likelihood of hitting a moving target very uncertain.

[mbv]

Russian torpedoes being loaded onto the Czarevitch during preparations for the war. From Illustrated London News March 1904.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Misc%20Warships/RussianTorpsonCzarevitchIllusLondon.jpg

[Bullethead]

During the initial surprise attack on the Russian fleet at anchor in Port Arthur 19 torps were fired on completely unsuspecting Russian ships and scored only 3 hits on stationary targets using 18 inch torps with a warhead of 198lbs of gun cotton. None of the Russian ships were sunk and all were repaired.

I don't have much else to add to what's been said about the torps themselves, but I can say something about how the Russian ships at Port Arthur were repaired after taking hits. I got this from The McCully Report; Newton A. McCully; Naval Institute Press, 1971.

Anyway, Port Arthur lacked a drydock, so the Russians improvised to be able to repair underwater damage on ships still in the water. What they did was make open-top big boxes. These were also open on the side facing the ship and curved to match the hull. The Russians put these against the hulls so the sides of the boxes were beyond the extent of the hull damage, then pumped the water out of the boxes. The water pressure outside the boxes pushed them against the hull, thus making a seal. The result was that the damaged areas were in the air inside the boxes, enabling them to be repaired as if the ship was in drydock.

[Jim Cobb]

mbv,

Does that article speak about mines? They were the real killers in the Spring of ')4. How big were they? What was their dud rate?

[mbv]

Yes, there is a short section on mines, not much on size or dud rate though. Here is a summary.......

The Japanese lost two of their six battleships in one day (Hatsuse and Yashima) as well as the cruisers Hei-Yen, Takasago, Miyako, Sai-Yen and five smaller ships to mines.

The Russians lost Petropavlovsk off Port Arthur on 13/4/1904 to a mine which also killed Admiral Makarov and deprived the Russians of their only competent leader. Pobeida was damaged on the same occasion. Sevastopol was mined twice but did not sink. British reports suggested a single mine explosion would only be lethal if a magazine was detonated.

As a result of the war the Royal Navy did much secret research on minesweeping. By 1908 it was clear that the RN had a reliable method of minesweeping, but were unwilling to release the info. to other nations. That year 13 torpedo gunboats were fitted out to carry the new sweeping gear which was probably a wire sweep between two ships using kites to depress the wire (known as the A-sweep). By 1913 the RN had sufficient gear to equip 82 trawlers and a trained special reserve force was also ready.

[Bullethead]

British reports suggested a single mine explosion would only be lethal if a magazine was detonated.

I guess that assessment was based on faulty intel. True, the mined Russian BB did blow up, but 1 of the 2 IJN BBs just flooded and sank. The other IJN BB would very probably have done the same--she was evidently doing so--but then hit a 2nd mine, which blew her up before she flooded enough to sink from the 1st mine.

In WW1, the Brits lost 2 predreadnoughts in 1 day off Gallipoli to mines. Both of these were virtually identical to the mined IJN BBs from the RJW, and both of them just flooded and sank without blowing up. A French predreadnought was also mined and sunk in the same action, and is believed by some to have blown up because she went down so fast, but the evidence isn't conclusive. And don't forget, the Brits also lost a new superdreadnought, HMS Audacious to a single mine not far off the Brit coast.

So, in summary, 4 of 7 definitely sank solely from flooding, 1 more probably would have had she not hit a 2nd mine, 1 might have blown up but maybe didn't, and only 1 of 7 definitely blew up immediately. But perhaps not from the mine (see below).

The fact is, all ships of the predreadnought era were very vulnerable to mines, and only slightly less so to the torpedos of the day. The relatively poor showing of torps in the RJW was due, apparently, to the much smaller warheads of RJW-era torps, compared to mines. By WW1, when torps were much more powerful, predreadnoughts and their contemporary armored cruisers very often sank or blew up from single torp hits. The most famous example is SMS Pommern at Jutland, but there were MANY others. IOW, torps had become as lethal to them as mines already were.

In the RJW era, underwater protection was still in its infancy. Ideas about watertight subdivision were still in the experimental stage, too. Thus, very few ships then had anything resembling a torpedo bulkhead, some didn't have wing compartments, and most had watertight compartments that were either too few or too large in size. Many ships also had watertight longitudinal bulkheads down the centerline, which caused them serious problems. Due to insufficient or ineffective compatmentization, lots of water could come in, and it would be held on 1 side by the centerline bulkhead. Pumping and counterflooding arrangements were usually insufficient to balance this out in the short time available, resulting in many of these old ships capsizing fairly rapidly.

Underwater magazine protection was no better than that of buoyancy, so mines and torps were a real threat to set them off. This was made worse by many ships having magazines close to the sides, either for 2ndary batteries or the wing turrets of early dreadnoughts. However, even when the mine or torp didn't directly detonate a magazine, magazines still had a marked tendency to explode during capsizing. There's a classic movie of this happening to HMS Barham, a WW1-vintage ship. She was torpedoed and rolled over on her beamends. Just as the upper works touched the water, the magazines let go and the whole ship disintegrated. Given that these old ships often capsized quickly from underwater damage, it seems quite likely that some of the ships reportedly blown up directly by mines (and torps) might instead have just capsized from them, and blown up as a result of the capsizing.

[NormKoger]

Torpedoes...

This was one of the more difficult things to research for this title, and I may yet tinker a bit with the game code. Technical specifications and accuracy rates are well known, and seem to have absolutely no correspondence with actual wartime results. Something clearly isn't right.

In peacetime exercises and tests, torpedoes performed rather well. How well? Everyone on both sides, presumably with full knowledge of the results of peacetime tests with the weapons, was absolutely terrified of torpedoes.

Even though the reports claim otherwise, I've come to the conclusion that the main reason for the poor hit rate is premature launch. The environment within a few hundred yards of an alert RJW protected cruiser is extremely unpleasant for the crew of a RJW era destroyer or powered surfboard (torpedo boat). Bushido and all that, I still believe the crews popped the things off at their best guess of absolute extreme range then underreported the actual engagement ranges in the after action reports. If you fire off all of your 1000 meter uberweapons at 1100 meters, you won't get many hits. Accuracy doesn't explain it. Unless the damned things corkscrewed around like a dying guppy (which, I assure you, would have been mentioned with righteous indignation in after action reports) you don't need a lot of accuracy to hit a 100 meter long target at 1000 meters. The problem has to be range.

[mbv]

I wonder how effective torp nets were too? Even through some torps were fitted with crude net cutters these seem to have been very ineffective. There are a number of mentions of Japanese torps being caught in Russian nets, particularly during the first raid on Port Arthur where the ships were stationary. Were torp nets deployed on the move? Or would this cause too much drag on the ship and slow it down?

DK Brown in the book Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship development 1860-1905 also suspects range was an issue in torp effectiveness in the RJW particularly when firing at moving targets. Even though the 24" torps had an effective range of 3000 yards they do not appear to have been used on ships.

[NormKoger]

Nets were apparently fairly effective in this period, but they could only be deployed when the ship was anchored or moving at very low speeds. They could not be used during an engagement. Entirely aside of the questions of drag and damage to the net suspension, captains would have been very reluctant to drag around something that could potentially foul their steering or screws.

The effectiveness changed at some point over the next few years. In 1914, the Brits found to their horror that their nets were ineffective against torps fired by German subs.

[Bullethead]

Even though the reports claim otherwise, I've come to the conclusion that the main reason for the poor hit rate is premature launch. The environment within a few hundred yards of an alert RJW protected cruiser is extremely unpleasant for the crew of a RJW era destroyer or powered surfboard (torpedo boat). Bushido and all that, I still believe the crews popped the things off at their best guess of absolute extreme range then underreported the actual engagement ranges in the after action reports.

This probably accounts for a lot of the misses. Whether from "cold feet" or bad range estimates (TBs and TBDs/DDs had practically NOTHING in terms of rangefinders), I'm sure many torps were launched from too far away. However, I think there was another factor involved, too: the inability to see the target very well.

The tubes of even the biggest RJW TBDs/DDs were only 5-6 feet above the waterline, and there were no bulwarks. Thus, when under way at high speed at sea, the tubes and the torpedomen would have been continually swept by waves coming aboard. In addition, visibility to all aboard, from the OD on the bridge to the tube crews, would have been severely impaired by spray kicked up by the bow wave, and from waves sweeping over the forecastle and crashing into the conning tower. In addition, the torpedomen at least had to content with the dense smoke gushing from the low funnels all around them as the boilers put out their utmost power, and whatever flying clinkers and embers were mixed in.

The standard TBD/DD tactics of the day against other small ships was a sprint/stop thing. It was accepted that visibility, and therefore weapons use, was impossible solely from the spray and smoke, in any sea state, while at speed. Therefore, the practice was to dash into a good firing position and then stop or slow down a lot to get off some effective shots when those aboard could at least see the target. Then back to the high-speed dash.

On a torpedo run, however, this wouldn't work. Parking within effective defensive gun range of a large ship would have been suicide, so the TBDs/DDs had to keep moving at high speed. They therefore would not have been able to see the target at all most of the time during the attack, or at least not see it very well. This would have made the determination of the target's course, speed, and range very difficult. Therefore, even if the torps were mechanically reliable, and even if they were fired within effective range, it seems to me that in most cases they would have had to have been just lobbed in the general direction of the target, instead of being well-aimed. Frankly, I'm surprised they got as many hits as they did.

NOTE: this sort of thing was one of the main reasons why "large TB"-style "DDs" (aka TBDs) such as used in the RJW were already obsolete at that time. The much larger River-type DDs just then coming into service in the Royal Navy were much more effective in this regard. Their sea speeds weren't much greater (25-27 knots) but they could at least see what they were doing.

[NormKoger]

Cold feet is a bit pejorative. I didn't mean to imply cowardice. From all accounts, the term simply didn't apply to IJN crews. But even the bravest crews would suffer under heavy fire.

I am intrigued by the implication that the typical peacetime engagement sequence with torpedoes might have inaccurately modeled an engagement under fire. The idea that these small ships dashed into position, then settled for a while before firing when not under fire would explain a lot about relative accuracy. Under fire, these guys would probably not be inclined to pause and stabilize before firing. It wouldn't be the only case where the actual engagement sequence did not resemble the pre-war practice.

I still think the actual problem was a tendency to launch from outside the weapon range when under fire. These torpedoes were so short ranged relative to the size of their targets that even wildly inaccurate fire should have resulted in more hits unless the weapon run was shorter than the actual range to target.

[Bullethead]

Cold feet is a bit pejorative. I didn't mean to imply cowardice. From all accounts, the term simply didn't apply to IJN crews. But even the bravest crews would suffer under heavy fire.

Kinda like the "creep back" experienced by RAF Bomber Command.

I am intrigued by the implication that the typical peacetime engagement sequence with torpedoes might have inaccurately modeled an engagement under fire. The idea that these small ships dashed into position, then settled for a while before firing when not under fire would explain a lot about relative accuracy. Under fire, these guys would probably not be inclined to pause and stabilize before firing. It wouldn't be the only case where the actual engagement sequence did not resemble the pre-war practice.

I think torps were always intended to be fired on the move. They used the sprint/drift thing with guns. However, torpedo doctrine focused on night attacks. Being small and fast really wasn't enough protection, because even splinters from misses could disable these little ships--the best protection was invisibility. In a night attack, it was assumed the attackers would be going at considerably less than full speed in order to reduce their visibility. High speed created spray and wakes that caught the light easily, but an even bigger factor was funnel flare. With the machinery running flat out, large amounts of unburned combustion gas went up the funnels, burning as it did. TBD/DD funnels were so short that much of this hadn't burned before it reached the air. When it did, the sudden increase in oxygen caused this gas to burn with highly visible (at least at night) flame at the top of each funnel. This not only showed up the attacking craft, but made it hard for its crew to see the target.

However, despite practicing the manuevers at night, live torp firing trials were usually run in the daylight so the behavior of the torp could be observed. But the launching ships moved at the expected slow night speed to make sure the launching went OK that way. Thus, you had the launching craft enjoying daylight visibility and the low spray and smoke levels of slow speed. Plus I'm sure the practice torps were fired in good, calm weather to aid observation and subsequent torp recovery.

Now we come to a shooting war. The TBDs/DDs go sneaking in as planned, but they get spotted outside attack range. Then there's nothing for it but all ahead flank and hope for the best. So yeah, I think test conditions differed considerably from actual combat conditions.

Back to the sprint/drift with guns. It was envisioned that any TBD/DD vs. TB action would be fought at VERY close range, due to the absence of anything resembling fire control devices and the wetness and liveliness of the ships in question. As such, the sprint might well have to be in reverse to avoid collisions and torps if nothing else. Therefore, part of the contract requirement for TBDs/DDs of this era was a very high astern speed, like 10-15 knots, with the same degree of steering control as going forward. Thus, a number of these ships had retractable rudders well forward.

Any chance of the sprint/drift gun action making it into the game? And what about the high astern speeds? :)

[NormKoger]

"Plus I'm sure the practice torps were fired in good, calm weather to aid observation and subsequent torp recovery."

Oh, yes. Torpedoes were quite precious. They were indeed recovered. In some navies, many of them actually had names.

I think everyone was surprised at just how far out ships were spotted during the war. Even at night, it was quite difficult to get near a large ship with a small ship. The volume of 75mm and smaller fire that even a small cruiser could put out was truly horrifying inside 1000 meters.

"Any chance of the sprint/drift gun action making it into the game? And what about the high astern speeds?"

Not on the first pass. I would need to read at least a couple of accounts where this was explicitly mentioned in the RJW before I would consider dropping it in. I will look back over a couple of the better documented destroyer battles (like the action off the Liau-ti-Shan lighthouse) to see if I pick up on something like this.

[Bullethead]

I think everyone was surprised at just how far out ships were spotted during the war. Even at night, it was quite difficult to get near a large ship with a small ship. The volume of 75mm and smaller fire that even a small cruiser could put out was truly horrifying inside 1000 meters.

You should read The First Destroyers, by David Lyon, ISBN 1-86176-005-1. There's a bit towards the end about experiments in the 1900 era aimed at making TBDs/DDs least visible at night during their approach.

"Any chance of the sprint/drift gun action making it into the game? And what about the high astern speeds?"

Not on the first pass. I would need to read at least a couple of accounts where this was explicitly mentioned in the RJW before I would consider dropping it in. I will look back over a couple of the better documented destroyer battles (like the action off the Liau-ti-Shan lighthouse) to see if I pick up on something like this.

The same book noted above has all the docs about how this was the standard tactic and why the high astern speed and bow rudders were in the specs for these ships. Given that the RJW "DDs" were almost all Brit designs (except for a few German and French ships with the Russians), I'd be surprised if the overall tactical concept didn't transfer over as well.

I don't know how well this would carry over into after-action reports. All this furious charging around, stopping, firing, turning, reversing, etc., probably wasn't recorded at the time in the same detail as helm orders for battleships. Not only was everything happening more frequently, but there couldn't have been much of a recording system in place. There just wasn't room anywhere dry that was both out of the way of the officers and gunners, and within earshot of the OD, for a person to stand and write all this stuff down as it happened, like there was on the bridge of a battleship.

[saddletank]

The thing is that although torpedoes have an appalingly low hit rate, the disruption that the threat of a torpedo attack usually caused was significant. A suggested set of game design parameters:

1) make torpedo hits very damaging, possibly sinking any target with one hit.

2) make the chances of a hit pretty high if they are launched well within their design range (say 800 yards and less).

3) make the chances of a hit on stationary or very slow moving targets high. Conversely make them low when a target is manouvering.

4) rough seas should make torpedo launching and running difficult/erratic.

5) make life extremely uncomfortable for TBs and TBDs when within 1200 yards (say) of a cruiser or battleship that has a lot of it's artillery still in action. Combining #5 with #2 means the TB crews will have to be made of stern stuff to keep their cool to get through to effective release range.

6) make the actual release or attack mechanism AI controlled (player has no influence on the moment of release) so that the AI morale can be dented by incoming quick-firer rounds.

Cheers, Martin

[Bullethead]

1) make torpedo hits very damaging, possibly sinking any target with one hit.

I dunno. It seems to have depended a lot on the size of the torp and where it hit a given target. Quite a few Russian ships were torpedoed at Port Arthur in the initial attack, and then later at Tsushima. However, most of them survived with relatively little damage. Mines seem to have been much more lethal than torps in this war.

Predreadnought-era ships were definitely vulnerable to underwater damage. In WW1, quite a few of them sank quickly or even blew up from 1 or 2 torpedo hits. But those torps were 10 years or so later in technology, and usually bigger as well, while the ships in question were about 10 years older and often in rather unkempt condition. Thus, it's kinda hard to tell whether the torps in the RJW were that much worse, or whether luck had a lot to do with the relative immunity of ships in the RJW to fatal torp hits. But the odds favor torps being not so lethal in the RJW.

3) make the chances of a hit on stationary or very slow moving targets high. Conversely make them low when a target is manouvering.

I'm not sure that's realistic, either. In the initial surprise attack at Port Arthur, against anchored ships, the Japanese still got a very low hit rate.

[saddletank]

Weren't the three Russian ships hit at the first Port Arthur attack sitting on the bottom next day? So they were 'sunk' it's just they didn't have far to sink :)

I suspect the low rate of hits during the Port Arthur night attack was again due to torpedos being launched either out of range or 'wildly' (i.e. the crews were under quick-firer fire and were not aiming cooly enough).

[Bullethead]

Weren't the three Russian ships hit at the first Port Arthur attack sitting on the bottom next day? So they were 'sunk' it's just they didn't have far to sink :)

I'm afraid I'm too drunk at the moment to bother looking things up. However, if memory serves (taking the above as a warning), I don't think any Russian ships torpedoed outside Port Arthur actually touched bottom. IIRC, the whole fleet immediately went inside the harbor after the attack, including the cripples. If the torpedoed ships had actually been on bottom, it would have taken some time to refloat them (think of Pearl Harbor), during which the Japanese undoubtedly would have tried to finish the job. However, what I remember is that the subsequent Japanese efforts all involved blockships at the harbor entrance, instead of torp or gun attacks on vessels stranded outside.

But be all that as it may, the fact remains that quite a few other Russian ships survived torp hits rather well. A number of BBs and ACs, most of which weren't nearly as modern as the Port Arthur victims, took torp hits during the main action at Tsushima and not only weren't sunk outright, but remained afloat all night and into the next day, when they were either scuttled, captured, or sunk by other means. So I still regard the bulk of the evidence as supporting the case that RJW torps weren't very effective when they hit.

I suspect the low rate of hits during the Port Arthur night attack was again due to torpedos being launched either out of range or 'wildly' (i.e. the crews were under quick-firer fire and were not aiming cooly enough).

That's certainly a very valid argument and I'm sure it played a significant part that night. However, I'm also reminded of the problems with US sub torps in WW2. Those torps worked just fine in the limited prewar testing under controlled conditions, but failed miserably in combat. It took until well into 1943 for the problems with them to be admitted, investigated, and finally corrected. Given that very, very few torps had been fired in combat prior to the RJW, I can easily see how defects in course/depth control and fuzing could have gone unnoticed beforehand. Thus, even DD skippers given over to complete bushido, and with Zen-like surety in the correctness of their launch parameters, could well have been cheated by unappreciated defects in the weapons.

[saddletank]

Your last paragraph seems eminently reasonable. I wish I could write that clearly when I am 'too drunk to look things up' ;)