How good were our torpedoes?

The irony was that, at the beginning of the war, the U. S. probably had the best fire control but the worst torpedoes. The common theme was inadequate testing as detailed below. At the beginning of WW2, there were at least four major issues with our torpedoes. Worse yet, it took the U. S. nearly two years to fix most of them so that they could send out crews and boats with fairly reliable torpedoes. In each case, the testing was insufficient or non-existent.

Most of our torpedoes were developed at the Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island. The staff at the Station consistently blamed the skippers for being poor shots in the chaos of battle or for inadequate maintenance. The skippers’ immediate superiors (division or squadron commanders) sided with the torpedo staff. That doesn’t seem to make much sense since those commanders were responsible for training and evaluating the captains. Eventually, ADM Lockwood, commander of submarines in the Central Pacific, began his own testing. He was able to identify the actual problems so they could be fixed. However, in the end, no one was actually held accountable.

NOTE: U-boats experienced many similar problems with their torpedoes although the causes were sometimes different. For example, U. S. torpedoes ran too deep in part because the depth sensor was on the curved afterbody of the torpedo. That created a low-pressure area and the torpedo behaved as though it was too shallow. It then ran deeper, too deep. The German version of the similar problem was caused by a post running through a diaphragm in the pressure sensing area. As the pressure in the boat increased due to firing torpedoes, that increase would leak around the post into the pressure sensor area and the torpedo ran deeper. However, the biggest difference was that Admiral Doenitz believed his captains when they reported problems and he leaned on the manufacturers to get them fixed. When he threatened that heads could roll, it may have been a literal threat.