The Torpedoes :: essays research papers

The TorpedoesThe pre-war issue torpedo had the disadvantage of leaving a visible trail of bubbles on the surface on its way to the target.The step torpedo of the war suffered from early problems with its internal depth-keeping equipment, and its firing pistol, but these were solved aft(prenominal) the Norwegian Campaign. In mid 1942 an improved version was introduced with an increased assault and battery capacity. The increased battery capacity increased the range 50%. Falke, the first homing torpedo, was fitted with a passive acoustic homing device. It was introduced in March, 1943 and used by U-603,U-758, and U-221 against convoys HX-229 and SC-122. Few were used, as it was replace by the T5, which was faster, had a greater range and could be used with either magnetic or contact detonators. The Zaunkning (Gnat) came into service during the gloaming of 1943. Intended to be an escort-killer, it achieved some early minor success only to be countered by the allied Foxer noise-maki ng decoy. It was scoring hits against escort and merchants to the end of the war though. The arm was designed to lock onto the loudest noise after a run of 400m from its launch. This often proved to be the U-boat itself and standard issue-orders were to dive immediately to depth of 60m after launch from a bow tube while a stern shot was to be followed by a complete silence in the boat. both U-boats were almost certainly lost when hit by one of their own T5 torpedoes, U-972 in Dec 1943 and U-377 in Jan 1944. VariantsAll the German U-boat torpedoes were 53.3cm (21 inch) in diam and had a warhead of 280kg. (The T5 had two important pattern-running devices, which could be applied to various torpedo types.