As 1941 faded into 1942, then 1943, three things became obvious: American submarines in the Pacific were conned by unsuitable commanders utilizing inappropriate tactics and armed with useless torpedoes. It is axiomatic that those who rise to high command in peacetime are frequently ill-equipped to handle the rigors of battle. Peacetime is a period when competency is judged on skill at personal relationships, office politics and ballroom dancing rather than aggressiveness, battle experience or drive. At the start of the war, many submarine commanders were too old, too poorly trained and unready for the tasks they faced. In one noted instance a sub captain, assigned to his first combat patrol, turned the conn over to his Executive officer and locked himself in the cabin until it returned to port. The Navy recognized the problem and conducted a house cleaning -- in 1942 thirty percent of submarine captains were relieved of their commands as unfit for duty. Their places were taken by men with more fire in their bowels. Tactics were just as poor. Prior to the war American submarine doctrine saw the submarine as a forward scout responsible for the protection of battleships. Combat tactics called for submarines to attack fully submerged using sound rather than their periscopes to attack. It was unrealistic and what was worse, completely oblivious to the lessons of World War I and the naval war to that date. German submarines, employing much more aggressive tactics were on the verge of strangling Great Britain. Before Pearl Harbor the efficiency of the German U-boats had forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move warships from the Pacific to the Atlantic and use American vessels to protect British convoys. The Germans understood the purpose and strengths of submarine warfare. Submarines operate best as aggressive attackers. Like sharks they are efficient killing machines that need to hunt. The role of scout is as poor a one for a submarine as passenger plane is for an F-15. The American Navy learned quickly. Commanders were replaced and tactics altered. But still the number of Japanese ships sunk was embarrassingly low. Through 1943 the navy expended 14,748 torpedoes against 4,112 Japanese ships -- sinking 1,305. At the same time Doenitz was complaining about using two torpedoes to sink a ship, American submarines were expending 11.3 per target sunk. Torpedo Tribulations The third problem lie with the submarine's main weapon -- its torpedoes. To start with, there weren't that many around. The navy had started the war with a few hundred torpedoes, nearly half of which (233) were lost when the Philippines fell and the stockpiles there were abandoned. Submarine torpedo production was all of 60 per month at the beginning of 1942. Submarines went to sea with two thirds of their optimum content with orders not to waste them. Ironically, in the middle of a war, submarine commanders were praised for not expending their ammunition on the enemy. The shortage might actually have been a blessing in disguise. There were some problems with the main torpedoes. American submarines were equipped with two types of torpedoes. The older Mark 10, and the fifteen-years-in-development, top secret Mark 14. The Mark 10 was an adequate torpedo but outdated and not particularly powerful. Only the older S-boats were outfitted with them. The navy had been replacing it with the ultra-modern Mark 14. Mark XIV Mayhem The Mark 14 had three separate and distinct glitches. It ran 11 feet deeper than its setting, it had a faulty magnetic detonator which caused premature detonation, and the contact detonator was incredibly fragile. Compounding matters was the attitude of the Navy. Replacing incompetent commanders was done as soon as the problem was noted. Tactics and doctrine were revised when they proved untenable. But the torpedo problem would haunt the submariners for two years before the three problems were admitted by the Navy. Design of the Decade? The major difference in the models lay in their respective methods of detonation. The Mark 10 torpedo detonation design was as straightforward as a sledge hammer -- it hit its target and exploded, opening a hole in the hull at or below the waterline. The Mark 14 was designed to explode while passing under the target's keel, thus breaking the back of the ship. The magnetic detonator was supposed to explode the device at the exact place it would do the most damage. In theory it was a great idea. The reality was different. The Mark 14 torpedo looked as if it had been designed by Rube Goldberg in a particularly creative mood. Its 92 pound Mark 6 detonator was a complicated affair complete with chains, spinners and a compass needle. It had poor structural strength and as fragile as a glass watch. To make matters worse the Navy had never really put the Mark 14 through any testing. In the interwar years of severe budgetary restrictions cash for testing was given a low priority. The Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) convinced itself that at $10,000 a piece, the Mark 14 was just too expensive to blow up during testing. So the warhead was filled with water and deliberately set to pass under the under the target to preserve both for reuse. A test firing was deemed successful if the exhaust bubbles passed under the target ship. Not a one was ever actually exploded. In the words of the Submarine Operational History: "The war began with an entire generation of submarine personnel none of whom had ever seen or heard the detonation of a submarine torpedo." Firing Failures Seven days after Pearl Harbor the Navy should have recognized they had problems with their torpedoes. An American submarine found a Japanese tanker, put it in its sights and let fly one of the state of the art Mark 14 fish. The torpedo, fired from a range of 1000 yards, sped along straight and true then detonated 450 yards from the target. The submarine commander, who had done previous service with BuOrd knew as much about the Mark 14 torpedo as anyone commanding a boat. Suspecting the problem might be the magnetic detonator he deactivated them on his Mark 14 torpedoes. Continuing his patrol he fired a total of 13 torpedoes at six different targets without a hit. Totally frustrated, the captain informed the Commander, Submarines, Southwest Pacific (COMSUBSOWESPAC). After the fall of the Philippines the American submarine campaigns in the Pacific were conducted in two separate but mutually supportive parts: COMSUBPAC under Nimitz and CUMSUBSOWESPAC under General Douglas A. MacArthur. Nimitz had no direct authority over the personnel of the Asiatic (later renamed 7th) Fleet. that he had disobeyed orders by disarming the magnetic detonator. Regrettably, he added, even this did not seem to help. He opined that the torpedoes were either running significantly deeper than their setting or the contact detonators were not functioning or both. Aware they had been only tested using a water filled warhead he hypothesize that the actual Torpex explosive, being significantly heavier, was carrying the torpedoes down to a lower depth. He requested that the be allowed to conduct test firings at a fish net to check the depth setting on the torpedo. His request earned him a reprimand and a visit from a BuOrd officer. The officer, after reviewing crew procedures and conducting an inspection of the ship's remaining torpedoes placed the blame squarely on the crew. Still the problem continued. On April 1, 1942 USS Scuplin fired a spread of three Mark 14s at an unescorted cargo ship at 1,000 yards. The captain of the Scuplin was the only thing that exploded as he watched the torpedoes pass harmlessly under the target. By July 5th 1942 Scuplin had fired 45 torpedoes damaging all of seven ships. Over the next months the misses mounted. USS Spearfish fired and missed with four torpedoes at a Japanese cruiser. USS Skipjack targeted two on a seaplane tender with no hits. Scuplin spent another six days missing three Japanese freighters with nine Mark 14 torpedoes. Henry Bruton, commander of USS Greenling, fired four Mark 14 torpedoes at a Japanese freighter after a textbook approach. All of them missed. Bruton went ballistic. Ordering the sub to the surface he passed the Japanese ship, setting up for another attack at 1,350 yards. Two fish sped toward the helpless freighter in the bright moonlight. Bruton watched as they missed. Again Bruton ordered Greenling to the surface to set up for a third attack. By now the Greenling had been spotted by the target. During the ensuing battle Bruton fired two more torpedoes. One was clean miss, the other exploded -- 500 yards short of the target. In the late summer of 1942 USS Seawolf ended her sixth patrol having fired 17 Mark 14s to sink two ships. Freddy Warder, Seawolf 's captain then loaded his submarine with a combination of the old Mark 10 "sledgehammer simple" and the newer Mark 14 torpedoes. Finding a 8,000 ton transport at anchor with no tide or current he conducted a test. At 1,400 yards he fired 4 Mark 14 torpedoes. The first, set at 18 feet, ran under the target exploding on the beach. The second, set at eight feet, appeared to detonate on the transport's side while the other two, set at four feet, failed to explode. Warder, with Japanese shells exploding around his periscope, withdrew, reloaded his tubes with Mark 10s and attacked again. Both ran "hot and true" and sank the transport. Captains complained, but no one seemed to be listening. A number of senior officers had their suspicions but they ran into brick walls. More Fizzling Fish US WWII Torpedoes Fizzling Fish: Introduction Fizzling Fish: Commanders, Tactics & Torpedoes Fizzling Fish: Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood Back to Cry Havoc #14 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com