The Torpedoes :: essays research papers

The TorpedoesThe pre-war issue torpedo had the disadvantage of exit a visible trail of bubbles on the surface on its manner to the target.The standard torpedo of the war suffered from early problems with its internal depth-keeping equipment, and its firing pistol, exclusively these were solved after the Norwegian Campaign. In mid 1942 an improved adaption was introduced with an increased battery capacity. The increased battery capacity increased the get d cause 50%. Falke, the first house 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 autumn of 1943. Intended to be an escort-killer, it achieved round early minor success only to be countered by the confederate Foxer noise -making decoy. It was scoring hits against escort and merchants to the end of the war though. The weapon was designed to fasten onto the loudest noise after a run of 400m from its despatch. 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 supposition 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 diameter and had a warhead of 280kg. (The T5 had two important pattern-running devices, which could be utilize to various torpedo types.