Posted on 06/04/2008 5:36:24 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Torpedo explosions were simulated by means of dynamite blasts sent against the specially designed steel caisson, built like a section of a ship’s hull, which may revolutionize battleship construction.
The test blasts were heard all over the southern part of the city. Navy yard aides explained the experiment was routine, but elaborate precautions were taken to assure secrecy.
In a general message from Washington at 9 o’clock this morning, all vessels in the Delaware River were ordered to “stand clear” of the navy yard.
The wall of specially designed armor plates, like those of a heavy battleship, was put on the raft and the charges of high explosives were hurled against it.
Studies to determine the effect of the simulated torpedo fire on the caisson, supposedly made up of a series of water-tight compartments, were begun after the explosions.
The new design is an outgrowth of the so-called blister or false hull developed by the British Navy in the World War. The blisters were efficacious, but further tests indicated room for improvement.
The Naval Treaty of 1922 held up the experiments in this country for a time, but the new billion dollar building program of the navy put engineers at work to perfect new plans for defense against torpedoes.
The new watertight compartment design was tried out first with scale models in tanks. Later tests were made with a full-size model at Norfolk.
Results of these tests were so satisfactory that another model was developed at Philadelphia. It is this one that was baptized by fire in the Delaware River today.
I predict these torpedo-proof battleships will not stand up to torpedoes as well as the navy hopes.
Well, they were testing American torpedoes against the battleship hulls. Nope, no damage here!!! In fact, these hulls are so good the torpedo either veers away from it, runs underneath it, or just harmlessly thuds into the side without exploding! Damn, those new battleship hulls are good!
Don’t worry. B. Hussein Obama has promised he will stop development of “provocative” new weapons like this.
Beg to differ. I don’t think we lost any USN battleships built after 1938 (Iowa class and what else?) to torpedoes (the BBs lost to torps at Pearl Harbor were WWI era).
If any one believes battle wagons are going to make a come back.... they are smoking some thing and not sharing.
blech, I support dis-information to a degree but honestly the torpedoes of the future will be launched by underwater versions of the Predator, they will be using supercavitation propulsion or basically upgraded versions of an underwater high speed missile which has been used in recent years by other countries like Russia, the warhead though would be a limited range plasma sphere that can be pre-dialed in of varying diameter from less than one meter to as much as 50 meters, a plasma bubble would be hotter than the surface of the sun, produce no hazardous radiation and no shock wave other than creating secondary explosions.
A plasma torpedo can create a massive hole that removes hull plating completely not just by explosion. There is no far off fantasy of this, its been in R&D for years now.
The Indianapolis was a Heavy Cruiser, not a Battlewagon!
The Indianapolis was a heavy cruiser, not a battleship. In fact, the Indianapolis was a “treaty ship,” built under the restrictions of the 1922 Washington Naval Conference. Heavy cruisers were restricted to 10,000 tons. The Indianapolis was built for speed and lacked armor protection. No surprise that a pair of torpedoes put in her forward part while she was steaming at speed put her under in less than 30 minutes.
As for the battleships, they generally were able to take a pounding before going under.
After Pearl Harbor, the only American battleship struck by a torpedo after Pearl Harbor was the USS North Carolina, struck in the bow by a shot from I-19, the same spread that sank the USS Wasp. The “Showboat” steamed back to Pearl for repairs and continued to a brilliant war record.
The British lost a modern battleship (HMS Prince of Wales) and a WW1 vintage battlecruiser (HMS Repulse) to aerial torpedoes on December 8 off Malaya. Other than that, most battleships sunk were Japanese, and they either took a gunfire pounding (IJN Kirishima, by USS Washington; IJN Yamashiro by several older BB’s), or a combination of aerial bombs & torpedoes (IJN Yamato & Musashi).
One or two torpeodes, bombs or shells were usually not enough to kill a battleship, unless it was a “lucky hit,” such as scored by Bismarck on HMS Hood.
The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was a heavy cruiser (not a BB) commissioned in 1932, after the tests were completed. It was a “treaty cruiser” build under the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty (10,000 tons, 8 inch guns), and laid down before these tests were conducted.
Got any links to the “Plasma Bubble” warhead?
“Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte… just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb.
Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.
Didn’t see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you’re in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail.
What we didn’t know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week.
Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named “The Battle of Waterloo” and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and screamin’ and sometimes the shark go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark… he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be living… until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and they… rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour.
On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist.
Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us… he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened… waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again.
So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, July the 30th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”
i vote for misinformation. We don’t have any battleships in the active fleet BTW.
yeah...probably mean destroyers
Good point. Once again my flip response to a story is off the mark.
Check the date of the story. Sometimes I run out of character room in the title so I add "RT+70" instead of "Real Time + 70 Years." Sorry.
But Petronski usually sniffs it out anyway.
Another instance of the same typo: headline should read -70.
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