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 ships 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 oclock 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.
The article is seventy years old, but not properly labeled as such.
What a great book - couldn't put it down once I got going on it.
You can ask to be put on his ping list....
AHA!So the tests are successful,great news. Now I gotta fire up the Hudson and head out to the Pomano Alfalfa fields to look for those secret Japanese airfields!
Good one! At least your joke wasn’t a dud!
In the article, they "simulated" a torpedo blast by putting dynamite on a raft next to the test design.
I'm sure it was because they didn't was a real torpedo, um, a "live" torpedo, fired in the area just for safety, not because the easily available ones were made for the US Navy...
Hey everyone, the article is from 1938!
Is the MSM so ignorant of military matters that they think we still are deploying battleships?
The Indianapolis was a cruiser built to the 1920’s treaty standards. It had nowhere near the armor of a battleship.
Sheesh I missed that, I was really wondering why they were conducting tests like that in the river.
Wasn't she a battlecruiser?
(big guns, less armor, for speed)
Please add me to your ping list.
Thanks,
during ww2 hms barham was hit by one torpedo and blew up and sunk. hms royal oak at scapa flow took 3. both were ww1 era BBs.
hms hood was a ww1 era battle cruiser and doesn’t count.
kms scharnhorst was also a battle cruiser (battle of north cape 1943)
See post #19
My first ship was a heavy cruiser whose hull was built during WWII (1943). My GQ station was below the waterline, behind 16 inches of torpedo belt, armored deck overhead with immense hydraulic hatches. Incredible slice of history. Gettin’ in was easy. Gettin’ out...
He was hinting at the legendary unreliability of American torpedoes at the start of the war.
Yep. I’ve heard.
I believe IJN KONGO was sunk by torpedo. And IJN SHINANO, although an aircraft carrier, was built on the third YAMATO class hull, and was also sunk by torpedo [U.S.S ARCHERFISH?]
As I recall, no post Pearl Harbor battleship was ever hit by a torpedo, so we don’t know if the hull worked. We do know, based on James Cameron’s visit to BISMARCK that the British torpedoes [H.M.S CORSETSHIRE] didn’t sink him [Kapitan Lindemann refused to call BISMARCK ‘her’].
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