Military Mistakes

George said:
The mistake was deciding they were too expensive to fire in peacetime, a costly mistake.
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Is this not hindsight ?
And, if they were fired in peacetime,and the problems were revealed, would there have been sufficient time to solve the problem ?
And, how to solve the problem ? Improve the existing torpedoes ? Or to produce new ones if this was possible ?
 
The British Covenanter tank was used only as a training tank,after 1710 had been built . Was it possible before the war to know its deficiencies that would occur during the war ?
For the torpedoes: a lot of the problems were caused by magnetism in the Norwegian fjords .Was it possible to know this before the war by having more tests ?
The same for the Panther and Maus tank,who were developed/built during the war and revealed big problems when they were used in combat .
There is also the question of time : more tests would/will slow down the putting into use of new weapons .
 
Westland built a twin engined heavy fighter called the Whirlwind.A contemporary of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, it was the first single-seat, twin-engined, cannon-armed fighter of the Royal Air Force.

When it first flew in 1938, the Whirlwind was one of the fastest combat aircraft in the world and with four Hispano-Suiza HS.404 20 mm auto cannon in its nose, the most heavily armed. Protracted development problems with its Rolls-Royce Peregrine engines delayed the project and few Whirlwinds were built, if Rolls Royce Merlins had been fitted it could have been a very successful aircraft. During the Second World War, only three RAF squadrons were equipped with the aircraft but despite its success as a fighter and ground attack aircraft, it was withdrawn from service in 1943.

The designer of the aircraft was W. E. W. Petter, who went on to design the English Electric Lightning jet interceptors, which as a matter of disinterest I refueled at RAF Wattisham in 1970. An amazing aeroplane, which until recently flew at Thunder City in Cape Town South Africa
 
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lljadw said:
Is this not hindsight ?
And, if they were fired in peace time, and the problems were revealed, would there have been sufficient time to solve the problem ?
And, how to solve the problem ? Improve the existing torpedoes ? Or to produce new ones if this was possible ? For the torpedoes: a lot of the problems were caused by magnetism in the Norwegian fjords .Was it possible to know this before the war by having more tests ?
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Both the US and Germany had fuse problems that would have been detected with testing. The US fuse only worked at sharp angle, straight and slightly off straight on shots failed.
The German magnetic fuses failed in open ocean attacks. Their contact fuses also failed. The WWI contact fuses worked fine, but between Wars they became increasingly complex to the point of failure. Some at the time of discovery argued to just put the WWI design back in production, but a new one was designed instead.
 
George said:
Both the US and Germany had fuse problems that would have been detected with testing. The US fuse only worked at sharp angle, straight and slightly off straight on shots failed.
The German magnetic fuses failed in open ocean attacks. Their contact fuses also failed. The WWI contact fuses worked fine, but between Wars they became increasingly complex to the point of failure. Some at the time of discovery argued to just put the WWI design back in production, but a new one was designed instead.
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Was it possible in peace time to know that weapons would fail in war time and was it possible in peace time to improve these weapons so that they would not fail in war time ? It is questionable that testing in peace time would reveal shortcomings in war time .
And,one should also not exaggerate the results of the failure of German magnetic fuses in open ocean attacks. How many allied ships were saved by the failure of these fuses and how many would be lost if some of these fuses did not fail ?
If 100 fuses were used, how many did fail ?
 
lljadw said:
Was it possible in peace time to know that weapons would fail in war time and was it possible in peace time to improve these weapons so that they would not fail in war time ? It is questionable that testing in peace time would reveal shortcomings in war time .
And,one should also not exaggerate the results of the failure of German magnetic fuses in open ocean attacks. How many allied ships were saved by the failure of these fuses and how many would be lost if some of these fuses did not fail ?
If 100 fuses were used, how many did fail ?
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If we are going to discuss torpedoes I found this to be an interesting paper on the German G7a and G7e models.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1599&context=etd

It is a pdf file entitled: Wolves without teeth: The German torpedo crisis in ww2 by David Habersham Wright.

Hopefully the link will work.
 
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MontyB said:
Was it the Whiskey or Foxtrot class that was easy to find as they were generally surfaced while they put out the fires?
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I don't know. I remember a Yankee class surfacing in the mid Atlantic after a fire. I have seen the movie K-19 The Widow Maker. It was based on a true story (I haven't looked it up how true it was) But according to the movie, it was a fire and a reactor failure that caused the accident.

The US Navy suffered tragic submarine accidents as well. The USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher. When a submarine gets technical problems, the consequences can be severe. We saw it with the Indonesian submarine and the Argentinian submarine quite recently
 
lljadw said:
Was it possible in peace time to know that weapons would fail in war time and was it possible in peace time to improve these weapons so that they would not fail in war time ? It is questionable that testing in peace time would reveal shortcomings in war time .
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Apparently not actually tested. After receiving many complaints of solid straight on hits failing to detonate they started testing. I seem to remember seeing this in a film or movie where they hoisted a torpedo on a crane and dropped it on its nose, damage would have prevented detonation. They then took a sub and fired at a cliff face in Hawaii. Those fired at a fairly straight on angle failed, only those fire at low degree of angle detonated. They recovered the failed ones and found simular damage to the dropped one.
 
Dardanelles, WWI not replacing the reservist crews on the minesweepers with regular sailors before the attempt to force the straits by the R. N. Battleships.
 
George said:
Dardanelles, WWI not replacing the reservist crews on the minesweepers with regular sailors before the attempt to force the straits by the R. N. Battleships.
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Is that not hindsight ?
And, was it possible to replace the reservists with regular sailors ?
 
lljadw said:
Is that not hindsight ?
And, was it possible to replace the reservists with regular sailors ?
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mistakes usually are seen through hindsight. Should have left, say one of the obsolete battleships at base and used the crew to man the sweepers.
 
George said:
mistakes usually are seen through hindsight. Should have left, say one of the obsolete battleships at base and used the crew to man the sweepers.
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Was this possible and would the crew of the battleship do better at the sweepers ?
And if so,would this outweigh the loss of a battleship ?
Every proposal has two sides .
Other point : did some one propose this during the planning of the operation ?
 
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