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Very much feeling like an extended article from "Warship," which is understandable as this monograph comes from the same publisher, the author is to be complimented on how he has teased out so much information on a vessel whose purpose and capabilities were kept very much kept in the shadows. As for what those purposes were, first and foremost "X.1" represented an exercise by the Royal Navy to prove to itself that they could build a submarine cruiser that wasn't more of a threat to its crew than to the enemy and, from that perspective, "X.1" was very much a success. As for why there were no follow-on units that comes down to a number of reasons, over and above her bad engines; it turns out that a "straight-eight" is just a bad configuration for a diesel. The issues seem to relate to the RN being unsure that it wanted to ignite a submarine cruiser building race and, it would seem, that the average RN submarine officer was dubious about fighting it out on the surface with even the weaker escort ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy (the intended target of "X.1").… (lisätietoja)
 
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Shrike58 | Jul 4, 2020 |
Does indeed cover the breadth of torpedo history, including torpedo launch platforms, torpedo countermeasures, tactics, and operational history. Manages to do so without being breezy; in fact, the depth is fairly impressive.

Oddly, my initial reaction was unfavorable. That's because about ten pages in, I found myself reading about Japanese suicide motor boats (in some detail) and was left with the impression of a spotty, breezy work. Checked the table of contents and discovered that the book was almost entirely organized by topic rather than chronologically, and torpedoing by ramming was an early topic, so it actually made sense to discuss the Japanese suicide boats there. Only I should be more careful; only the Navy version was deliberately suicide. The Army version called for the crew to drop a couple of depth charges next to a target then skedaddle, with a theoretical chance of getting away. This rarely worked in practice.

Lots of good photographs and illustrations I hadn't seen elsewhere, including shots of the dished-in but unruptured torpedo bulkhead on USS Nevada from its single torpedo hit a Pearl Harbor, and a fairly impressive shot of the guts of a small tube boiler spilled by a torpedo hit. (What's impressive is that the ship was successfully kept afloat and towed to a dry dock for the photograph to be taken.)

Surprises? I did not know that a number of British ships of the Second World War were fitted with defensive sonar meant to detect a torpedo in time to take evasive action. I did not know that fear of coal dust explosion after a torpedo hit was one reason the Royal Navy switched to oil. I did not know the Japanese had devised an air-dropped antisubmarine torpedo using a descending circular run; in fairness, neither did U.S. submariners, since it was deployed far too late in the war to matter. I did not know that G.E. had skimped on the usual robust design in its electric torpedo motor, in order to make a powerful enough motor fit in a torpedo casing, on the theory that if it sparked constantly and badly overheated during a torpedo run, well, no one much cared that this eventually damaged the motor. (Except in practice runs, and a conscious decision was made that the motor could be replaced or refurbished after each test shot.) I did not know that the Russians developed a Cold War torpedo that was essentially an underwater rocket moving at 200 knots; of course, terminal guidance was a bit of a problem.

I think a lot of the crowd here would quite enjoy this book.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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K.G.Budge | Aug 8, 2016 |

Tilastot

Teokset
5
Jäseniä
70
Suosituimmuussija
#248,179
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.7
Kirja-arvosteluja
2
ISBN:t
19
Kielet
1

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