Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCruise
OK. It sounds like as far as making any big time mods to Mk16 and the '68 campaign, we're more or less out of luck except for your seeker head mod. Unless there was a way to straight up just add the earliest version of the Mk48 to the campaign and have it show up at a certain date, I don't think I have anything else to add, except maybe making the Mk37 a wee bit faster.....say 30 kts tops. Unfortunately it probably isn't very historically accurate. I dunno, this is going way above my pay grade now, I think I'll shut up and let those of you smarter than me figure this one out.  
"CC"
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Not sure it would be practical to have it "show up at a certain date" as even a war lasting a few months is probably optimistic (high chance things would escalate out of control before then, or be cooled down before they got the chance to).
As for MK 37 improvements, there is actually quite a bit of truth to that. By 1968 the Mk 37C program was running at ?Nothrop/Honeywell? This basically started with a bunch of company engineers spit-balling (they had a good idea that the MK 37 didn't cut it anymore and the USN was trying to replace it) about ways to improve the Mk 37. What they came up with (aside from some solid-state guidance improvements) was to take the otto-powered propulsion from the Mk 46 light-weight torpedo and use that to replace the MK 37's electric motor+battery. What they arrived at gave roughly 2x the range and a top speed of 36 knots (out past 20,000 yards). The trouble is the test program on the 37C started in 1968 but went on into the 70s and finished up around the same time the Mk 48 entered service.
Its quite likely that the Mk 37C wasn't seriously pursued for fear that it could end up cannibalizing the Mk 48 program due to its cheaper cost and retrofit nature (the 37C was intended to be deployed in kit-form, so Navy personnel would use the kits to upgrade existing Mk 37s at base or even on tenders vs. sending the weapons back to the manufacturer). At the time (late 1960s) the defense budget was under-seige due to the massive expenses from the Vietnam war, had the 37C development been accelerated the Navy may have found themselves saddled with a "good enough in 1968" weapon vs the amazing improvements / capabilities brought by the Mk 48. Eventually the Mk 37C was developed as the NT-37 which was sold to a number of foreign allies as well as the USN.
The Mk 37C is featured in the Omitted American Submarines mod as available to most boats in the 1968 campaign.