Quote:
Originally Posted by SaltiDawg
As Weapons Officer on a 637 in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I did everything to avoid carrying MK-16 Torpedos.
The Non-nuclear weapons of choice were the MK-14 against surface Targets and MK-37 With and without wire guide against submarines.
You are absolutely right about with the Soviets developing more Nuke Boats, the MK-37 became less attractive and less effective.
The MK-14, with all of its problems during WWII, was a reliable weapon in the 1960s-1970s.  |
Your thoughts and experience bring up some things I've been wondering about the Mk 16 torpedo. I can recall reading that the Mk 14 was planned to be fully retired by some time in the early 60s but ended up being kept in service even after the Mk 16s were retired, up until around 1980.
Specifically what I'm dying to know about the Mk 16 is if the circle-pattern running variant (not sure if it was given a Mod designation) was ever used in significant numbers / retained for very long past its development? I can remember reading an article that went back to the late 40s talking about evaluations which I think were done at the Newport torpedo station of the different pattern running mechanisms that had been used by the Germans and that the decision was made that due to complexity (amount of small precision-cut gears the thing would need) vs. affordability / mass-production considerations that it would be best to use a simple circle-running setting vs. the "legs" of the FaT, so that's what they ended up doing with at least some Mk 16s.