Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "The British Pacific Fleet - Foundations to First Strikes" video.

The Magnetic Influence Exploders - like Magnetic Influence Mines - would detonate when a large metal object - like a ship - would create a disturbance in the Earth's Magnetic Field. The problem was - that the Earth's Magnetic Field - varied in strength at different places. Sometimes it would set the torpedoes off to soon - other times it wouldn't set them off at all. The idea - was to use the MIE's to set off the torpedo - UNDER - the target - so - they were set to run below their targets. Thus - if the MIE didn't se the torpedo off - it was already set to run under the target - so the contact exploder wouldn't have a chance to work. The thing was - that IF the Earths Magnetic Field was the same at the location of the target - as it was where the torpedo was calibrated - THEN - it would work. As anyone who has ever tried to deal with intermittent problems knows - they are a real pain in the ass to figure out. The only thing really wrong with the British and German Torpedoes - was the Magnetic Influence Exploders. They figured out right away that these did not work. When Warspite entered the fjord where it would sink all those German Destroyers - it sailed right by a U-Boat that fired 4 torpedoes at it. All four of these Torpedoes detonated prematurely because of the MIE's. On the way out of that fjord - the same U-Boat fired another 4 torpedoes at it - with the exact same results. When he got back to Germany - the Captain of that U-Boat went into headquarters and was literally pounding on a desk with his fists screaming at the top of his lungs - that he would NEVER use those MIE's again. Not only had the Germans missed a chance to sink a British Battleship - but - that ship had sunk 10 of their destroyers. All because the MIE's had failed to function properly. They stopped using them. Once the British and Germans stopped using the MIE's - their contact exploders worked fine and their torpedoes ran at the depth they were set at. Sometimes the MIE's worked. One sub had a destroyer bearing down on it and fired a torpedo at the destroyer. The MIE worked and broke the Destroyers back. Getting a contact hit on such a slim target as the bow of a destroyer was not likely. The MIE saved that sub. Still, the MIE's were deemed much more trouble than they were worth. The Mark XIV's also had problems with their depth settings and their contact exploders. Having multiple problems served to cause confusion as to what was wrong. Sometimes they did sink ships with them. Sometimes they didn't. Entirely due to the independent initiative of local commanders - they gradually came to figure things out - all in the face of instructions from above - not - to do so. Another problem they had - was that one of their Submarine Fleet Commanders had been in charge of the Torpedo Facility that designed and built the Mark XIV's - and refused to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with HIS torpedoes - even after the other Fleet Commander had shown that there was. The Mark XIV's had been tested two times against an obsolete sub used as a target. They failed one of those times. So - the US went into WWII - with a Torpedo with a 50% failure rate in the only testing it got. The reason they were not tested further - was the Depression. The Navy didn't want to spend the money on further tests. For one thing - torpedoes were expensive and they didn't want to expend them on tests. This was a very poor decision. .
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Thanks. That was interesting. There were any number of ways and reasons for attacking the enemy. The Americans were focused on getting to where they could attack Japan Directly. Japan's Strategic Defensive Plan - was to create a series of Island Barriers - for Air Bases - that would screen Japan from being approached by enemy forces. The Americans were focused on penetrating those chains and capturing bases and anchorages from which to move on. One thing that the Allies wanted to do - was cut off Japan's supplies. Japan had launched the war to gain access to materials it didn't have. There were 3 ways to cut them off. Attack the Source of their Materials. Take bases astride their route home. Attack their shipping. The American Navy used submarines to attack their shipping. MacArthur took the Philippines. The British Empire attacked the Source. I knew a little about what the Australians had done but nothing about those carrier raids on the refineries. Thanks again. .
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One thing about the different militarizes involved - was that there were people in those militarizes that were very much aware of where things were strategically and where they might go. For one thing - the American Navy had repeatedly attacked Pearl Harbor itself during Fleet Exorcises. The Island was very well defended. It had the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions garrisoning it. It had Army, Navy and Marine airfields. It had 64 PBY Catalina's. It had 4 radar installations - one of which picked up the incoming raid from the Kido Butai. They had received War Warnings that Japan was going to attack us. The problem - was incompetence on the part of the military commanders and inexperience on the part of the men. The British had trained Americans on how to use Radar at a training installation in Panama. The operators knew how to use the equipment and coordination centers had been set up. They just didn't have experience using it all. The United States was completely unprepared for war in 1941 and suffered for it terribly the first year. .
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@UthurRytan The American Torpedoes were not the British Torpedoes - so - the things that were wrong with the American Torpedoes were not wrong with the British Torpedoes. They were two different pieces of machinery. The British Torpedoes only had one thing wrong with them - the American Torpedoes had three things wrong with them. The Germans didn't have to look at a captured British Torpedo to see what was wrong with theirs. The Germans and the British BOTH had problems with their Magnetic Influence Exploders - and they both solved their problem - by not using them any more. Each of them was able to figure out from their own experience what the problem was. Neither needed any help from the other doing that. Don't be an Anglophile Twit. The British had any number of things they did very well - and do not need help from Twits - claiming things they didn't do. .
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I should say - that all the other Combatant Powers were inexperienced when they started the war - it's just that by the time the US was involved - it's enemies had been at it for some time - and knew what they were doing. .
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