vincent p. norris wrote in message . ..
..... the IJNs Japanese Navy Long Lance Torpedo could manage 46
knots for about 22 knautical miles and 35 Knots for about 36 nautical
miles.

Impressive but is there even the slightest chance of hitting a ship
22 nm away?

The Type 93 or "Long Lance" had this 40,000 meter range. It was
however a large ship launched torpedo. The Type 95 was a reduced size
version of the "Long Lance" with a range of 12,000 meters designed for
submarine use. For giggles it is worth mentioning that the US Navy's
surface torpedoes managed about 5500 yards and their submarine
torpedoes about 1800 at this time.

I expect a spread of torpedoes were fired such that at extreme range 6
or 8 torpedoes would be distributed every 100 meters or so for an
600-800 meter wide hit window. Don't forget a ship is likely to be
between 100 to 300 meter long.

The Germans had torpedoes that could run various types of zig-zag and
circling patterns either aimed at individual ships or designed to run
through convoys. The patterns were becoming more sophisticated as the
mechanisms improved. So presumnably if the range measure was wrong or
the target evaded the torpedo it could turn around and have another
attempt.

The deadliness of the u-boats was due to their aiming computer which
could compute 5 simultaneous firing solutions on seperate targets.
Hit rates of around 80% were common.

A combination of German and Japanese technology would have been lethal
I expect though who knows how good the japanese torpedoe guidence was?

US torpedoes tended to be less accurate perhaps due to the use aiming
by sonar due to the visibility of the subs at periscope depth.

The German Type XXI u-boat had the an array sonar that was unusually
accurate and capable of ranging (and thereby plotting and evading
attacking ships) german hydrophones were based on passive arrays
electronicaly processed and distributed around the hull and were far
more accurate and sensitive than allied ones. Sonar ranging both
active and passive allowed the Type XXI to attack without use of
periscope.




vince norris