You don't really want to "hit" anything directly. You want the torpedo to pass and explode underneath the target. > The design for the Mark 6 exploder used in

You don't really want to "hit" anything directly. You want the torpedo to pass and explode underneath the target. > The design for the Mark 6 exploder used in the Mark 14 torpedo had started at the Naval Torpedo Station (NTS), Newport, in 1922. Ship's armor was improving with innovations such as torpedo belts and torpedo blisters (bulges). To circumvent these measures, torpedoes needed larger warheads or new technology. One option would use a fairly small warhead but was intended to explode beneath the keel where there was no armor. This technology required the sophisticated new Mark 6 magnetic influence exploder, which was similar to the British Duplex and German models, all inspired by German magnetic mines of World War I. The Mark 14 shared this exploder with the concurrently-designed surface ship Mark 15 torpedo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo