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"The advantages of human guidance throughout the craft’s trajectory proved to be of little use in practice, with kaitens causing minimal damage to the enemy" I

by pcurve 4y ago

"The advantages of human guidance throughout the craft’s trajectory proved to be of little use in practice, with kaitens causing minimal damage to the enemy" I wonder if it could've been more successful with more warhead

jandrese 4y ago
I don't think the issue is that they didn't do enough damage on a hit, rather that the mostly missed their targets. WWII torpedoes, even the relatively excellent Japanese versions, didn't have a good hit rate in the war. Steering with a periscope in choppy seas while managing ballast levels and in less than ideal conditions is incredibly difficult. While the crews were trained that training couldn't be too comprehensive as the Japanese training corps were already stretched thin and all training resources spent on these pilots are ultimately lost on their first mission. Even in the article the success they noted was against an anchored ship, something you are much more likely to be able to hit with a conventional unguided torpedo. There is also the environment of the war itself and logistical problems with these devices. The article notes that they can't be carried in a regular torpedo tube, so they had to be attached as a parasite on the top of the sub. But this prevented the sub from doing crash dives, which were vital to staying alive when allied fighters and bombers appeared overhead, which was a constant threat by the time these were available. They were just underdeveloped and then the war was over. Shortly after that people started working out self-guidance systems for torpedoes and the the book was forever closed on these man guided systems.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Not to mention the difficulty of gaining expertise in steering the kaiten system!
giva 4y ago
Italy had something similar, not designed to kill its own crew however. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siluro_a_lenta_corsa https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siluro_a_lenta_corsa
- schoen 4y ago
  The SLC doesn't seem to have its own page in English Wikipedia, but is covered in the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_torpedo which also includes some other countries' versions (it seems like the Italian SLC might have been the most-used of these).

by pcurve 4y ago

jandrese 4y ago

I don't think the issue is that they didn't do enough damage on a hit, rather that the mostly missed their targets. WWII torpedoes, even the relatively excellent Japanese versions, didn't have a good hit rate in the war. Steering with a periscope in choppy seas while managing ballast levels and in less than ideal conditions is incredibly difficult. While the crews were trained that training couldn't be too comprehensive as the Japanese training corps were already stretched thin and all training resources spent on these pilots are ultimately lost on their first mission. Even in the article the success they noted was against an anchored ship, something you are much more likely to be able to hit with a conventional unguided torpedo. There is also the environment of the war itself and logistical problems with these devices. The article notes that they can't be carried in a regular torpedo tube, so they had to be attached as a parasite on the top of the sub. But this prevented the sub from doing crash dives, which were vital to staying alive when allied fighters and bombers appeared overhead, which was a constant threat by the time these were available. They were just underdeveloped and then the war was over. Shortly after that people started working out self-guidance systems for torpedoes and the the book was forever closed on these man guided systems.

ethanbond 4y ago
Not to mention the difficulty of gaining expertise in steering the kaiten system!

giva 4y ago

Italy had something similar, not designed to kill its own crew however. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siluro_a_lenta_corsa https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siluro_a_lenta_corsa

schoen 4y ago
The SLC doesn't seem to have its own page in English Wikipedia, but is covered in the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_torpedo which also includes some other countries' versions (it seems like the Italian SLC might have been the most-used of these).