The torpedo had long been the best way to let water into a ship, which is ultimately what was required to sink it, and it was clear from WWI onward that this would be a major weapon in the arsenal of the airplane. But early torpedoes were imposed strict limits on the speed and altitude of the dropping aircraft. Even in 1930, this was rarely more than 100 kts and 50'.

A flight of Swordfish torpedo bombers

By this point, it had became clear that the solution to the dropping problem would have to involve some sort of attachment to the torpedo to help keep it on course during its flight through the air. The idea seems to have originally been developed by the Norwegians, who fitted their torpedoes with an "air tail" consisting of wooden and canvas flaps that were operated by the torpedo's normal gyro mechanism and which separated on impact with the water. Most nations used some variant of this idea, often including both a wooden stabilizer and some method of roll control, all of which allowed greater speed and altitude, a process that also saw torpedoes strengthened to withstand the greater force of impact. The British, sharply weight-limited, were forced to drop an example of their torpedo at greater speeds until something broke, strengthen that thing, then repeat the process until the next thing failed. At the outbreak of war, the Japanese were probably the world leaders in this, with the Type 91 Mod 2, which had been subjected to extensive drop tests in the interwar years, capable of dropping from 330' and 200 kts. Read more...

It is time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

A reminder that our meetup in New England is coming up in 3 weeks. This is the last call for those of you who are thinking of attending. If you want to join the following people, see cool ships, and eat delicious food, sign up using this form:

• Bean and Lord Nelson
• Sam Chevre
• Hunter
• Ian Argent
• John Schilling
• Usea2b
• smd
• 2 Friedmans
• Shas'Ui + 1

Overhauls are A Brief History of the Destroyer, Shells Part 1, and for 2023 How many Bulbasaurs could fit on this ship? and my review of Pima.

Proposals for using the airplane to deploy torpedoes predate the outbreak of WWI, with the earliest prominent speculations coming from American Admiral Bradley Fiske, who took out a patent on the idea in 1912. The first actual drop took place in June 1914, although the anemic airplanes of the day meant that early tests were done with obsolete (and light) 14" torpedoes.

A Short 184, the first plane to conduct a successful aerial torpedo attack

The British were the first to use the aerial torpedo in action, deploying torpedo-carrying seaplanes to the Dardanelles during the Gallipoli campaign. The first successful torpedo attack was made on August 12th, 1915, although the target ship was already abandoned and aground. Five days later, a second attack managed to hit a ship underway, although the Turks successfully salvaged her. A second plane that had not launched its torpedo was forced down by engine problems, and after the pilot found that he couldn't get back into the air with his torpedo, he decided to taxi around until he could find a suitable target. He eventually located a Turkish tug and managed to sink it with his torpedo before taking off for home. Read more...

I was thinking of refreshing my "About" page, and thought that AI might be able to help. So I asked some. And while my framing is obviously silly, so are the results:

ChatGPT

Me: Tell me about the blog Naval Gazing

ChatGPT: Naval Gazing is a blog created and maintained by Mike Montiero, a designer, writer, and speaker. The blog primarily focuses on topics related to design, technology, and the intersection of the two. Mike Montiero is known for his insightful commentary and thought-provoking insights into the world of design and technology.

The blog covers a wide range of subjects, including user experience design, product design, ethics in design, design principles, and the impact of technology on society. Montiero often shares personal anecdotes and experiences, providing readers with valuable lessons and perspectives gleaned from his own journey in the design industry.

One of the notable aspects of Naval Gazing is its candid and often humorous tone. Montiero isn't afraid to tackle controversial topics or challenge conventional wisdom, making for engaging and thought-provoking reading.

Overall, Naval Gazing serves as a valuable resource for designers, technologists, and anyone interested in exploring the complexities of the digital world and the role of design within it. Read more...

First, a mea culpa. I misread the patch notes when putting the last post together, and it turns out that allocation is on a per-missile basis, not a per-salvo basis. This had surprisingly little impact on the overall number of leakers to be expected,¹ but quickly led me down a rather interesting rabbit hole that conclusively resolved a long-running question.

Figuring out how to most efficiently allocate beam weapons to avoid overkill has long been an issue in Aurora, although often masked in my experience by gross overkill in available PD systems. Back in the VB6 days, each fire control would only target one salvo, so you needed lots of fire controls. For the pre-2.2 C# versions, this was per-weapon/turret, which was better, but still meant that sizing turrets took some thought. The current system gets rid of all that, but also gets rid of the ability to just make sure there are no leakers by having enough systems available, or at least makes that a lot less desirable as a solution. Read more...

It is time, once again, for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

First, some sad news. Nathan Okun, probably the world's greatest expert on battleship armor and penetration, passed away back in January. His work is mostly up at Navweaps, although be warned that it's quite dry. I met him once when he came to visit Iowa, and he was rather bemused at how excited I was to meet him. Later, he checked over Armor Part 2. He will be missed.

Second, one last request for people to come to the meetup. It should be a lot of fun. Current attendee list:

• Bean and Lord Nelson
• Sam Chevre
• Hunter
• Ian Argent
• John Schilling
• Usea2b
• smd
• 2 Friedmans
• Shas'Ui + 1

Overhauls are Auxiliaries Part 5, NWAS Polaris Part 3, Nuclear Weapon Destructiveness, and for 2023, Cruiser-Killers and The Cod Wars.

Long-time readers will remember that 4 years ago, a new topic popped up on Naval Gazing. I started talking about Aurora, a free space-based 4X game where you design and build ships, as well as running an entire civilization. I've been a fan for a very long time, and there was recently a major update (v2.2, although this was based on 2.5) that made significant changes to missile warfare that I thought deserved analysis. We'll return to attacking ships soon.

Missile warfare, described in these three posts (read them first if you don't understand the old system and what to know what I'm talking about), used to be pretty simple, almost to the point of being solved. There was a little room for variation, but missile defense was entirely a matter of getting as many damage 1 shots out as possible, normalized for hit rate. Offensive missiles had a bit of flexibility, but even there, options were pretty much limited to tradeoffs between more damage and a lower chance of being shot down. A single hit would take out any missile, so you wanted to keep your missiles small. Read more...

Killing surface ships from the air was a major challenge during WWII. A number of different methods were tried, and while I've covered many of the unconventional ones at some length, the conventional methods also deserve attention.

Hiryu under attack by B-17s at Midway

The most basic method was level bombing, flying over the target at altitude and dropping bombs. This had the advantage of staying out of the range of lighter defensive weapons, and tended to be favored by interwar advocates of air power. Even the most optimistic realized that a single bomber wasn't likely to land hits, but the theory was that a reasonably-sized formation could drop enough bombs to land a few critical hits. Making this easier was the fact that high-altitude bombing was by far the most effective way to attack the deck of a battleship. Armor-piercing bombs dropped from high altitude could reach enormous speed on the way down, as shown in this table of altitudes at which various bombs would penetrate decks:² Read more...

It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't culture war.

As a reminder, the New England meetup is coming up in early May. The AirBnB is full, but anyone who wants to come can get a hotel room nearby. Currently signed up to go are:

• Bean and Lord Nelson
• Sam Chevre
• Hunter
• Ian Argent
• SoupPirate
• John Schilling
• Usea2b
• smd
• 2 Friedmans

Also, we have a request for travel funds from someone who would like to attend but can't afford to on their own. If you're willing to donate, send me an email.

Overhauls are Russia's New Nuclear Weapons - A Skeptical Look, Military Procurement - Pricing, Amphibious Warfare Part 5, Letters of Marque Today, and for 2023, my review of the museums at Fort Leonard Wood and Confederate Raiding Part 8.

After the recent post on NSM, I decided to take another look at missile defense in Command: Modern Operations. This is something I've done before, but Command has gotten updates since then, and there were some categories of missiles and ships that I didn't test back then.

To set the level, I re-ran the basic scenario, the 1991 (NTU) version of the missile cruiser California versus 16 P-20 Styx missiles fired from a bunker in Palos Verdes, Los Angeles.

A few things to note as a matter of model analysis. First, hit probability is down from 0.55 to 0.5, which probably accounts for the leakers that got through. Second, CMO has changed from shooting 2v1 to 1v1 in this case, although that mattered less than you might expect given that California was shooting at full rate through the entire engagement. Read more...