Actually, how do they get hit by torpedoes in the first place? They're standing on water, so unless there's something under their boots (which there isn't, since Ushio can stand on those cans) that is submerged, torps should technically just sail under them.
With those stilts on, torps actually have something to hit.
Actually, how do they get hit by torpedoes in the first place? They're standing on water, so unless there's something under their boots (which there isn't, since Ushio can stand on those cans) that is submerged, torps should technically just sail under them.
With those stilts on, torps actually have something to hit.
In the kancolle world, I would assume that the tops would all be altered to hit the enemies. So for our walking on water girls, the torps are made to blow up underneath a target either using a sensor or just a normal timer.
I'm guessing it works similar to a depth charge explosion - You don't need the torpedo to actually hit anything. The explosion and shock propagation is enough to damage anything above the surface.
Since most torpedoes either detonate through contact or proximity fuze, I'm guessing the normal anti-kanmusu torpedo would be set with proximity fuze.
In the kancolle world, I would assume that the tops would all be altered to hit the enemies. So for our walking on water girls, the torps are made to blow up underneath a target either using a sensor or just a normal timer.
Which never ever worked right during WWII (everyone who attempted proximity exploders ended up disabling the damn things when it became clear they were ineffective), so I suppose we can assume 99% of the torpedoes both sides fire at the other are duds...
Torpedoes in KanColle generally are portrayed to actually skip up out of the water when they get near their target (for that dramatic "explosive two inches from your face" look of "oh crap" before they blow up) so I suppose it's proximity-fused.
I'd generally say "don't think too hard about it", since this is supposed to be the future, anyway, but just technology that looks like the 1940s, but actually is more advanced.
Which never ever worked right during WWII (everyone who attempted proximity exploders ended up disabling the damn things when it became clear they were ineffective), so I suppose we can assume 99% of the torpedoes both sides fire at the other are duds...
The American ones worked fine once the submarine captains managed to convince their superiors that tuning them to the magnetic field in California before using them in the distant Pacific was a shithead idea. Problem is, that took a really long time.
Although the Allies snuffed at the Regia Marina capabilities, the Italians had a quite reliable magnetic pistol for their torpedoes. The efficiency of their submarines was hampered by the lack of adequate snorkels for diesel operations underwater, their profiles were so big they could be easily spotted in the clear Mediterranean waters, their commanders had to follow strict patrolling orders and the fact that Italian submarines didn't operated well in the "wolf pack" style, so they usually had to operate individually.
The Italian magnetic pistol was so reliable in fact, that the Germans adopted them and after Italy surrender, the Americans sent Prof. Carlo Carlosi (the inventor of the magnetic pistol) and Vice Admiral Eugenio Minisini of the Italian navy engineering service to the U.S. Navy Torpedo School at Newport, Rhode Island to further improve this technology for application to American torpedoes and develop countermeasures against the magnetic-triggered German torpedoes as well.
The American ones worked fine once the submarine captains managed to convince their superiors that tuning them to the magnetic field in California before using them in the distant Pacific was a shithead idea. Problem is, that took a really long time.
No they didn't, not even close.
Passive magnetic exploders were a complete bust and truly effective proximity fuses only really became viable with the introduction of sonar based versions on which more or less all modern "keel breaker" type torpedoes are based. The US, Germany, UK, and Italy all attempted to develop magnetic exploders and all quickly found them worthless and in fact counter-productive and had disabled them within about a year when combat began. Also you're simplifying the issue of local variance AND overestimating the knowledge base at the time. The magnetic exploder was cutting edge, understanding of geology much less advanced (Plate tectonics only accepted post war!), and the devices needed to take these readings and make adjustments less then portable and rugged.
Even once the fact local variances meant the fuses would need to adjusted to function at all was recognized it wasn't something that could be easily fixed. It's not like one could just sail up to the front lines and set up a large research base from which to take these readings and then start trying to adjust thousands of torpedoes, something you'd then have to do AGAIN any time the area of operations moved significantly. Which in a battlefield that spans something like 10,000 miles across is kind of a problem. There's also the fact adjustment of a passive exploder was difficult even WITH local date. The disturbance of even a large steel hulled vessel is tiny and the slightest error ends up with exploders prematuring the moment they arm or not detonating at all. Furthermore it's not a constant either the settings needed to assure an explosion with a closing or opening target is different due to the different relative velocity and depending on conditions could be so far a part that a setting intended for one is an automatic failure for the other.
There was effectively no way to actually produce a reliable passive magnetic fuse for a missile at the time, it was simply an impossible engineering hurdle. The fact everyone tried and everyone failed says as much.
The Germans would toward the end of the war try to fix this with a new electromagnetic fuse, but this was based on a fundamentally different principle. Passive fuses attempted to detect the tiny variance produced by massive ferrous objects in earth field, but this new fuse instead produced it's own magnetic field intense enough that when a conductive (read: metal) object entered it, it could detect the magnetic field produced by the induced current in the target object, and depending on the scale of this response distance could be roughly estimated. One might recognize this device from the description: it's the same one used on common handheld metal detectors.
THIS active fuse actually functioned roughly as designed and mounted on an acoustic homing torpedo was responsible for blowing the sterns off a number of vessels. This was the only magnetic fuse that ever really functioned properly because it was based on an entirely different principle. (That would've been impossible to do before the advances in electronics brought on by the war explaining the pre-war failures) This wasn't perfect either as an active system it announced it's presence when deployed and this mechanisms was potentiality vulnerable to jamming or deployment of highly conductive decoys to fool it into exploding early. This is probably why most modern torpedoes have gone to a sonar fuse.
LucasHidemiKomori said:
Although the Allies snuffed at the Regia Marina capabilities, the Italians had a quite reliable magnetic pistol for their torpedoes.
No they didn't, or at the very least it's extremely ambiguous.
They did develop a magnetic fuse, but it was restricted to an unusual caliber used by only three units really (torpedo boats, air torpedoes, one submarine). It's effectiveness however is basically unknown; English language Italian records about it seem basically non-existent, but by the time of it's known introduction in 1942 the Italian navy was effectively out of the war and so it was probably never really used in combat in any numbers (perhaps explaining the lack of records). One suspects given the results of EVERY other attempt, that if it had been they would have quickly discovered it was just as crap as all the other ones. The Italian's at least had torpedoes that ran correctly and a contact exploder that worked though and based on the very sparse reports it seems quite probable they just kept using those.
During the actual key naval battles of 1940-41 though ALL Italian torpedoes where contact fused without exception.
The Italian magnetic pistol was so reliable in fact, that the Germans adopted them and after Italy surrender,
The German adopted it in desperation since all their own attempts had been total failures, but based on the results it does not really seem to have been used in influence mode. Instead it was set to run for impact. If there was a suddenly massive spat of keel breakings in 1943 (when it came online) and into 1944 there would have been a ton of warranted alarm, but such incidents are no where to be found. By all indications it wasn't being used in influence mode, and or if it was it still wasn't working properly. (In my view the former is likely after the hideous experiences early in the war I doubt any U-boat captain was willing to risk the magnetic setting, and probably with good reason.)
The ONLY magnetic fuze that seems to have functioned semi-reliably was the late war German model described above that completely tossed the inherently unworkable passive system for an active one. The fact it was mounted to a homing torpedo made it even deadlier still, but this weapon appeared only in small numbers late in the war (well into 1944) and so like the wunder U-boats never really accomplished anything.
How do you wield the main gun, then?オー!Stilts!I thought of a new kind of fit-out. Like this, even the enemy would have a hard time hitting us with their torpedoes, wouldn't they?November 8thBamboo Dance!
