page_title: Mark 18 torpedo
section_title: Problems
hierarchical_section_title: Mark 18 torpedo / Development / Problems
caption_attribution_description: English: Mark 18 torpedo battery monoblock container. 1-Monoblock battery container. 2-Copper cell connector. 3-Assembled 6-cell battery unit. 4-Vent plug. 5-Negative cell terminal. 6-Plug. 7-Assembled cell group. 8-Outer negative plate. 9-Latex plate separator. 10-Positive cell terminal. 11-Individual cell compartments.
context_page_description: The Mark 18 torpedo was an electric torpedo used by the United States Navy during World War II. The Mark 18 was the first electric storage battery torpedo manufactured for the US Navy and it was designed primarily for use as a submarine-launched torpedo.
context_section_description: The batteries (provided by Exide) did not deliver hoped-for performance and gave off too much hydrogen gas (a fire hazard shipboard, and potentially lethal in submarines), and there were bugs in production, in part because of the fine tolerances necessary and the need to use unskilled labor. NTS, as usual, "offered no help", refusing even to pass on trial data. Trials, supervised by Commander Oliver G. Kirk (whose Lapon was sent to Newport to aid in testing in July 1943), aided by "Spike" Hottel (relieved from command of Grouper in October), did not go well. Eli Reich, Lapon's exec, described NTS's attitude as near to sabotage. Kirk and Reich drafted a scathing memo, which ended up on the desk of Admiral Lockwood, who took the matter to William H. "Spike" Blandy, Chief of BuOrd, who (after months of disparaging submariners over the problems with the Mark 14, and while still complaining he could not get a good project officer from Lockwood) agreed to push the Mark 18 ahead.
caption: The Mark 18 torpedo's battery monoblock container, each holding six plates
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