Talk:Mark 14 torpedo

message: This weapon has a fascinating wartime history, and its problems in WWII are something worth telling and definitely something worth remembering in modern procurement, design, and maintenance.  
Can anyone confirm the withdraw from service date that I found?  I honestly can't find it again, although I have a reference stating that a phased withdraw began in 1975.  Ponches79 01:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, yeah, your "out of service" date looks right. I'd have said '79, for some reason. Have you got access to Friedman's Naval Weapons? It's got every USN system in it. I think Alden mentions it, too, in Fleet Submarine. (I'll have a look in Friedman's Design & Development at my local in the next couple & see, while I'm tracking down IJA's disbelief in the numbers of Marines at Guad...) Trekphiler 19:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Withdraw service date?

message: Only one gripe: page title should be XIV. Trekphiler 19:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice job on the page. Now maybe I can add from Silent Victory without my head exploding over the g*d*m stupid miserable b*st*rds behind the Mk14, including a Sub Force Admiral, no less, senior SOB Ralph Waldo Christie, who was on the design team & had an Australia command in the war & who should have been publically crucified. (And I don't even know an actual submariner!) Trekphiler 19:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Gripe noted, but the die was cast by someone before me. Note that the Mark 18 Torpedo page not only has Arabic rather than Roman numerals, it also has a capital "T". Perhaps it's time for all the torpedoes to be moved to standardized name pages. Binksternet 06:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, thanks for expanding the article with so much more detail. Nice work. Hope you don't mind my breaking up some of the more complex sentences containing multiple commas... Binksternet 06:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Blair makes it pretty easy, until you try to distill it into categories, rather than keep it chronological, as he does. No beefs with your fixes, generally; my grammar is a bit rough in first drafts... I did take out some of the detail, trying to keep only what's really relevant to the Mk14. And I only raise the 14/XIV issue (same would apply to 18/XVIII) because it's within the WP Weaps Project; maybe an appeal to that page can get this one moved to "Mark XIV". (Don't ask me how it's done...)  Trekphiler 19:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the 14/XIV issue isn't so important. Roscoe and Milford use the Arabic numerals. I don't have any kind of official document originals to see what the gov't called it but I suspect that both nomenclatures were used depending on which Navy department was involved. Binksternet 19:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, that was my bad--I started this article (it seemed like a big gaping hole to me) and my primary source was Roscoe's Pig Boats, and he used "Mk 14" rather than "Mk XIV."  Ponches79 05:15, 04 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Huh. Blair (Beach, too, IIRC) always used Roman. A matter of preference, I guess. Or previous experience. Leave the page alone, then. (I still think Roman is classier...)  Trekphiler 00:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mark 14 or XIV?

message: I took out the "acute angle" ref because it's not relevant there; if you want to mention Daspit (among others) stumbled on it, feel free. (I wouldn't, 'cause you risk getting a laundry list of those who did/didn't, & having to document them...)  Trekphiler 00:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Aren't you acute?

message: Article reassessed and graded as B class. --dashiellx (talk) 15:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008 

message: Given the fact that the flaws in this model of torpedo were virutally identical to hose faced by the German G7 series, (including the bureaucracy problem, although the German bureaucracy was more complex), would it be appropriate to combine the reliability problems into one article, such as "Weapon defects of WWII"? (Naturally, any other flawed weapon would belong in that article as well.)
LordShonus (talk) 10:09, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article? 

message: Fuel was not methanol but ethanol slightly denatured with dye and perhaps other ingredients; it was famously a source of drinking alcohol after being filtered through a loaf of bread.  See the wikipedia entry on Torpedo Juice, also <http://videos.mlive.com/citpat/2009/03/part_6_drinking_torpedo_alcoho.html>
Dbeierl (talk) 08:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It was ethanol at one point, but by WW2, the crews were warned not to do that, 'cause it was poisonous. Don't ask me where I read it, tho; it's been yrs....  TREKphiler hit me ♠  20:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What if it was a blend? Denatured? Binksternet (talk) 23:05, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Since I'm not entirely clear if denatured is poisonous, I couldn't say; I recall it as methanol & poisonous (& a specific mention of it being not the same as earlier, which I took to be ethanol), & I vaguely recall it being in O'Kane's Wahoo. Could've been Grider's War Fish, 'cause I think it was Wahoo in Q. (My local doesn't have either one, so if somebody with access cares to look... It'll take months for mine to get 'em in.)  TREKphiler hit me ♠  14:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torpedo fuel 

message: Is this article ready for WP:GAN? Binksternet (talk) 03:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Next step for the article 

message: In one place we say that Lockwood ordered the Mark 6 magnetic exploder deactivated in May 1943, and in another place we say it was July. Which is it? Rees11 (talk) 21:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch. The May date overstated the case (& IIRC, it means I boobed :( :( ).  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  21:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mark 6 deactivation date? 

message: In the Solutions section, the article mentions "Fife" twice, but it's unclear who this is. From this discussion page, I can see Fife was an officer, so perhaps the first reference to "Fife" should be changed to show his rank and full name?
Chris uvic (talk) 01:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've linked the men, but the text still makes no sense without more context. Can someone who has the sources at hand please fix this? Rees11 (talk) 02:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Done (I hope). Comes from knowing too much about it. Sorry, all.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  03:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fife & English 

message: Apologies if I just missed it in amongst the litany of Mark 14 problems and eventual solutions, but some mention should be made, in the interest of completeness, of the Mark 23 torpedo, the single-speed derivative of the Mark 14.172.191.102.185 (talk) 00:52, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mark 23? 

message: Where does Blair say that Jacobs could have been court-martialled? I can't find that on pp. 140-1. Or is that in Beach? Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Pulling a stunt like that is insubordinate, & does risk court martial. Confirm it in Beach if you want.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  02:38, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: So that's from Beach? What's the page number? Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Court-martial 

message: What's wrong with saying Jacobs "broke radio silence"? Blair uses exactly those words, and I think it's relevant. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:17, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The passage says "reported". IMO, that implies "broke silence". So does "risked detection"... (So does "Silent Service", btw.)  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura  02:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broke radio silence 

message: :File:Captain Theodore Westfall and Captain Carl Bushnell of the Bureau of Ordnance, inspect the Naval Torpedo Station's first Mk 14, 1943.jpg
This "inspection" photo has little point and the caption is misleading. I'd remove it. Looking at the source, Westfall took command in May 1942, and the photo is of the first Mk 14 produced at the new station. Mark 14s were in service before the war started, so it cannot be the first Mk 14. There is no indication that this photo is of a Mark 14-3 or Mark 14-3A or Mark 14-1A. The 1943 date (after August 1942) could be appropriate for the A suffix (improved depth mechanism), but the source does not tell us that. Glrx (talk) 16:10, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: With so many possible confusions, I'm removing it.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 20:23, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  The picture has been restored, but I'd still delete it. Rather than the Mark 14, the picture/caption seems to be more about the people in it. Westfall and Bushnell are not important figures in the article. (Bushnell might be interesting if he's related to Bushnell of the Turtle, but that is a stretch for this article.) The new torpedo station is not discussed in the article, and it seems peripheral here unless the new station is tied to the torpedo shortage problem. (The article claimed a peak production of 100 per day, but the production for all of 1944 was 7000, and average of less than 20/day). Glrx (talk) 16:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Westfall photo 

message: :File:TorpedoMotor.JPG
Above is a cutaway picture of typical torpedo afterbody. (Image says it's a Mark 13 (air drop), but it's associated with a PT boat (which would be a Mark 15).) In any event, the Mark 13, 14, and 15 shared components.  The picture shows the air flask on the left, the transmission/drive shaft, and the pendulum for depth control. Glrx (talk) 03:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: AFAIK, PTs never used the Mk XV; they used the Mk 8, later the Mk 13 (from drop collars). Either way, if it's an image of the Mk 13, it doesn't belong here; I'm less than sure the drive arrangements of the air-dropped fish were the same.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 05:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK. Glrx (talk) 16:09, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torpedo afterbody 

message: Article states: 
"The Bureau of Ordnance sent an expert to Surabaja to investigate, who set the gyro backwards on one of Sargo's trial torpedoes;"
But how can the Bureau of Ordnance send an expert to Surabaja when the city was under Japanese occupation?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.108.78.10 (talk) 16:36, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Surabaja didn't fall until early March 1942. Tyrrell Jacobs'  left 25 February. Blair ref. Glrx (talk) 16:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surubaja? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The section "Magnetic influence exploder and premature explosions" mentions a raid on Tokyo Bay. There's a reference cited, but there's no details (such as how many and which submarines participated) other than the date. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but the line "this daring raid is completely obscure and unknown by most people" makes me even more suspicious. Does anyone have any citations with more details? DonovanHawkins (talk) 19:30, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: You're definitely not paranoid! I've removed the info. The cited source was the only place on the internet that covered that "raid". Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Raid on Tokyo Bay 

message: The conversion from pounds to kilograms for the overall weight of the torpedo is off. The Mod. 0 torpedo is said to be 3,000 lbs, which the conversion says is 1,400 kilograms. Meanwhile, the Mod. 3 is said to have weighed 3,061 lbs, which is somehow converted to 1,388 kg. It is not possible for an increase of 61 lbs to result in an equivalent decrease of 12 kg. 3000 lbs should convert to about 1361 kg, and 3061 lbs should convert to about 1388 kg. 67.86.132.61 (talk) 16:09, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect conversion from lbs to kg.