US TF.17 & US TF.18: USS Wasp & USS O'Brien

[Abbeywood.]

On the 12th September 1942, US TF.18 (Rear-Adm Noyes), comprising the 'carrier Wasp, cruisers San Francisco, Salt Lake City, San Juan and Juneau, escorted by destroyers of DesRon 12, (Farenholt, Aaron Ward, Buchanan, Laffey, Lansdowne and Lardner) reached as position south of Guadalcanal where Wasp flew off her aircraft to reinforce the Marine Corps air strength on Henderson Field.
On the 14th Sept' TF 18 joined with TF 17, (Rear-Adm Murray) which was formed with the 'carrier Hornet, the cruisers Northampton, Pensacola, and San Diego, with destroyers of DesRon 2, (Morris, Anderson, Hughes, Mustin, O'Brien, Russell and Barton). The intention of that force was to escort six transports from Espiritu Santo with the 7th Marine Corps Regiment re-inforcements for Guadalcanal. Later that day, reports of heavy Japanese submarine activity was received and the convoy was reversed.
On the 15th, IJN submarine I-19 was in position to fire a salvo of six 'Long Lance' torpedoes, three of which hit the Wasp, one just missed the Lansdowne and the other two reached TF.17, which was approx 5nm away, hitting both the North Carolina and O'Brien.
Fires and explosions led to the abandonment of the Wasp which was torpedoed and sunk by the Lansdowne.
While North Carolina was able to continue, O'Brien managed to reach the French port of Noumea where she was patched up to enable her to make her way to Pearl Harbour.
On the 19th October she suffered structural failure, breaking up and sinking off Samoa, (13-30S : 171-18E), her sinking witnessed by I-15 which was not in a position to apply a 'coup de grace'.
This must surely rank as the greatest range at which a ship has been sunk by torpedo, - 5 miles +, from firing position to target, although I don't think that O'Brien was ever an intended target. Call it luck, good, or bad, depending under which flag one was sailing.

[jainso31]

Hi Pete
Having read your post carefully-I understand that the O'Brien was in the screen
of TF17,when she was struck by a torpedo from I19; and badly damaged. She was however, able to get to Noumea to be sufficiently patched up, for her to proceed to PH- unfortunately she broke up and sunk en route.
Would be grateful if you would say where the 5nm came from, as none of my books; make a point of it ie. the travel distance of the torpedo.???
PS With a range over 20nm- I suppose it is not surprising for a Long Lance.
jainso31

[Abbeywood.]

Hi Pete
Having read your post carefully-I understand that the O'Brien was in the screen
of TF17,when she was struck by a torpedo from I19; and badly damaged. She was however, able to get to Noumea to be sufficiently patched up, for her to proceed to PH- unfortunately she broke up and sunk en route.
Would be grateful if you would say where the 5nm came from, as none of my books; make a point of it ie. the travel distance of the torpedo.???
PS With a range over 20nm- I suppose it is not surprising for a Long Lance.
jainso31

Hi Jim,
By crikey you're quick off the mark.
The Wasp, (the primary target ship) was part of Task Force 18 while both North Carolina and O'Brien were part of Task Force 17.
The two forces were sailing about five miles apart with I-19 on the outside of Wasp hence the distance from submarine to 'carrier plus the five miles to North Carolina plus, or minus, any other distance from N,Carolina to O'Brien. Suffice to call it 5 miles +, or 10,000 yards +,( 2000 yards = 1 nautical mile).
Pete'

[jainso31]

This particular episode warranted this criticism from CINCPAC who wrote:-
"The torpedoing by submarines of four warships,with the loss of two of them, ,was a serious blow that might possibly have been avoided. Carrier Task Forces are not to remain in submarine waters for long periods;should shift operating areas frequently, and radically must maintain a higher speed; and must in other ways improve their tactics against submarine attack."
The wry humour that christened the waters between San Cristobel and Espiritu Santo as "Torpedo Junction" can hardly have appealed to USN Chief.:o
PS. the Type 93 's max. best Performance was 11000m, 5.9nm at 42 ktsI.WIK
jainso31

[jainso31]

After further study- I have come to the conclusion that the furthest strikes on Allied warships were byType 93 Long lance torpedoes launched at 10-11nm in 1942,when these ships were closing to their own torpedo range of 5-6nm.
These instances, such as in the Java sea battles, were put down to either sea mines or submarines.ref. Wiki

jainso31

[Keith Enge]

Japanese submarines didn't use the Type 93 torpedo, the long lance was solely used by surface ships and not all surface ships with 24" torps had the oxygen version long lance. The long lance had four different speed settings with four different corresponding ranges. Its highest speed was 50 knots for about 20,000 yards. The slowest setting (still faster than the maximum speed of many other navy's torpedoes) was 38 knots for about 44,000 yards. Note that some of this maximum range is basically wasted; cruisers and destroyers can't visually see equivalent sized targets at much more than 30,000 yards under ideal conditions.

Most of their submarines had Type 95, a reduced scale version of the Type 93. Its diameter was only 21" and weighed about 60% of the long lance. Its warhead, however, was still about 90% as large as that of the long lance. It could afford this disproportionally large warhead because much less of the torpedo was devoted to the oxygen flask because the maximum range was much less, only about 15,000 yards at 46 knots. A longer range would have been worthless because the horizon isn't very far away through a periscope. In surfaced attacks, you can see a bit further but Japanese subs made few surfaced attacks; their large silhouettes, including often an aircraft hangar, made surfaced attacks less than optimal.

[jainso31]

Keith- did you read post 4 in which I gave, what Wiki stated was best range and torpedo speed for best results. Do you agree/disagree??

jainso31

[Keith Enge]

jainso31 - I read post #4 but didn't understand it. As I said, subs used Type 95, not Type 93. Also, the speed/range combination didn't match any setting that I have seen for either torpedo. "Best performance" setting is a conditional concept. You should use the highest speed whose range will reach your target; this gives the target less time to change course and/or dodge. The only time that you may choose a slower speed (and more range) than that is if you want a "browning" shot. This is a torpedo spread that has more than one target, you want the misses on the primary target to continue on to threaten ships beyond. This doesn't apply in this case. There is no indication that I.19 knew that there was another US task group five miles beyond Wasp.

My Japanese torpedo data is from John Campbell's book, "Naval Weapons of World War Two", with confirmation from other sources such as Lacroix and Well's comprehensive book on Japanese cruisers.

[jainso31]

I never said that submarines used Type 93, but it was suggested in in the text of something unrelated to the thread.
I do accept that optimum range and torpedo speed should get the best results
I merely quoted what WIKI said -be it rubbish or otherwise; because I did NOT know any better.
If the Wiki quote is rubbish -then amen to that. I have to admit that I was trying to understand about the original statement being a record.

jainso31

[Keith Enge]

jainso31 -

I'm not sure what was meant about the record. However, if he meant that it was the longest range torpedo hit, he is incorrect. Just off the top of my head, I can think of one much further. Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro fired a spread in the battle of Java Sea that got a hit on the Dutch DD Kortenaer; she exploded and sank. The spread was fired when the closest Allied ship (Electra) was 26,700 yards away (Kortenaur was about 3000 yards further) and traveled for 18 minutes and about 23,000 yards before hitting Kortenaer. The distance traveled was shorter than the firing range because the Allied force was closing with the Japanese. Like I said, there may have been a longer ranged hit. At Empress Augusta Bay, US DD Foote was sunk by a torp that had traveled 21,000 yards.

Maybe, he meant a record for a submarine torpedo. If so, he might be correct there. Most submarine torpedoes had maximum ranges of under 10,000 yards and most were fired at close ranges, around 1000 yards. However, late in the war, German U-boats had great difficulty penetrating the perimeter of convoy escorts. They, therefore, often fired very long range spreads from outside the perimeter. The non-electric variety of German submarine torps was capable of about 15,000 yards but only at the very slow speed of about 30 knots. These long range spreads basically just targeted the convoy as a whole and some U-boat commander probably got lucky at ranges more than that of I.19 but I doubt if documentation exists. With the great Allied ASW capability at that time, U-boats didn't have time to stick around and confirm their kills.

[Don Boyer]

The type 95 torpedo used by Japanese submarines was not of the "Long Lance" size, of course, but it was oxygen/kerosene powered like the Long Lance. One source lists it as 9850 yards at 51 knots and 13,100 yards at 47 knots, although it doesn't state where these figures came from, like many "number games" in wartime, there are a wide variety of statistics out there and their reliability is always subject to question.

One thing for sure, a salvo of torpedoes that accounts for an aircraft carrier and a destroyer and sends a battleship home for repairs is an outstanding piece of shooting in anyone's navy (regardless of what was actually being "aimed at" at the time) and fully merits the credit assigned. No Japanese submarine even came close to doing as well.

[jainso31]

I agree with your sentiments Don-it all started out as "is this a record kind of query" and as you say it was a remarkable feat in anyone's language. Last sentence did you really mean "No Japanese submarine even came close to doing as well".

jainso31

[Keith Enge]

The original post said it must "rank as the greatest range at which a ship has been sunk by torpedo" so I thought that we were talking about range records. If we are talking about other types of records, how about Archerfish. She fired six fish, getting four hits that eventually sank the largest ship ever sunk by a sub, Shinano, Yamato's sister ship converted to a carrier. If you want a number of ships sunk by a single salvo, I would propose Fubuki in the battle of Sunda Strait which sank four ships with a nine torp salvo. Of course, they were her own merchant ships anchored near shore, hit after the spread missed their intended targets of cruisers Houston and Perth.

[jainso31]

Yes Keith- that is what this thread was about originally-range; but as you now know, it got lost and wandered into the type of torpedo unfortunately.As you point out there are some remarkable "strikes" in WW2; including those you have just mentioned.
At what range did Archerfish fire her six fish to get four hits that sank Shinano?
as a matter of interest.(sentence juxtaposed)

jainso31

[Keith Enge]

According to Archerfish's official patrol report, the spread was fired at 1400 yards. However, this comes with a caveat. The range through a periscope was estimated by how large that the target appeared. With Shinano being larger than anything that they had ever seen before, she may have been a bit farther away than that. This, however, is purely a guess on my part but they did estimate her tonnage at 28,000 tons rather than her actual 64,800 tons.

[Don Boyer]

Jainso: Yep -- Japanese, but on the other hand, as you were probably suggesting, no submarine period did as well in a single attack against purely naval targets that I can think of. The WWI battle that pitted U-9 vs. Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue, is the only comparison I can find, but of course that was a series of three attacks. I would hand Tang the record for targets hit per single salvo though...six torpedoes took out four merchantmen in the attack south of Nagasaki, which is 100% any way you look at it.

[jainso31]

Keith /Don much obliged for the data on record of torpedo sinkings by submarines in wartimes.there is much disparity in all aspects ie.range ,spread,targets etc.

jainso31

[Keith Enge]

jainso31-

No problem. The questions about various submarine attack can never really be resolved, especially if they occurred while at periscope depth. A sub's knowledge of the ships that they were attacking was minimal. Identities were sketchy while courses, speed, and range all had to be estimated during a brief look or two through the periscope. The field of view of a periscope was small and, to prevent detection, you couldn't raise the periscope very often or very long.

Even more unknown is the fate of many subs including date, position, method, and killer. Many times, the only evidence that the attacker had was that they couldn't find the sub anymore. Other times, subs simulated death by releasing debris, air bubbles, oil, or whatever. We will simply never know the truth behind many of the times that a sub didn't return from patrol.

[jainso31]

Oddly enough Keith,the ship my father served in during the period July 1940 to July 1942 was the FC corvette ANEMONE; and she was credited with the sinking of the Italian Uboat NANI in Jan.1941 by five depth charge attacks.
The evidence used was a) she had sunk in 800 fathoms; and there was no Asdic signal and b) intercepts of messages from Uboat HQ- all of which which went unanswered.

jainso31