Type 93 Long Lance Torpedo - Long Range Hole Poking Device

[Music] the japanese navy's fascination with exceptionally large and powerful torpedoes went back a fairly long way pretty much to the start of torpedoes as a serious weapon back in 1900 the japanese navy had commissioned a monster 27 and a half inch diameter torpedo this at the time when a an 18-inch torpedo was considered a heavy shipboard weapon and most navies carried smaller weapons than that during the 1900s and 1910s further torpedoes at a slightly more pedestrian 24-inch diameter had also been ordered but the early models were whitehead torpedoes manufactured in fiume and as with so much naval technology japan was looking to bring this capability within its own domain japan's own first attempt at a native built torpedo was the 24-inch year eight torpedo which was made in 1919 and a creditable effort for the time with a range of about 11 000 yards a top speed of 38 knots and a fairly powerful 750 pound warhead they also started work on an electric torpedo of 21 inch diameter for use in their submarines starting at the beginning of the 1920s the reason for all this innovation was that the effects of torpedoes over the past couple of decades on various ships in a number of conflicts combined with the knowledge that their main rivals out at sea would almost certainly outnumber them had driven the japanese navy to seek multiple ways to level the playing field so to speak and the torpedo seemed to be one of their best hopes to this end not only would they press on with torpedo development in general but they would also conduct the widest range of live fire torpedo exercises in the interwar period expending old warships at a fairly prodigious rate in order to try and determine the best way to attack a ship with torpedoes the year 8 weapon was followed towards the end of the 1920s by the type 90. this had a slightly larger warhead somewhat shorter range but had bumped up its top speed to 46 knots now they would move on to the next stage of development back in the 1910s the japanese navy had briefly looked at running a torpedo with an oxygen enriched fuel mixture the advantages of more oxygen were obvious and non-electric torpedoes needed to burn fuel to drive their engine and electric torpedoes simply didn't have the power or the speed to go as far or as fast as the japanese navy needed them to of course being underwater a torpedo has no access to the open air and so the fuel will only burn as long as oxygen within the torpedo holds out most torpedoes solve this problem by supplying the engine with compressed air but this held a couple of problems as regular air is only 21 oxygen meaning that 79 of said compressed air is useless and will simply be vented as a hot gas along with any combustion products from the burning of the fuel this would then lead to a train of bubbles that were something of a dead giveaway of a torpedoes presence and the limited amount of oxygen within the compressed air also limited the torpedoes range more oxygen would mean fewer bubbles as there was less exhaust gas more burn time as there was more oxygen to burn with the fuel and a more complete and energetic combustion of the fuel all of which would allow a torpedo that was equipped with an enriched oxygen mix to travel further faster and stealthier one japanese officer later to reach a rank of admiral and surnamed oyagi spent some of the middle years of the 1920s at the whitehead torpedo factory in england here he heard of the large 24 and a half inch diameter torpedoes being made for the nelson class battleships these weapons were rumored to use pure oxygen along with their fuel in fact they used an oxygen enriched air mix which gave some of the advantages of a pure oxygen mix without many of the problems and risks associated with producing and storing 100 or near enough of pure oxygen but either way on his return to japan oyagi was assigned to the team that would produce the world's first production torpedo to run on a mixture of kerosene fuel and 100 pure oxygen there were so many hazards that the team had to overcome at the time oxygen production relied on a cryogenic process that left everything around it extremely cold and brittle and thus accidents could and did happen and if high concentrations of oxygen got out one tended to find out the hard way that oxygen loves to react with anything it can get its molecules on in the case of the torpedo contact between the oxygen and the lubricants of the mechanisms could cause an immediate explosion even if the lubricants were completely static and neutral in normal air and it turned out if you just dumped pure oxygen and kerosene into the combustion chamber the torpedo would travel at fairly high speed just instantaneously in all directions at once disassembling itself and any nearby people with considerable enthusiasm explaining that this was entirely unacceptable behavior for a torpedo that was designed to smite the emperor's enemies would didn't really tend to work out that well since they hadn't yet invented the machine spirit and in any case working out which bit of the torpedo you were supposed to talk to or possibly scrape off the wall was somewhat difficult once it decided to launch a several hundred meter search into the realm of the honorable ancestors there was also the minor issue of the torpedo thus being something of a safety hazard should it ever be hit or damaged while still aboard the parent ship in combat assuming that it didn't take it upon itself to detonate for some random reason like an oxygen leak the fuel mixing with the oxygen problem was at least solved by introducing a small bottle of compressed air this would start the engine running in a somewhat more conventional manner and once the reaction and the engine was running smoothly feed would transition over to the main oxygen tank after much work by the year 2593 the torpedo was ready and it was thus dubbed the type 93 torpedo in the western world this corresponded to the rather less futuristic sounding year 1933 in order to maintain secrecy even amongst most of the crews aboard the ship that would use it the oxygen tank was simply named secondary air tank with the initial starting tank being labeled first air tank that much at least was true this combination meant that the engine would purr along at a steady 520 horsepower or about as much as a high and sport saloon car or some of the more common full-on sports cars this was more than double the power in the british torpedoes of the nelson class and still more than 50 percent greater than that provided by other much newer weapons that other countries were developing this would all give the weapon a top speed of 49 knots this was relatively fast for torpedo of the period but not massively faster than some others but unlike those weapons which could sustain high speeds in the 40s of knots in short bursts the type 93 whilst still being somewhat faster than them it could keep on trucking right out to 22 000 yards at a more mundane 36 knots it would run twice as far with its near 1100 pound warhead for the first time in the dreadnaught era a nation had a torpedo that could legitimately be fired not only beyond the practical range of enemy guns but also beyond the absolute range limits of practically any battleship gun then in service at least in the slower speed setting whilst also being near invisible due to the almost complete absence of exhaust gases this alone addressed one of the biggest problems of torpedo-armed warships the need to get inside the enemy's ability to shoot you before you could shoot back in order to ensure that there was absolutely no chance of accidental oxygen leakage the air flasks would be made from single steel billets that were fed into a 4 000 ton press with the front end held in place with a copper band that relied on the internal pressure of the flask to keep the seal tight the only downside to this was that the 24-inch type 93 was far too large to be carried in any significant numbers if at all in the japanese navy's submarine fleet thus a sub-variant the 21-inch diameter type 95 was designed that used the same fuel system and could hit the same speeds but at top speed the range was only about 10 000 yards and the warhead merely just under 900 pounds although this would be increased to over 1200 pounds mid-war there was a small design flaw in the submarine version though the regular air tank would often leak likely a product of the changing pressures aboard the sub as it dove and surfaced repeatedly which meant that the electric type 92 the final end product of the work that had been started back in the early 1930s was also brought into production to serve alongside it there was also a third variant produced the even smaller 18 inch diameter type 97 which was to be used by the [ __ ] submarines assigned as part of the pearl harbor attack force like the type 95 though the first air flask was prone to leakage and so the use of this model was rapidly discontinued in favor of a revised model that used the main flask on its own with an oxygen enriched air mixture instead of pure oxygen this meant less performance but it also meant the primer flask could be eliminated entirely which improved reliability the importance of the vital characteristics of the type 93 cannot be overstated when it comes to fulfilling a very specific role within the japanese kantai kesen battle doctrine as you will have seen in the video on that particular subject the japanese battle doctrine of the time revolved around launching massive torpedo attacks to wear down an enemy fleet before the final engagement one of the major problems with this using more conventional torpedoes was that the necessarily limited and potentially outnumbered japanese destroyer and cruiser force would have to get well within range of the firepower of not just the battleships but also the enemy fleet screen in order to deliver their torpedoes in a manner that might score a decisive blow and more conventional torpedoes were generally slower even over these much shortened ranges which would give even something like a standard type battleship plenty of time to get out of the way with the type 93 though and especially considering that a lot of japanese battle tactics relied on a knight attack it was entirely possible to launch a long-range torpedo strike with dozens if not hundreds of torpedoes at a range where in the era before radar the enemy might not even see you coming and so in theory the enemy battleline would be sailing merrily along at a reduced speed on a very fixed and predictable the wiser to anything bad going on outside of its limited visual radius that goes as far for the escorts as much for the battleships until suddenly everything started exploding the relatively long travel time that would be involved since the torpedo would have to be fired at its slightly slower speed setting would allow the japanese cruisers and destroyers to engage one of the other innovations that had been placed upon them along with the type 93 torpedo which was the ability to reload their torpedo tubes now granted any ship technically has the ability to reload its torpedo tubes in this period albeit that it be is a very long complicated and dangerous process but the japanese ships were specifically designed for this so not only did they have a specific area to carry reload torpedoes they also had specific systems designed to relatively speaking rapidly reload their torpedo tubes so having dispatched your long range wave of torpedoes and hopefully blown either big chunks in the enemy fleet screen or in the enemy fleet itself or ideally both the japanese ships would be able to close in in the middle of the confusion in the chaos and lob a second wave of torpedoes presumably at the much higher speed setting at slightly closer range in order to finish off damaged and crippled ships and put even more ships in either desperate peril or right on the bottom the fact that these torpedoes could also be launched beyond the range of practically any other torpedo would make it very likely that the enemy might miss those particular launches especially if the japanese destroyers and cruisers which probably would have been spotted at this point were also blazing away with their main guns and of course it allowed the relatively fragile destroyers and to be honest relatively fragile cruisers to engage in gunfire tactics at a range where they might not immediately be plastered by every single gun a potential enemy fleet was carrying and by a potential enemy fleet let's face it the japanese were planning to fight the americans and the americans are known for having a lot of guns indeed without the development of a weapon like the type 93 a good chunk of japanese 1930s battle doctrine makes very little sense because with a more conventional torpedo armament virtually anyone who was trying to war game out the scenario would realize that without the absolute pinnacle of good luck on the japanese side and probably a significant helping of incompetence in terms of night spotting by the enemy fleet screen any attack using a more conventional weapon would have to get in past the fleet screen before launch which in turn would almost certainly mean they were spotted which would bring them under fire which would also alert the enemy to the fact they might actually be launching torpedoes and so any massed torpedo wave attack whilst it would probably still do damage would be relatively unlikely to score the kind of crippling damage that japan needed for its outnumbered battle fleet to take on what was left by sunrise the sheer size of the long lance also as you might have gathered allowed it to carry a very large warhead and this was also quite significant not only did the type 93 itself have a considerable boom to it but even the type 95 while smaller did have a somewhat above average warhead size the reason that this was important was that newer ships of course were being designed with anti-torpedo defenses but older ships were also generally being refitted with bulgers and other anti-torpedo defenses but of course all of these were being rated against the more typical 21-inch torpedoes and in some cases even 18-inch torpedoes that everybody else was carrying and of course with their smaller warheads one could test the system and say yes this is fine this battleship will resist this firepower and indeed it would it's just a shame that that torpedo wasn't the torpedo your enemy was going to fire at you if your enemy was the japanese navy and if a warhead could overwhelm a ship's torpedo defensive system then a ship could sink in a disturbingly rapid fashion the reason a lot of world war ii warships not all but many that would either survive a torpedo strike or perhaps take a long time to go down was because their torpedo defense systems either fully or usually partially absorbed a good chunk of the energy of the torpedo's detonation a warhead carrying the unexpected explosive power of a type 93 would instead leave all these refitted or modernized ships potentially looking pretty similar to the pre-dreadnoughts that have been hit by torpedoes and mines in world war one i.e going down going down quickly and going down rather irretrievably but the japanese were not content to just rest on the laurels of the first iteration of the type 93 the speed of all japanese navy torpedoes would be improved in 1940 and bear in mind the japanese were still not at war at this point when an italian innovation was introduced a streamlined torpedo head that didn't cause stability issues replacing the blunter heads of the original design and this gave the type 93 a 2 knot speed boost tipping it to just over 50 knots when at full speed in favorable conditions the secrecy inherent to the project was maintained so well that between this and the japanese navy's main opponent firmly of the belief that what they described as small inferior yellow men could not possibly actually innovate the allies would generally remain entirely ignorant of the type 93's true capabilities along with such a wonderful intel tell evaluations such as claiming that japanese navy officers would be unable to see in the dark on account of their slitted eyes the us was actually supplied with the full specs of a type 93 torpedo in 1940 along with the changes in battle doctrine that the japanese navy had undertaken as a result of having it that ever helpful organization the bureau of ordinance declared officially that the entire document had to be a fake document and the weapon was completely impossible because neither the united states nor the united kingdom bjord declared had yet mastered such technology and thus it was entirely inconceivable that japan had done so ahead of them one wonders just how many allied lives might have been saved if someone in power had well either taken that report seriously or told bjord to cram it and let them read the report for themselves but as it was the various allied powers went to war under the belief that the type 93 was a somewhat fast but somewhat short-ranged torpedo compared to their own weapons and so when early naval battles broke out allied ships would sail steadily in a straight line to achieve a better gunnery solution confident in being out of range of anything but enemy shells this obviated the one problem with the long range of the unguided type 93 namely the need for the enemy not to change course when combined with the fact that most japanese navy ships did carry reloads as was held for in the cantaikes and the japanese cruisers and destroyers were all too happy to salvo off their torpedoes at around 20 000 yards and then set about reloading just in case a follow-up spread at closer range was needed as a result during the short-lived series of battles that put paid to abda command the cruisers java deroyeta exeter perth and houston as well as the destroyer courtney tener would be hit by type 93s and in most cases sunk directly as a result the large warhead having a rather shattering effect capable of overcoming pretty much any torpedo defense system it encountered on these small and medium-sized ships with absolutely no idea of what happened the allies wrote off the losses as either being caused by mines or even by japanese submarines that were somehow cooperating with the japanese surface ships and had somehow managed to close in unobserved during the action ironically a feat of coordination in fleet submarine work which the japanese had desperately wanted to achieve but in common with every navy since the development of the k-class and the german attempts to ambush the grand fleet emerging heading off for the battle of jutland had in fact completely failed to do and would continue to go on to fail to do during most of the war as the war progressed the type 93 would go on to account for or assist with the destruction of six more cruisers 10 destroyers and one aircraft carrier the hornet even in engagements where its huge range wasn't that useful the high speed the lack of wake and the larger warhead was still a lethal combination albeit at the time the type 93 would go on to be the central star of the most spectacular team kill of the war when the cruiser mugabe fired a salvo of six type 93s at the cruiser uss houston missed but with their long range their torpedoes quite happily motored on and blew up four friendly transports and a minesweeper yeah not such a good day there were a few other problems that were also showing up in the japanese navy's inventory though both the torpedo itself and the way it was used was causing problems the type 93 required a small oxygen plant board to top up the tanks and it was also of course charged with pure oxygen if the flask was damaged by enemy fire even splinters from near misses or hits elsewhere in the ship then the best case scenario was usually a spectacular fire at worst it could cause a massive and crippling explosion this was to be fair mitigated to some degree by many japanese torpedo launchers being fitted with a splinter-proof housing to make a torpedo turret but this would not save the launcher from a direct shell hit or bomb impact the fact that japanese navy ships also tended to carry reloads would also mean that there were more torpedoes aboard than most other ships would carry on average which made such uh spectacular conflagrations somewhat more likely additionally many launchers would try and make use of the maximum range that the torpedo was capable of which was all well and good if your enemies stayed obligantly on course but if they started to maneuver it could entirely spoil the surprise during the aforementioned destruction of the abda command fleet for example despite those successful and decisive hits to both sides as it turned out thanks megami it took the expenditure of just over 200 torpedoes to achieve eight hits on enemy targets plus the five hits on friendly ships conversely when launched at more conventional ranges the stealth and speed tended to result in much higher hit ratios as with most torpedoes in world war ii the type 93 would also experience a number of teething troubles in wartime conditions whilst it didn't have a magnetic detonator and thus would avoid many of the issues that plagued american german and british torpedoes that used this technology early on in the war it was found that the contact detonator was too sensitive and could be set off by large waves and indeed ships wakes if it was set to run a little bit too shallow a fact that probably saved uss south dakota and uss washington in the night battle of guadalcanal at least from damage if not destruction as a number of torpedoes that were chasing after them were seen to explode early when encountering the pressure waves radiating from the fast-moving battleships whilst this was relatively easily fixed until it was done it meant that a number of allied warships remained intact during engagements when this continued survival would prove highly detrimental to the interests of the japanese navy another issue was the sheer size and inertia of the weapon the guidance fins being somewhat too small for the task meaning that when used at longer ranges the torpedo tended to wander slightly off course albeit that at those spectacularly long ranges that small malfunction probably threw in a bit of randomness to the course that might have fractionally improved the odds of hitting the target assuming that the target had changed course or speed in any way at all during the time the torpedo was inbound later in the war the type 93 would have two further remodels in one the power plant was redesigned to run without the compressed air tank with a chemical regulator injection preventing explosions on startup this in turn allowed for a larger warhead to be fitted bringing up to a rather terrifying just over 1700 pounds of explosive this model 3 version was not quite ready for operational deployment before the war's end which was probably fortunate for everybody involved the other modification was perhaps an even grimmer prospect this took the nose and thus the warhead off of a standard type 93 enlarged control surfaces and then inserted the remaining assembly into a much larger custom front section that had a small cockpit and a truly terrifying 3400 pound warhead along with small ballast tanks sacrificing the original high speed for even greater range this was the kaiten a human guided torpedo version of the kamikaze however due to control issues as well as having to come near enough to the surface to see where to go there were not the most successful of weapons with only two confirmed kills and a number of ships damaged although four chi-10 types were designed the type 93 derived unit would be the only one to see operational service it would only be after the war that war historian samuel morrison coined the nickname long lance which stuck and is now perhaps the more commonly known designation of the weapon and so would close the chapter on the type 93 torpedo the end of the war brought about a thorough technical examination of all remaining data and a few remaining torpedoes which would result in an extensive report written by u.s navy personnel which makes for rather enlightening reading with some of the ideas that it pioneered feeding into the design of future torpedoes which would serve the allied cause during the cold war period that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 276,794

Rating: 4.9547963 out of 5

Keywords: wows, world of warships, Type 93, Long Lance, IJN, World War 2, Kaiten, Type 95, Type 92, Type 90, torpedo

Id: kb5F5s2F3mA

Length: 28min 13sec (1693 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2021