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Bad ideas in war

AFAIK none of the Italian ships saw any more service during the war. They didn't even change flag. They weren't handed over to the allies to use. They just got disarmed and parked in Malta. The whole exercise was just so the Germans don't get them. Any redistribution, such as the Giulio Cesare becoming the Novorossiysk as part of the reparations was after the war.

So saying that the Italia was out of action for the rest of the war is really saying nothing about the effectiveness of the hit. She was going to be out of action for the rest of the war anyway. That was the plan. (And so would the Roma, making that a pointless exercise anyway.)

Meanwhile torpedo bombers actually sank a lot of ships.
 
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If all the ships that were hit had sunk, it would have made no difference to the landings or the course of the war.

Wasting all the resources on the various wunderwaffe may even have shortened the war.
 
HansMustermann said:
AFAIK none of the Italian ships saw any more service during the war. They didn't even change flag. They weren't handed over to the allies to use. They just got disarmed and parked in Malta. The whole exercise was just so the Germans don't get them. Any redistribution, such as the Giulio Cesare becoming the Novorossiysk as part of the reparations was after the war.

So saying that the Italia was out of action for the rest of the war is really saying nothing about the effectiveness of the hit. She was going to be out of action for the rest of the war anyway. That was the plan. (And so would the Roma, making that a pointless exercise anyway.)

Meanwhile torpedo bombers actually sank a lot of ships.
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Nobody knew at the time she was hit that she was going to be out for the rest of the war anyway, least of all the Germans.

Also torpedoes were successful but the US mark 14 was a disaster. Does that make it a bad idea? Meanwhile mines sunk a lot of ships in the war.
 
jeremyp said:
Nobody knew at the time she was hit that she was going to be out for the rest of the war anyway, least of all the Germans.

Also torpedoes were successful but the US mark 14 was a disaster. Does that make it a bad idea? Meanwhile mines sunk a lot of ships in the war.
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Once again, pointing out a particular guided weapon is a bad idea doesn't mean guided weapons as a group are a bad idea.

The Mk 14 itself wasn't a bad idea.
Not actually testing it to save money was a bad idea and ignoring all the complaints and evidence of it's failure was a bad idea.
When it was fixed it was a decent torpedo.

As ever Drachinifel provides


 
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jeremyp said:
Nobody knew at the time she was hit that she was going to be out for the rest of the war anyway, least of all the Germans.

Also torpedoes were successful but the US mark 14 was a disaster. Does that make it a bad idea? Meanwhile mines sunk a lot of ships in the war.
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It does make insisting to not test it a VERY bad idea. I mean, other countries had problems with their magnetic detonators too, for example. Germany for one definitely had them. Everyone except the USA had tested theirs in just one place, (the USA never tested them at all,) and was surprised to learn that other places' magnetic fields worked differently. The USA was the only one who insisted that no, dozens of captains were all incompetent. The others fixed theirs.

I would GUESS it probably lengthened the Pacific war by about a year. Which, yes, makes it a VERY bad idea.
 
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Aber said:
Name those warships sunk by German torpedo bombers.
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Germany didn't have any torpedo bombers as such, although the Ju-88 could carry one.
The Germans were obsessed with dive bombing.
Even their proposed and prototype 4 engine heavies had to be capable of dive bombing much to their detriment.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Germany didn't have any torpedo bombers as such, although the Ju-88 could carry one.
The Germans were obsessed with dive bombing.
Even their proposed and prototype 4 engine heavies had to be capable of dive bombing much to their detriment.
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Well, the He 111 was also adapted for torpedo bombing.
The He 115 was pupose built for torpedo bombing and mine
laying, and did a lot of damage for such a gangly monster of
a floatplane.

If the Germans had proceeded with their aircraft
carrier, they would have undoubtedly built and deployed a full
complement of torpedo planes; they had some successful prototypes
in development.

ETA: By mid-1944, you could call any torpedo plane a bad idea in war. The US Navy initially
thought that the Grumman F7F would a good torpedo bomber, with two! torpedoes carried
under the wings. How romantic.
 
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Well, torpedo bombers did help sink the Yamato in April '45, so that's a plus.

And if you include air-dropped mines, since you mentioned minelaying for the Heinkel, the US kept mining in front of Japanese harbours all the way to the end of the war. And the Japanese didn't like it one bit.
 
HansMustermann said:
Well, torpedo bombers did help sink the Yamato in April '45, so that's a plus.

And if you include air-dropped mines, since you mentioned minelaying for the Heinkel, the US kept mining in front of Japanese harbours all the way to the end of the war. And the Japanese didn't like it one bit.
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Mine laying was very effective for both sides. They might not have sunk too many big warships, but they forced many to spend time getting repaired. And there was "gardening" by the RAF, which gave the codebreakers at Bletchley Park a head start on the day's Enigma rotor settings.
 
Not just big ships. Even any transport trying to enter or leave most Japanese ports would risk just being broken in two. And the Japanese had NO idea how to deal with those dual trigger mines. They knew how to blow up a mine with either an acoustic or a magnetic trigger, but the keyword was OR. They had no idea how to trigger both fuses, short of actually driving a ship over it.
 
sackett said:
Well, the He 111 was also adapted for torpedo bombing.
The He 115 was pupose built for torpedo bombing and mine
laying, and did a lot of damage for such a gangly monster of
a floatplane.

If the Germans had proceeded with their aircraft
carrier, they would have undoubtedly built and deployed a full
complement of torpedo planes; they had some successful prototypes
in development.

ETA: By mid-1944, you could call any torpedo plane a bad idea in war. The US Navy initially
thought that the Grumman F7F would a good torpedo bomber, with two! torpedoes carried
under the wings. How romantic.
Click to expand...
But again, the 111 was designed as a conventional bomber and converted to be a torpedo bomber as the J variant. They were never put in to service and as they lacked a bomb bay they were used as flight training aircraft.

The 115 wasn't designed as a torpedo bomber, it was a general service floatplane, it was supposed to be a minelayer and reconnaissance aircraft.Only the C-4 version carried a torpedo. Interestingly, some that had been sold to Norway pre-war ended up in the UK and flew with their Norwegian crews as Coastal Command aircraft.
 
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