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Atrocious Historic Weapon Designs That Left a Lot to be Desired

Khalid Elhassan February 6, 2025 16 min

Weapon - An American general with a captured Krummlauf — An American general with a captured Krummlauf. Sandboxx

9. A Disappointing Tally of Enemy Ships Sunk by American Submarines

Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood greets a submarine commander upon his return to Pearl Harbor in WWII. US Navy

Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood, new commander of the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet submarines, sat down in March, 1943, to examine the tally of enemy ships sunk by his men. The figures he found were depressing. The previous year, American submarines had fired off 1442 torpedoes, but only sank 211 Japanese ships that totaled less than 1.3 million tons. The real figures, if he had known them at the time, would have depressed Lockwood even more. After the war, it turned out that Lockwood’s figures were actually wildly optimistic. Analysis of captured Japanese records revealed that in 1942, only 109 enemy ships had been sunk by torpedoes from US submarines. The culprit, as was ultimately revealed – but only after massive resistance from US Navy higher ups – was the Mark 14 Torpedo.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.