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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

5. A Torpedo That Sank the Submarines That Fired It, Instead of Targeted Enemy Ships

Weapon - US Navy Bureau of Ordnance officials inspect a Mark 14 Torpedo in 1943 — US Navy Bureau of Ordnance officials inspect a Mark 14 Torpedo in 1943. National Interest

Worst of the Mark 14 Torpedo’s problems was that if it missed and failed to hit or detonate beneath its target, it could boomerang, run in a wide circle, and come back to strike the submarine that had launched it. The US Navy ignored numerous reports from submariners who complained about the Mark 14. In one incident, a submarine commander fired two spreads that totaled a dozen torpedoes at a large Japanese whaler. They failed to sink the enemy ship, and only managed to cripple it. Then, with the whaler dead in the water, the exasperated commander maneuvered his submarine and carefully positioned it so that his torpedoes would have a perfect angle of impact. He then fired off nine more Mark 14s. Each and every one of them failed to detonate.

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.