← Back to the front page

Incompetence That Shaped History

Khalid Elhassan March 9, 2020 33 min

Nineteenth century Washington Metropolitan Police Force officers. Washington Metropolitan Police

23. The US Navy’s Worst Weapon?

Live fire test in which the magnetic exploder used in Mark 14 Torpedo failed to detonate beneath a target ship, and the torpedo continued on. Wikimedia

When America joined WWII, our submarines’ standard weapon was the Mark 14 Torpedo. It was supposed to be a dramatic improvement over earlier torpedoes, which detonated on impact with a ship’s hull. The Mark 14 had an advanced magnetic detonator that was supposed to set off the explosive charge directly beneath the enemy’s keel and break its back – fatal damage to any ship.

The concept was good, as it meant that a single Mark 14 could sink a ship, regardless of size. Before, it frequently took multiple torpedoes holing the enemy in various spots on the hull. However, because of secrecy and penny pinching, only two Mark 14s were tested, and one of them failed. That 50% failure rate did not give the Navy pause and prompt it to conduct further testing. In 1938, the Mark 14 was approved and issued to the US submarine fleet as its standard torpedo. The results proved disastrous.

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.