27. America’s Worst Weapon of the War?
The Japanese did not have a monopoly on defective weapons. America’s fighting men were the envy of their peers during the war, with their ample supply of well-designed and made weapons – at least well-designed and made compared to everybody else’s weapons. Unfortunately, that did not apply to the torpedo with which America entered the war: the Mark 14.
The Mark 14 Torpedo was the standard weapon of American submarines when the US joined the war in 1941. Unlike earlier torpedoes which detonated upon impact with a target ship’s hull, the Mark 14 used an advanced magnetic detonator. It was supposed to set off the explosive charge directly beneath the enemy’s keel and break its back – fatal damage to any ship. That was the theory. The reality turned out to be quite different.
