Sometime back in the late 70’s, VP-56 sent two aircrews to participate in an all East Coast competition. The exercise was an active track and acquisition scenario (SSQ-47’s, you remember those?). The target was an old US diesel submarine suspended by 3 cables leading up to buoys. Each crew prosecuted the sub until they were able to drop a practice torpedo on the target. The torpedos were programmed to acquire the target, switch to target track mode, approach the target to within 1000 feet then shut off and pop to the surface. The crew with the best score would then sink the sub on the last day with a live weapon shot. You could see the Tactical Coordinators drooling.

Well, on the first day, my crew was up first. We did everything correct, fixed the target, got a madman and dropped the torp. Weapon acquires target and off it goes. But it didn’t shut down as it was programmed to do. The torpedo locked onto the aft support cable and drove right through it, cutting the cable. The submarine weighed too much for the other two buoys to hold up the weight, and the cable parted in short order. Boy, we were NOT very popular around there that night. Exercise gets cancelled, all the crews fly back to their respective bases. But we got credited with a “Kill”.

That whole magnetic explode-under-the-ship-to-break-it’s-spine thingy was around pre-WWII. It’s one of the reasons our early war torpedoes sucked so badly. That and the ‘I’ma gonna circle around and sink my boat’ mess.

But the modern ones work quite nicely.

I wonder if we’re ever going to have super-cavitating rocket torpedoes like the Russians had/have? Be neat to have a 200+knots/hour torpedo. Though it was one of those that sunk the Kursk so… well, Russian quality control. Though Boeing is achieving Russian QC these days.

Got to see ABMs shooting to intercept warhead simulators back in the early 1970’s. Some hard-contact kills, as they weren’t using nuclear warheads on the practice shots (though that would have been neat to see, too, but….) Something thrilling about seeing a live shooting exercise.

WSF, no man has ever been eaten by a shark in a foxhole, either. But, even without water tight Z hatches being closed, she didn’t go down easily. Good ship.

Did’ja see the main mast wobble in the second clip??? I can’t believe that thing hung together!

That geyser of soot on the first hit means the boiler tubes are now cleaner than they have ever been before.
And that also means that the engineers families would be getting that visit that no one wants to get.

The Willy R. had pulled into Boston and as always, the snipes were the last to go on liberty.
The crew’s lounge was filled with the snipes who’d just wrapped up half the plant, and the movie on the TV was, “The Enemy Below.”
We’d spent some time ridiculing what the film had gotten wrong, and then we watched the U-Boat put a torpedo into the engineering spaces.
The Boiler Techs and Machinists Mates fell silent and stared at the screen.
Unlike what Hollywood portrayed, we knew there would be nobody running for the ladders while wisps of steam wafted back and forth.
Watching the Harpoon strike in the first video brought back that memory of Boston vividly.