quote:

USS Princeton CG-59

I remember hearing about it when that happened...







https://www.navysite.de/cg/cg59.html

My memory may be shaky, but a long time ago I heard a debrief by CAPT Ted Hontz (CO of Princeton when the mines went off)

As I recall, even with all the damage, Princeton maintained air control services thru AEGIS for quite a while after the mine hit.

I was part of the design team for the original MK48.

There was a saying back then about missiles and torpedoes - "Punch a hole above the water line, you let air in. Punch a hole below the water line, you let water in"

With the introduction of the MK48 there was a lot of suspicion and distrust from senior Navy officers. As a very junior person, I didn't understand it. An old timer told me to go read the WWII history about torpedoes. That is a long story but a key was the lack of full up warshot testing to save money. The design problems went undetected until the torpedoes were used in WWII. Navy military deeply distrusted the civilian developers and test offices.

I got to participate in several SINKEX operations. For one we rigged the hulk w multiple Tourmaline gauges that transmitted data to aircraft. The gauges detected the explosion and we estimated exactly where the warhead went off in all 3 dimensions.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
My memory may be shaky, but a long time ago I heard a debrief by CAPT Ted Hontz (CO of Princeton when the mines went off)

As I recall, even with all the damage, Princeton maintained air control services thru AEGIS for quite a while after the mine hit.

In 2016 we had a 25 year reunion. At dinner I was seated next to Capt Hontz, he told me when the mine went off his first thought was that he was going to lose sailors because he'd never had an abandoned ship drill. The reason he didn't do any was because he wanted us to learn to fight the ship, not abandoned it. He would run GQ drills, unannounced, at all hours. Nothing like the sound of that alarm at 0200 when you don't expect it
He did the right thing. We were at flight quarters within the hour, flying medivacs off and EOD/Divers on (I was on the Helo detachment), most of the weapons stations were back on line, but we had a ton of engineering issues. We were taken under tow and remained at GQ for 3 days.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: navyshooter,

quote:

Originally posted by navyshooter:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
My memory may be shaky, but a long time ago I heard a debrief by CAPT Ted Hontz (CO of Princeton when the mines went off)

As I recall, even with all the damage, Princeton maintained air control services thru AEGIS for quite a while after the mine hit.

In 2016 we had a 25 year reunion. At dinner I was seated next to Capt Hontz, he told me when the mine went off his first thought was that he was going to lose sailors because he'd never had an abandoned ship drill. The reason he didn't do any was because he wanted us to learn to fight the ship, not abandoned it. He would run GQ drills, unannounced, at all hours. Nothing like the sound of that alarm at 0200 when you don't expect it
He did the right thing. We were at flight quarters within the hour, flying medivacs off and EOD/Divers on (I was on the Helo detachment), most of the weapons stations were back on line, but we had a ton of engineering issues. We were taken under tow and remained at GQ for 3 days.

Wasn't current CNO Gilday, the TAO for Princeton at the time of this?

Yes he was. Ì don't remeber ever having any interaction with him though. Since I was on the Helo Detachment I only dealt with a small part of the crew.

I keep this on my desk. Its a piece of the damaged deck and some of the shoring used that day. We, (The Air Det) lived in Engineering berthing and had been on board almost a year when we hit the mine. The day after we were towed into Bahrain we offloaded Princeton and were flown to another ship to the north. The HT's made each of us a little something to remember the event.
Later when the ship was "Repaired" we came back and rode her home. The ship had made Anchors from the damaged hull by using a plasma cutter and gave everyone on board that day one as well. I keep that at home in my garage.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: navyshooter,

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

With the introduction of the MK48 there was a lot of suspicion and distrust from senior Navy officers. As a very junior person, I didn't understand it. An old timer told me to go read the WWII history about torpedoes. That is a long story but a key was the lack of full up warshot testing to save money. The design problems went undetected until the torpedoes were used in WWII. Navy military deeply distrusted the civilian developers and test offices.

Yeah, the US had a VERY bad experience with torpedoes in WWII. There were several reasons for this. As you indicated, the US torpedoes were garbage until almost two full years into the war. The Mk XIV torpedo ran too deep, the magnetic influence detonator (pistol) failed all too often, and the contact pistol was also poorly-designed.

The Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) was very jealous of guarding the 'top secret' magnetic pistol, as this was a much more efficient way of sinking ships. A torp going off directly under a ship's keel had a high chance of breaking its back and scoring a 'one shot kill.' Hitting the hull was less effective. However, these magnetic pistols were tested off the US coast, and the Earth's magnetic field is not uniform (something BuOrd was either ignorant of or ignored). Therefore, in the different magnetic environment of the Pacific, torps often failed to detonate altogether or detonated prematurely, causing no damage and 'spooking the game.'

The torps also ran too deep, causing further misses by either contact or magnetic pistols.

Finally, the metal on the contact pistol was too weak. When struck a glancing blow, it often worked just fine. However, a 'perfect' shot, perpendicular to the hull (when the torp did not run too deep, that is) broke the pistol before it could detonate the warhead. The USS Nautilus actually torpedoed the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga at Midway after US dive bombers worked her over. The torp broke in half. The warhead sank and Japanese sailors clung to the floating back half (due to the air bladder) and used it as a lifesaving device.

BuOrd REFUSED to listen to criticism from US Sub commanders. According to them, their weapon was perfect, and all failures were due to bad captains. We will never know how many Japanese ships escaped damage/sinking or how many US sub crews died due to defective weapons. Finally, the US submarine commander in the Pacific (Admiral Lockwood; an outstanding commander) couldn't take it any more. He ordered a boatload of torps fired into a cliff off Hawaii, proving once and for all that the torps ran deep. He had dud torps dropped onto concrete, showing the contact pistols would break before detonating the warhead. Somehow, they figured out the magnetic field problem (I think, at first, they just disabled that feature). Grudgingly, at fighting BuOrd all the way, the 3 problems were worked out, but it was not until well into 1943 that the US went to sea with truly effective torpedoes.

At Midway, US torpedo planes were slaughtered (out of 41 torpedo planes to attack the Japanese fleet, only 6 returned, with no hits scored). The US never really warmed to the torpedo plane role, as they were very vulnerable, required to fly low and slow and straight, giving AA gunners a fat slow target at which to shoot. As time went on, warships had more and more AA guns, further threatening torpedo planes. This, combined with lousy torps and the outstanding dive bomber results at Midway, likely led to the bias against torpedo bombers.

Japanese torpedo planes were much more effective. They did tremendous damage at Pearl, Coral Sea, and Midway. They had better planes and outstanding torps, and had much better training and experienced crews (early in the war, until attrition killed most of them off, that is). By 1943, most experienced Japanese aircrews were dead, rendering their torpedo planes relatively ineffective.

It's interesting to read how the WWII experience with torpedoes affected post-war weapons development.