German Torpedo found in Scapa flow

All that work paid off, I think, for Tigerfish. The Mod 2 version worked very well on all the trials I did with STWG. All now well overtaken by Spearfish. I left mid development but it was going well.

Good news, taxpayers!
 
I remember one of the newspapers printing a big article just after the sinking of the Belgrano praising the technology of the new high tech wire guided torpedo, probably all written and paid for by BAE Systems.
It then emerged that the commander had not trusted the wire guided high tech torpedo to do the job, and I believe thought that it might give away his position to the accompanying Argentine destroyer (The one that ran away instead of picking up survivors) so he used the old reliable WW2 job instead.

How long was the guidance wire? A few years ago I was volunteered to help anti-foul a friend's Contessa 26 in a naval yard in Gosport. Parked up under the sterns of all the yachts on the hard was an old torpedo with masses and masses of copper wire loosely coiled around it. We kept tripping up on loops of the bloody stuff. Would this have been one of theses guided torpedos?
 
How long was the guidance wire? A few years ago I was volunteered to help anti-foul a friend's Contessa 26 in a naval yard in Gosport. Parked up under the sterns of all the yachts on the hard was an old torpedo with masses and masses of copper wire loosely coiled around it. We kept tripping up on loops of the bloody stuff. Would this have been one of theses guided torpedos?

Sounds unlikely, Mk 23s had a perchloric acid battery and that was very nasty stuff that would not be left lying around, and the later ones had silver batteries that were worth to much to be left lying around. Sonobuoys though also had large ammounts of wire in them especially the bathythermal buoys
 
How long was the guidance wire? A few years ago I was volunteered to help anti-foul a friend's Contessa 26 in a naval yard in Gosport. Parked up under the sterns of all the yachts on the hard was an old torpedo with masses and masses of copper wire loosely coiled around it. We kept tripping up on loops of the bloody stuff. Would this have been one of theses guided torpedos?

IIRC my guide on Superb told me it was something like seven miles - which I didn't believe.
But I have been known to be wrong:confused:
 
One of my favourite uncles was a junior officer on board the "Royal Oak" when she was torpedoed. He told me that after the first 'bang' there was a bit of a kerfuffle until they established that there was no damage, so they all went back to sleep! When she was actually torpedoed, he swam for it & was picked up by a fishing boat. According to him, comms with the shore were so poor that the first rescued seamen landed were initally arrested for being AWOL! He used to attend every reunion meeting (travelling from Naples each time.
 
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