vl100butch

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Never forget Torpedo 8!


Brave men for sure. One thing that’s bothered me for years is how their airplane, the TBD Devastator gets a bit of a bad rap. Yes, it was slow. But that’s not because it was obsolete; rather it was because torpedo bombers had to be slow. Plane dropped torpedoes of that time had to be dropped very low and at slow speed to have any chance of hitting their target. Torpedo bombers had to come in at 100’ or less and no more than 110 MPH. Anything more than 100’ off the deck or more than 110 MPH, and the torpedo would have zero chance of making a successful run on the target. Basically, this meant any torpedo bomber was a sitting duck when attacking an enemy fleet with its CAP (combat air patrol) in the air.

And on top of all that, sadly for the Americans, the Mk.13 torpedo being used by USN was quite worthless. It failed to detonate the majority of the time. So not only were the men of Torpedo 8 on a virtual suicide mission, they went into it with very little chance of actually inflicting any real damage to the IJN, even if their torpedoes found their mark.

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