FIDO (torpedo)
| FIDO (torpedo) | |
|---|---|
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| General Information | |
| Designation: | FIDO, MK 24 |
| Country of origin: | USA , also used by United Kingdom , Canada |
| Working time: | 1942 to 1948 |
| Technical specifications | |
| Length: | 2.13 meters |
| Diameter: | 483 millimeters |
| Combat weight: | 308 kilograms |
| Drive: | electric |
| Speed: | 12 knots |
| Range: | approx. 3660 meters |
| Furnishing | |
| Warhead: | 42 kilograms |
| Target location: | acoustically |
| Lists on the subject | |
The FIDO , officially listed under the designations Mark 24 Mine and MK 24 , and occasionally also referred to as Fido , was an acoustically controlled weapon used by the Allied forces in World War II to combat submarines .
development
At the end of 1941, the US Navy commissioned the development of a torpedo dropped by aircraft that could destroy a submerged submarine using acoustic tracking. The Harvard Underwater Sound Lab (HUSL) and the Bell Telephone Labs for the aiming mechanism were involved in the development of the weapon . Western Electric was supposed to contribute the accumulators for the electric drive, for which General Electric was responsible. The components were tested in the David Taylor Model Basin , one of the largest experimental pools for fluid dynamics testing, in Maryland. As early as March 1943, the first series copies were delivered to the Navy. The code name Fido was deliberately chosen for the project to confuse potential spies.
functionality
Schematic structure
Torpedo Mark 24
The torpedo was aimed by an aircraft at the diving vortex left behind by a submarine during alarm diving and dropped from a height of around 75 meters. The weapon then began its search pattern by going through a circle approximately 3,650 meters in circumference. The built-in hydrophones were used to record the cavitation noise of the submarine screw and to steer towards it. The torpedo ran for around ten minutes. Since submerged submarines barely reached a speed of 10 knots in World War II , the cruising speed of the FIDO of 12 knots was perfectly adequate. If the torpedo did not find a target after the end of the running time, the weapon sank itself so that it could not get into enemy hands.
commitment
In addition to the US, Canada and the UK are also using the weapon. It was mainly used against submarines of the German Navy . The first successful operation took place on May 14, 1943. A PBY Catalina dropped a FIDO on a German submarine that was forced to dive by an aircraft of the escort carrier USS Santee by machine gun fire . The operational statistics of the weapon are reported by the Operation Evaluation Group in their study 289 as follows:
| Type of use | number |
|---|---|
| Number of drops by the US Navy | 142 |
| Number of submarines sunk by the US Navy | 31 |
| Number of boats damaged by the US Navy | 15th |
| Number of FIDO missions by the other allies | 62 |
| Submarines sunk by other Allied operations | 6th |
| Boats damaged by other Allied operations | 3 |
A comparable weapon of the German Navy was the wren , which also worked with an acoustic location, but was used by submarines against surface targets.
swell
- Janusz Piekałkiewicz "Sea War 1939–1945", Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg September 1999, ISBN 3-8289-0304-5
- "History Of The MARK 24 Torpedo" at www.history.navy, accessed on April 2, 2018 (English)
- "US Navy Torpedos" at www.navytorpedo.com, accessed April 2, 2018 (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ uboat.net. Torpedo MK 24 - "FIDO". Retrieved April 2, 2018 .
- ↑ ubootarchiv.de. Fido. April 9, 2009, accessed April 2, 2018 .
- ^ Operations Evaluations Group, Study 289 (reprint). (PDF) Fido. 1971, accessed April 2, 2018 .