Comment by ryanmercer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanmercer | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't surprise me. I've seen WWII-era torpedoes and their innards at the Science of Museum and Industry in Chicago in the U-505 exhibit (seriously, if you're ever in Chicago to to the museum and pay the extra fee to go aboard U-505. Totally worth it) and there is a lot going on in one of those.

Here's a low-ish quality photo of the innars of a torpedo in the exhibit (not mine) https://www.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/1jxk7k...

Specifically in that thread these photos https://imgur.com/a/zNry7

Sadly my photos from last year aren't any better, the cavern that U-505 is in has terrible lighting for photography.

I was quite surprised by the amount of gears, tubes, segments, weights, etc inside one. Even the amount of batteries initially caught me off guard because I'm used to thinking in modern lithium batteries and not lead acid.

I think that is a G7e torpedo above. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7e_torpedo

If something is complicated, it probably needs more testing. Unfortunately, this was not done well for early US torpedos, mostly due to costs and overconfidence.

Wow, that is incredible. I had no idea they were that complex, or even that big.

The length was a bit hard to accept. Later I started looking into torpedoes and there are some real monsters that have existed, the Japanese Type 93 used in WWII is almost 30 feet long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo .

The more modern Russian Type 65 is roughly the same size as the Type 93 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_65_torpedo

Russia also has that 'Poseidon' unmanned mini sub that's basically the nuclear powered sub version of a UAV that's something like 65 feet long and is believed to be able to be launched from another sub like a torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...

If you're into this stuff and ever in the Seattle area I recommend visiting the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport. They have a good collection of torpedoes on display, including a Japanese Kaiten manned torpedo.

http://www.navalunderseamuseum.org

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