Mark 33 torpedo

Last updated
Mark 33 torpedo
Type Acoustic torpedo [1]
Place of origin United States
Service history
In service never in service
Production history
Designer Bureau of Ordnance [1]
General Electric
Exide
Designed 1943 [1]
No. built 30 [1]
Specifications
Weight 1795 pounds [1]
Length 156 inches [1]
Diameter 21 inches [1]
Effective firing range 5000-19,000 yards [1]
Warhead HBX [1]
Warhead weight 500 pounds [1]
Engine Electric [1]
Speed 12.5-18.5 knots [1]
Guidance
system
 Gyroscope [1]
Launch
platform
 Submarines and aircraft [1]

The Mark 33 torpedo was the first passive acoustic antisurface ship/antisubmarine homing torpedo intended for the United States Navy to employ a cast aluminum shell. It featured two speeds – high and low, and was meant to be launched from submarines and aircraft. [1]

Acoustic torpedo

An acoustic torpedo is a torpedo that aims itself by listening for characteristic sounds of its target or by searching for it using sonar. Acoustic torpedoes are usually designed for medium-range use, and often fired from a submarine.

United States Navy Naval warfare branch of the United States Armed Forces

The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force.

Casting Manufacturing process

Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process. Casting materials are usually metals or various time setting materials that cure after mixing two or more components together; examples are epoxy, concrete, plaster and clay. Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be otherwise difficult or uneconomical to make by other methods.

Production of the Mark 33 was discontinued at the end of World War II, but its features were incorporated into the Mark 35 torpedo.

World War II 1939–1945 global war

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

The Mark 35 torpedo was the first of the United States Navy deep-diving anti-submarine torpedoes designed for surface launch. This electrically propelled 21-inch (53-cm) torpedo was 162 inches long, weighed 1770 lb (803 kg), and carried a 270 lb (122.5 kg) Torpex high explosive warhead. This torpedo used one of the earliest active guidance systems and was introduced in 1949, but was classified as obsolete in the 1960s.

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Mark 46 torpedo light-weight anti-submarine torpedo

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Mark 50 torpedo

The Mark 50 torpedo is a U.S. Navy advanced lightweight torpedo for use against fast, deep-diving submarines. The Mk 50 can be launched from all anti-submarine aircraft and from torpedo tubes aboard surface combatant ships. The Mk 50 was intended to replace the Mk 46 as the fleet's lightweight torpedo. Instead the Mark 46 will be replaced with the Mark 54 LHT.

<i>Allen M. Sumner</i>-class destroyer 1943 class of destroyers of the United States Navy

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Motor Torpedo Boat type of fast torpedo boat

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Mark 54 Lightweight Torpedo torpedo

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Mark 44 torpedo US light-weight anti-submarine torpedo

The Mark 44 torpedo is a now-obsolete air-launched and ship-launched lightweight torpedo manufactured in the United States, and under licence in Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, with 10,500 being produced for U.S. service. It was superseded by the Mark 46 torpedo, beginning in the late 1960s. The Royal Australian Navy, however, continued to use it alongside its successor for a number of years, because the Mark 44 was thought to have superior performance in certain shallow-water conditions.

Mark 32 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes torpedo launching system designed for the United States Navy

The Mark 32 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes system is a torpedo launching system designed for the United States Navy. The Mark 32 has been the standard anti-submarine torpedo launching system aboard United States Navy surface vessels since its introduction in 1960, and is in use aboard the warships of several other navies.

Mark 13 torpedo air-launched torpedo

The Mark 13 torpedo was the U.S. Navy's most common aerial torpedo of World War II. It was the first American torpedo to be originally designed for launching from aircraft only. They were also used on PT boats.

Aerial torpedo naval torpedo designed to be launched by aircraft or helicopters

An aerial torpedo, airborne torpedo or air-dropped torpedo is a naval weapon, a torpedo, that an aircraft—fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter—drops in the water, after which the weapon propels itself to the target. First used in World War I, air-dropped torpedoes were used extensively in World War II, and remain in limited use. Aerial torpedoes are generally smaller and lighter than submarine- and surface-launched torpedoes.

Mark 14 torpedo

The Mark 14 torpedo was the United States Navy's standard submarine-launched anti-ship torpedo of World War II. This weapon was plagued with many problems which crippled its performance early in the war. It was supplemented by the Mark 18 electric torpedo in the last two years of the war. Nonetheless, the Mark 14 played a major role in the devastating blow U.S. Navy submarines dealt to the Japanese naval and merchant marine forces during the Pacific War.

Mark 15 torpedo

The Mark 15 torpedo, the standard American destroyer-launched torpedo of World War II, was very similar in design to the Mark 14 torpedo except that it was longer, heavier, and had greater range and a larger warhead. It was developed by the Naval Torpedo Station Newport concurrently with the Mark 14 and was first deployed in 1938. It replaced the Mark 8 torpedo on surface ships with tubes that could accommodate the longer Mark 15; this primarily included destroyers built after 1930. Older destroyers, primarily the Wickes and Clemson classes, continued to use the Mark 8, as did PT boats early in World War II. During the war 9,700 were produced at Newport and at the Naval Ordnance Station Forest Park, Illinois.

Mark 18 torpedo

The Mark 18 torpedo was an electric torpedo used by the United States Navy during World War II. The Mark 18 was the first electric storage battery torpedo manufactured for the US Navy and it was designed primarily for use as a submarine-launched torpedo.

There have been a number of 18-inch torpedoes in service with the United Kingdom.

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The Mark 10 torpedo was a torpedo put into use by the United States in 1915. It was derived from the Mark 9 aircraft torpedo converted to submarine use. It was used as the primary torpedo in the R- and S-class submarines. It used alcohol-water steam turbine propulsion. It was succeeded by the problematic Mark 14 torpedo, but remained in service in S-boats & fleet submarines through the Pacific War. The Mark 10 featured the largest warhead of any U.S. torpedo developed at that time. Stockpiles of Mark 10 Mod 3 torpedoes were used extensively during the first part of World War II due to short supply of the newer and longer (246 in Mark 14s, with some fleet submarines carrying a mixture of both types on patrol.

Bliss-Leavitt torpedo

The Bliss-Leavitt torpedo was a torpedo designed by Frank McDowell Leavitt and manufactured by the E. W. Bliss Company of Brooklyn, New York. It was put into service by the United States Navy in 1904 and variants of the design would remain in its inventory until the end of World War II.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Jolie, E.W. (15 September 1978). "A Brief History of US Navy Torpedo Development: Torpedo Mine Mk33" . Retrieved 22 June 2013.

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