itty53: Same physics of these torpedoes is what causes a firecracker in a toilet to destroy the toilet.
Don’t put firecrackers in toilets.
Vulturuvarnar: So there are these two whales, right?
And the boy-whale sees a ship and says to the girl-whale: “That’s the whaling ship that killed my grandfather! Let’s swim under it and blow bubbles. This creates a gas bubble that causes the ship to be thrust out of the water then dropped back into the resulting void, often breaking the vessel in half and sinking it.”
Girl-whale says ok, and they blow bubbles, creating a gas bubble that causes the ship to be thrust out of the water then dropped back into the resulting void, breaking the vessel in half and sinking it.
The sailors who abandoned the ship are trying to swim for shore, and boy-whale says, “Let’s gobble up these fools.”
Girl-whale says no. “I went along with the blow-job, but I’m not swallowing the seamen.”
The_Nightman_82: Same principle as a depth charge. A sub is never actually hit. The rapid change in water pressure around the hull works to implode it.
utter_cock: Relevant wikipedia paragraph:
>A torpedo fitted with a proximity fuze can be detonated directly under the keel of a target ship. The explosion creates a gas bubble which may damage the keel or underside plating of the target. However, the most destructive part of the explosion is the upthrust of the gas bubble, which will bodily lift the hull in the water. The structure of the hull is designed to resist downward rather than upward pressure, causing severe strain in this phase of the explosion. When the gas bubble collapses, the hull will tend to fall into the void in the water, creating a sagging effect. Finally, the weakened hull will be hit by the uprush of water caused by the collapsing gas bubble, causing structural failure. On vessels up to the size of a modern frigate, this can result in the ship breaking in two and sinking. This effect is likely to prove less catastrophic on a much larger hull, for instance that of an aircraft carrier.
ThePowerOfFarts: When I was a kid we used sometimes go to Camden Fort in Cork Harbour in Ireland. There were emplacements there that we assumed maybe used to hold guns but it didn’t seem like the right answer and they were a bit of a mystery.
I recently read about [Brennan Torpedoes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennan_torpedo) on reddit and after 30 years the mystery was solved as that’s exactly what the emplacement looks like.
Brennan torpedoes were powered by a steam engine on land that wound the twin propellors of the torpedo by two cables that the torpedo paid out as it went. They could be steered by altering the speeds that the cables were paid out at relative to each other.
I love this site.
ElonComedy: Pierce Hulls was my favorite Bond.
AdvocateSaint: And torpedoes were named after the [“Torpedo Ray”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo#Etymology), which uses electric shocks to stun its prey (the Latin ‘torpere’ meaning “stiff” or “numb”)
munster1588: Anyone got a video or gif of this?
Gangreless: This is why if you see “bubbling” water, you need to turn your ship around asap, not investigate.
It’s caused by methane gas bubbles from the seafloor
nakedvagina: 10 years as a bomb technician and even I never knew this. Then again torpedoes really weren’t a big problem either.
thehollowman84: I learned this in Silent Hunter 3. Another fun submarine fact, during WW2, the vast majority of kills by u boats weren’t torpedo kills, they were the subs surfacing at night and firing upon unarmed transport ships with their cannon. During the day they’d submerge, nice and safe from attack by the navy.
When the US entered the war, the lights in coastal cities would silhouette the tankers and merchant ships, making it easy for the u boats to find them. This was the reason there were blackouts in coastal cities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Happy_Time
HisMajestytheSquid: Water ordnance is wild.
Take a look at the destructor mine.
Gornicki: What a ride that must be..well, until death.
grambell789: Not long ago I read that during ww2 the torpedo manufacturer’s loved demoing this tactic to the navy, but they had problems with the proximity fuse and a lot of effort went unsuccessfully into fixing it during the war and it would have been much better to have just made sure the traditional torpedoes were better designed and manufactured because there was a high number of duds.
jivow: No torpedoes are designed to “pierce the hull and then explode”. They either explode in very near vicinity of the hull or as you described under the ship. But no torpedo (well, maybe some supercavitating) have enough momentum to pierce hull before exploding.
SociopathicScientist: Isn’t this now how nearly all of them work?
Avoid-The-Clap: I thought almost all torpedoes were designed to detonate near the hull? Isn’t the idea to great pressures > crush depth?
joaniemoon: Damn the torpedoes
bolanrox: the Bane torpedo?
Now we will know what will break first, your bow or your stern.
PrimaryColt: Someone ELI5
theglassdragoon: This TIL is very confusing if you accidentally switched “torpedoes” with “tornadoes” on the first read
GeektimusPrime: Lemme guess; somebody was watching that “WWII from space” documentary.
spodermanSWEG: Torpedoes don’t travel fast enough to pierce a ship’s hull, do they?
Need to read up on it but I highly doubt they were ever designed to pierce at all
E: So basically no, they didn’t pierce (usually) and were never designed to, as piercing the hull would often incapacitate the torpedo rendering it useless.
There were some rare records of torpedoes piercing <1" thick merchant ship hulls, but none of these exploded, as the impact had destroyed the detonation mechanisms. Only piercing record I can find of an actual warship is an american torpedo piercing the rudder of the japanese warship SHIGURE, during the Solomons campaign Ennion: Just like the kid who reverse cannonballs into a pool holding a football. He goes in and let’s go of the ball when he hits the water. The water rushes in and vaults the ball very high in the air. The water rushing into the void collides with itself and has a lot of upward force. puckit: I would love to see video of this. Unsubscripture: Same with the atomic bomb. saltysaltlick: Check out the MK 48 torpedo evil_lobster: Please tell me there’s some kind of video of this happening. Sir_SmurfAlot: You watched ww2 from space yesterday didn’t you Hitz1313: This also makes it a lot easier to “hit” the target, since you don’t have to actually hit it, just get close enough that the sensor says boom. CaptRackham: There was also a time a submarine fired a torpedo and hit a truck TheGriffin: They should make a torpedo that pierces the hull and expands to make a large opening so the sub floods. Then it drops some live grenades in bloatedfrog: Ok, who has a video? ChipAyten: The only thing scarier than large bodies of water is space. IrishFlyingCat: Also, torpedoes are f**king massive! like, I always thought they were fairly small for some reason, like how a missile doesn’t have to be bog to punch through armour, just has to be moving fast enough. Then I saw one outside a library and was just shocked at how big it was. like longer than a van, and just ridiculously thick. mle32000: Did you learn this by watching World War 2 from space, as recommended a few days ago on the documentaries subreddit? If so, me too. Socialism_is__Cancer: I did not know this. Good post noupperlobeman: Very very cool, thanks for sharing Notausschalter: the ship is not “thrust out of the water and dropping back”… the gas bubble is like a ram that breaks the ship in half or at least breaks the keel due to the force created. SomeStupidFucker: Sure, like depth charges. rafasc: Similar thing happens with planes. Missiles exploding in the vicinity of the targeted plane, shrapnel does the rest. Ireallydontwork: As a former Weapons Technician, can confirm. jonnyb95: Not only that, but some versions tow along a fiberoptic cable that stretches back to the firing ship as their method of guidance. hateboss: Well, it’s not really that the ship is thrusted out of the water but more so that the water beneath the ship is vaporized, causing a vacuum which the ship tries to “fill”. This normally results in the keel of the ship breaking in half and now you have 2 ships, neither of which are very good at floating. Charlie_Wallflower: I also listen to “No Such Thing as a Fish” Going2getBanned: What a Hull buster. Poemi: BRAZZERS