Originally Posted by
Not Long Here
There are no air-launched heavyweight torpedoes. The mainstay of NATO has been the Mk46 which is in the lightweight class (and also Stingray in UK Service). The Mk 46 is being replaced by the Mk 54, again a lightweight torpedo, and carried on P-8A.
Air-launched lightweight torpedoes are ASW weapons.
Hence, why the Argentinians were looking at the WWII vintage US Mark 13s. I assume any remaining stocks of the similar vintage Mk XVs or Mk XVII vanished not long after the War. The US GT-1 glide torpedo, a precursor of stand-off weapons, carried Mk 13s.
As HAS59 implies a heavyweight torpedo is a shipkiller, especially when ships aren't heavily armoured. Forty years on, I think less and less that Exocet was a great success. AM39s hit none of the intended targets and were successfully decoyed. The loss of Sheffield was in many ways a combination of bad luck and others 'crying wolf' previously, Atlantic Conveyor wasn't equipped to counter the threat and close escort unavailable. Glamorgan was hit by an MM38 through 'cutting the corner' but her OsOW reacted and reduced the damage, a heavyweight torpedo would have blown her stern off.
Obviously the balance between attack and defense fluctuates and undoubtedly hypersonics will make the defenders lives harder but effort will be put into countering them.
I suppose I have an irrational worry that since the loss of the O & P boats and their short lived
Upholder successors the RN has no means of delivering a heavyweight torpedo in shallow waters. A cheaper and highly effective ASV option is therefore not available. The air drop option disappeared around 70 years ago and isn't going to come back.
On the subject of the thread drift:
Regarding the Stringbag, I remember my father telling me about it being too slow for the German predictors closer to 50 years ago than I am prepared to admit. They sunk over a million tons of Axis shipping in the Med. None were lost in sinking the Bismarck and only two at Taranto. The Channel Dash was the great disaster but they weren't the only aircraft to suffer badly. This may have been contributed by a desire to hit the Capital ships without first eliminating the escorts, 2 x 3 Swordfish against 2 Battleships, 1 Heavy Cruiser, 6 destroyers, 40 lighter vessels, and a standing patrol of 16 to 32 Bf109s and FW190s (some of these bounced 825's RAF escorts). Not good odds - "the mothball attack of a handful of ancient planes, piloted by men whose bravery surpasses any other action by either side that day" Vizeadmiral Otto Ciliax, Kriegsmarine - commanding officer for
Unternehmen Zerberus.