During the war many destroyers lost one quad mounting to ship one anti-aircraft gun, either a 12pdr HA or a 4in, to give a modicum of HA fire capability.
The sole wartime RN destroyer survivor, HMS Cavalier, is well worth a visit in № 2 dry dock in Chatham Historical Dockyard, but she lost her entire torpedo outfit during post-war modernisation.
During the Great War, German cruisers had aggressively used their torpedoes, notably at Jutland and in attacks on the Norway convoys. Therefore it was no surprise that the three ‘Panzerschiffe’ (‘armoured ships’) Deutschland, Admiral Scheer and Graf Spee, were armed from the outset with two quadruple mounts on their quarterdeck, which would have been useful for commerce raiding. Deutschland (later renamed Lützow) originally carried 50cm tubes (19.7in) in unshielded mounts, but these were upgraded to 53.3cm (21in) as in her later sisters. Since the tubes were well within the blast area of the after triple 11in turret, these early unshielded mounts on Deutschland were quickly fitted with protective shields, and her sisters were built with them fitted.
What was unusual was the siting of the two quad mounts aft on the cut-down quarterdeck, right at the stern of the ship. Admittedly, the design of these ships had prioritised their gun armament, as they were intended to outgun any warship their size and smaller, but with sufficient speed to outrun anything bigger. The only problem was how to escape from the Royal Navy battle-cruisers, which were the only warships capable of running them down and outgunning them.
A clue is given in the armament arrangements of the ‘K’—class light cruisers, plus Leipzig and Nürnberg. Built for a possible employment as commerce-raiders (they were all fitted with cruising diesels to extend their range) each ship presented two-thirds of her armament astern, with a view to escaping from pursuers.
The Panzerschiffe copied this arrangement, with eight torpedo tubes available for stern launching. This feature is in complete contrast to the armament arrangement on the two French ships built specifically to hunt them down, the Dunkerque and Strasbourg. Acting on Royal Navy advice derived from experience with Nelson and Rodney, the Dunkerques and their successors the Richelieus had all their main armament mounted as chase guns, presenting eight guns forward.
Somewhat surprisingly in view of other navies’ removal of torpedo tubes from their capital ships, in 1942 the Kriegsmarine fitted two quadruple 21in torpedo mounts to the Tirpitz, presumably for commerce-raiding purposes as with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Siegfried Breyer has suggested that perhaps these mounts were salvaged from the wrecks of German destroyers sunk at Narvik in 1940. Whatever their provenance, these quad above-deck mounts posed a very real risk in the event of a big gun duel, and even a shell from a British cruiser could initiate serious, if not fatal damage, similar to the incidents at Leyte.
But, of course, according to the Germans, the Tirpitz’s sister ship Bismarck had not been sunk by British shellfire and torpedoes: she had been scuttled by her own crew. The utter devastation caused by the British 16in and 14in shells was revealed only after Dr Ballard’s photos of the rediscovered wreck.
The quadruple torpedo tube became the standard US destroyer outfit when the US Navy commenced new construction, beginning with the Farragut class, of which the name ship was laid down on 20 September 1932. The second modern class, the Porters, also carried two quadruple tubes, but in addition shipped eight reload torpedoes around the funnel bases. These reloads were later removed to add increased light AA armament. The Mahan s which followed carried twelve tubes in three quadruple mounts, for a broadside of eight tubes.
Copying the precedent set by the flush-deckers of the Great War, in the late 1930s the USN went on to produce twenty-two destroyers in three classes, the Gridleys, Bagleys and Benhams, with the heaviest torpedo tube armament of any destroyer type (not counting the Japanese reload system). With four banks of quadruple tubes mounted two to port and two to starboard, their torpedo broadside was theoretically halved, but they had the ability to fire salvoes of sixteen torpedoes with gyro angling, in attack or withdrawal. Only Japanese cruisers equalled or surpassed this torpedo armament.
Due to the marginal stability common to these new destroyer classes, caused by Treaty tonnage restrictions, many US destroyers were forced to land torpedo mounts, to be able to carry the increased AA armament shown to be essential by an examination of the combat experience of the Royal Navy in the early part of the Second World War.
QUINTUPLE TUBES
The Royal Navy introduced the quintuple torpedo mount on the ‘G’-class destroyer HMS Glowworm, which was the test bed for the new mounting, but the rest of her class received quadruple mounts. The leader HMS Inglefield and the following ‘I’ class were commissioned with two quintuple mounts, but as the extra top-weight affected their stability, in many cases they later landed the centre tube from each set. The ‘J’, ‘K’ and ‘N’ classes all commissioned with the ten-tube armament, although, as with the previous classes, many lost the aft bank of tubes to ship a 4in HA gun. Even when the ‘N’ class reverted to the full ten-tube torpedo armament, often only nine torpedoes were shipped to save weight. The full torpedo armament was not restored until the 1943 Battle class, none of which would be completed in time to see war service.
The pentad mount was introduced to US destroyers with the Benson class of 1938, and became the standard outfit for the following Bristol, Fletcher and Allen M Sumner classes.
All the drawings are taken from the Bureau of Ordnance manual on the Mark 14 and Mark 15, 21in above-water torpedo tubes. The Mark 14 was fitted in the forward position on Fletcher-class destroyers, and the Mark 15 in the aft position. The two marks were identical, except for the circular blast shield, constructed of two layers of corrugated steel, to protect the torpedo-men from the blast of the nearby 5in gun mount.