Bill Jurens wrote: ↑Mon Jan 03, 2022 8:11 pm My thanks to Herr Nilsson for re-posting the previous correspondence on this.
I must admit that I remain somewhat baffled as to exactly how this sort of apparent flaw actually made it through the construction process.
There are three primary possiblilities:
1) That the designers of the ship just didn't think this out properly -- which I feel is unlikely, because most or all of them must have been, in reality, pretty smart guys.
2) What appears to be a flaw, actually isn't a flaw, and our negative interpretation of this feature resides in our incomplete or incorrect understanding of the full situation.
3) That the design was actually somewhat different originally, some changes occurred elsewhere, and that for some reason the flaw was recognized, but retained because no alternatives presented themselves.
Certainly this sort of arrangement would be very vulnerable to a deep-running torpedo, and problems would be exacerbated because a) without an intermediate void, which would at least slow down immediate flooding of the engineering spaces whilst it was filling up itself, any leakage into important interior spaces would have taken place immediately, and b) the source of this flooding would likely have originated low down close to the floor plates, which would mean the source might be quite quickly submerged and difficult to locate or access. There are other problems, too, insofar as this area is quite far from the ship's neutral axis in bending, which means it would typically be expected to be carrying high loads as the ship flexed in a seaway, etc.
The idea that some of the interior structures inside the protective system would have been capable of 'punching through' the holding bulkhead, might not represent a serious threat, as it's typically of fairly light construction anyway, but is still something you really do want to avoid. Structural items attached to the holding bulkhead should be, as much as possible, located on the inboard side, or arranged in such a way that they fail in tension as the holding bulkhead deflects inboard.
Comments very welcome indeed...
Bill Jurens
Bill,
Just say the magnetic exploders on the torpedoes carried by Ark Royals Swordfish had worked as planned....
What would have been the likely result in the event of a successful strike ?
Best wishes HMSVF