The most lethal submarine in US history, the WWII USS Tang.

USS Tang (SS-306)6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tang_(SS-306)

USS Tang (SS-306) was a Balao-class submarine of World War II, the first ship of the United States Navy to bear the name Tang. She was built and launched in 1943, serving until being sunk by her own torpedo off China in the Taiwan Strait on 24 October 1944.

In her short career in the Pacific War, Tang sank 33 ships totalling 116,454 tons. Commander Richard O'Kane received the Medal of Honor for her last two engagements (23 and 24 October 1944).

Tang was sunk during the last engagement by a circular run of her final torpedo, going down in 180 ft (55 m) of water. 78 men were lost, and the five survivors were picked up by a Japanese frigate and taken prisoner of war. This was the only known time that a Momsen lung was used to escape a sunken submarine.

One of the 78 men lost was Rubin MacNiel Raiford, who at age 15, may have been the youngest American person in the military to lose his life in combat. (enlisted at age 13)

Rubin MacNiel Raiford

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial...macniel-raiford

USS Tang 2 Dec 1943:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._42273%29. jpg

Damage from torpedo:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ng_wdr58062.jpg

After the war this survivor was involved in the establishment of the Navy Seals:

Meet the last survivor of America’s most lethal World War II sub

https://taskandpurpose.com/military...e-wwii-pacific/

__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan

Thank you for posting that! THIS old submariner salutes the USS Tang.

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Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078

If you're into such things, Dick O'Kane wrote a couple excellent books about his submarine service during WWII.
"Clear the Bridge" - about his time as captain of the Tang, and
"Wahoo" - where he served as first officer to the also legendary "Mush" Morton (he was transferred off the Wahoo when he was assigned to be captain of the Tang just before the final voyage of the Wahoo).

I learned of the USS Tang from this video which just lists the top ten subs and provides images and figures:

Top 10 Most Successful US Submarines of WWII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC0OZRoGxog

#3 record USS Silversides is now a museum and a National Historic Landmark.

USS Silversides (SS-236)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Silversides_(SS-236)

USS Silversides WW2 Submarine Private Tour (excellent!)

From the YouTube auto-transcript:

...hence the name diesel-electric submarines and it's really no different than a diesel locomotive of the same era and in fact the engines on board the Silversides which were manufactured by Fairbanks-Morris in Chicago were also used on locomotives of the era so they were not specially designed for submarines which surprises a lot of people and what's really interesting about the engines on board the Silversides is not only do they still run and we still do exorcise them but is the fact that Fairbanks-Morse is still in business they still make spare parts for those very engines and you can actually if you really want to still go to a Fairbanks-Morse training school and become a certified mechanic for that model of engine and you know you think to yourself well why would anybody do that but these engines were very versatile and they were used all over the country all over the world really and stationary power plants anywhere that a stationary engine that could turn a generator would be used so they're really really really reliable they're really robust and proof of that is the fact that they still run after 80 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ciCy-MZ1Q

The questions I'd like to ask that outstanding tour guide:

Were there any efforts to make a submerged US WWII subs quieter?

Were there any efforts to make propellers more efficient and quieter (less cavitation)?

USS Silversides WW2 Submarine Engine Start-up (note the noise level once running)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf0gxvYqBY

They even named a class of subs after the Tang just after WWII:

Tang-class submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang-class_submarine

The Tang-class submarines were the first submarines designed (under project SCB 2) and built by the United States Navy after WWII. They incorporated the best features of the high-speed German Type XXI U-boat and the venerable U.S. Navy fleet submarine. The Tang-class, with the fleet submarines converted under the Greater Underwater Propulsion Power (GUPPY) program, had much higher submerged performance than their predecessors, but were quickly surpassed by the nuclear-propelled submarines that entered service beginning in 1954. Six units in total were built.

Probably the most important innovation of the Tangs, and their primary advantage over contemporary GUPPY conversions, was an increase in test depth from 400 ft (120 m) to 700 ft (210 m), achieved with the same High Tensile Steel (HTS; 42,000 psi (290 MPa) yield strength) as the Balao and Tench classes. This allowed the class to take advantage of deeper ocean conditions to evade sonar, as well as maneuver more safely at moderate depths.

USS Tang (SS-563), the lead boat of her class, served through the first half of the Cold War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tang_(SS-563)

USS Tang (SSN-805), a planned Virginia-class submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tang_(SSN-805)

USS Tang (SSN-805) will be a nuclear-powered, Virginia-class attack submarine in the United States Navy. She will also be third United States Navy vessel with the name tang, a large family of tropical fish. Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite announced in a 17 November 2020 press release that the submarine will be named USS Tang, in honor of a storied WWII submarine. This is the second of four new classmates named in honor of WWII submarines with very successful combat records. Ordered on 2 December 2019, she is the fourth of the Block V boats, the first boats of the class to include the Virginia Payload Module.

The Block III submarines have two multipurpose Virginia Payload Tubes (VPT) replacing the dozen single purpose cruise missile launch tubes.

The Block V submarines built from 2019 onward will have an additional Virginia Payload Module (VPM) mid-body section, increasing their overall length. The VPM will add four more VPTs of the same diameter and greater height, located on the centerline, carrying up to seven Tomahawk missiles apiece, that would replace some of the capabilities lost when the SSGN conversion Ohio-class submarines are retired from the fleet.

__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan

My local library doesn't have the first one, but does have the second one which is now on my reading list.

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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan

when I was still the Scoutmaster of the local troop I took 3 groups to do a sleepover in the Silversides. The boys loved it, us adults not so much. Those bunks were not designed for anyone over 5'5". The last time they had put a bunch of larger bunks in it and was a little more comfortable.

One time one of the curators fired up the radar unit which was still workable and we could see the local air traffic.

I think "Clear the Bridge" is actually the better book - you should make a point of locating a copy.
I'd loan you mine except it's autographed by the author so I rather value it...

If they wanted to be super realistic, they should have fired up a diesel to see how fun it would be trying to sleep with that noise. Actually, that makes me wonder if they closed, but didn't latch, water tight doors to reduce noise levels in sleeping areas or if the need for constant traffic through them effectively prevented that.

__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan

Starting at 6:38, the 1940 US Torpedo Data Computer was much superior to both German and Japanese computers.

Strange Computers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szTtg302Hic

Torpedo Data Computer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_Data_Computer

The Torpedo Data Computer (TDC) was an early electromechanical analog computer used for torpedo fire-control on American submarines during World War II. Britain, Germany, and Japan also developed automated torpedo fire control equipment, but none were as advanced as the US Navy's TDC, as it was able to automatically track the target rather than simply offering an instantaneous firing solution. This unique capability of the TDC set the standard for submarine torpedo fire control during World War II.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...TDCfullview.jpg

Unfortunately, due to what I consider to be criminal levels of incompetence at multiple levels, so many of the torpedoes failed to take out their targets. Huge complaints from the field did nothing and evolved DIY field mods made out of frustration were forbidden:

Mark 14 torpedo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo

The Mark 14 torpedo had four major flaws.

It tended to run about 10 feet (3 m) deeper than set

The magnetic exploder often caused premature detonation

The contact exploder often failed to detonate the warhead

It tended to run "circular", failing to straighten its run once set on its prescribed gyro-angle setting, and instead, to run in a large circle, thus returning to strike the firing ship (see "USS Tang")

__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan

Fascinating technical details with sarcastic humor in this video. To give an idea about how our submariners were risking their lives for nothing thanks to a CRAP torpedo design, an excerpt from the video:

Almost two years into the war reality began to sink in yet again and orders filtered through the fleet to deactivate the mark six magnetic exploder (fixing the detonations just before reaching the target problem - W)... and so with the primary detonator deactivated and the depth control issue on its way to being fixed (field fix was to set depth to zero which would then result in something approaching proper depth - W), the remaining issue was that a quite a large number of torpedoes were now in fact hitting their targets but not detonating at all. This made little sense at first because, well, the mark 14 did have a backup contact detonator. Surely this system couldn't be malfunctioning as well?

Well, that question could be answered in extreme detail and with a lot of colorful language by the crew of the USS Tinosa who had come across a Japanese whaling ship and unleashed no fewer than 15 torpedoes into it scoring 13 hits, enough to put any vessel on the ocean floor let alone a relative small 19,000 ton civilian whaling ship. Instead, with only one torpedo left to their name the crew simply heard clang after clang after crash as duds poked tiny holes in their prey. The last weapon aboard was brought back to port where the BuOrd (Bureau of Ordnance) dutifully reported that of course there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The Mark 14 Torpedo - Failure is Like Onions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ5Ru7Zu_1I

__________________
The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan