Navy thread

[Llarry]

An often-used destroyer weapon of the World War II era disappeared soon after the war. Surface launched heavy torpedoes (21-inch or 533mm diameter) -- usually mounted in quintuple tubes like those on the USS Dunlap (DD 384) in the photo --were a feature of all U.S. destroyers but were no longer fitted from the 1950s. There was some thought of fitting heavy Mark 48 torpedoes to U.S. surface combatants in the 1960s, but the effort never bore fruit.

In the modern era, U.S. Navy surface combatants are fitted with smaller 12.75-inch (324mm) torpedo tubes used for antisubmarine torpedoes; these are strictly a close-in ASW weapon.