Taranto

[Stearmen]

Tonight, is the 73 anniversary of, the first time, carrier based aircraft attacked a fleet of capital ships at anchor in a harbour! On the evening of November 11, 1940, 21 obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplanes, took of from the HMS Illustrious, steaming in the Mediterranean Sea. They proceeded at slow speed to Taranto, Italy, the home port for the Regia Marina. The fleet only had a small percentage of their anti torpedo netting deployed, the harbour was deemed to shallow to launch aircraft torpedoes! By the time the biplanes left on the morning of the 12th, three battleships were either sank, or had to run aground to prevent them from sinking. The Italians suffered 59 killed and 600 wounded, the British lost two biplanes, and 2 men killed and 2 taken prisoner. In one night, Italy had lost half their Battleship fleet. Most in the west paid little attention, but, Japanese Lt. Cdr. Takeshi Naito, the assistant naval attaché to Berlin, immediately went to Taranto to asses the damage. He then meant with Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, The mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbour!

 

[Captain Nemo]

That was a daring innovation of shallow harbor torpedo attack procedures when they were thought impossible to accomplish prior to this time, and it does illustrate the danger that workable innovations will be copied quickly.

Looking at wiki (yes I know), they seem to have sources that assert that the Japanese were already independently working on solving this issue.

"It is likely the Imperial Japanese Navy's staff carefully studied the Taranto raid during planning for the attack on Pearl Harbor because of the issues with a shallow harbour. Japanese Lt. Cdr. Takeshi Naito, the assistant naval attaché to Berlin, flew to Taranto to investigate the attack firsthand, and Naito subsequently had a lengthy conversation with Commander Mitsuo Fuchida about his observations; Fuchida led the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941.[14][15][15][16][17][18] However, the Japanese had been working on shallow-water solutions since early 1939, with various shallow ports as the notional targets, including Manila, Singapore, Vladivostok, and Pearl Harbor.[19] In the early 1930s the Japanese were using a breakaway wooden nose to soften the torpedo's impact with the water.[19] By mid-1941 the Japanese perfected breakaway wooden fins for added aerial stability.[20]"

14. Borch, Frederic L.; Martinez, Daniel (2005). Kimmel, Short, and Pearl Harbor: The Final Report Revealed. Naval Institute Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN 1-59114-090-0).
15. Gannon, Robert (1996). Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II. Penn State Press. p. 49. ISBN 0-271-01508-X).
16. Fioravanzo, Giuseppe. "The Japanese Military Mission to Italy," "USNI Proceedings", January, 1956, pp. 24-32
17. Borch, Frederic L.; Martinez, Daniel (2005). Kimmel, Short, and Pearl Harbor: The Final Report Revealed. Naval Institute Press. pp. 53–54. ISBN 1591140900.

The Dorn report did not state with certainty that Kimmel and Short knew about Taranto. There is, however, no doubt that they did know, as did the Japanese. Lt. Cdr. Takeshi Naito, the assistant naval attaché to Berlin, flew to Taranto to investigate the attack firsthand, and Naito subsequently had a lengthy conversation with Commander Mitsuo Fuchida about his observations. Fuchida led the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941.

18. Gannon, Robert (1996). Hellions of the Deep: The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II. Penn State Press. p. 49. ISBN 027101508X.

A torpedo bomber needed a long, level flight, and when released, its conventional torpedo would plunge nearly a hundred feet deep before rising to strike a hull. Pearl Harbor depth averages 42 feet.

19. Peattie, Mark R. (2007). Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909–1941. Naval Institute Press. p. 144. ISBN 9781591146643.
20. Peattie 2007, p. 145.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto

 

[Carol123]

The picture let me remember COD....