Pentane and Zonal Torpedoes

Some pictures of the Pentane and Zonal Torpedoes designed by the RN postwar that are described in BSP4. The Zonal winged torpedo definitely looks _interesting_.

Pictures from Museum of Naval Firepower in Gosport

thankyou red admiral been locking for this for 30yrs any info on the other z-weapons?

shaba said:

thankyou red admiral been locking for this for 30yrs any info on the other z-weapons?

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Unfortunately not. I just happened to notice this little gem on one of the displays in the museum.

There was a high speed torpedo prototype on display there a few years ago (stuck in darkness in the roof space of the glass "bridge) - it was labelled "Fancy" - but to a recent book could show it was mis-labelled.

The recent book is "Bouncing Bomb Man" has a very small amount on the "Heyday" experimental torpedo. It was "icthyoid" in shape (I think this means constantly curving from thin-to-thick-to-thin, but with the portion of maximum girth behind the centre-point). This was to minimise drag and work started in 1945.

This ties in with other work being done (by others I THINK) using the aerodynamics of the R.101 to try to get the best shape for a submarine (at that time the HTP experimental ones).

.

There's bit of information on 'Heyday' in 'Project Cancelled', p. 189 (1st edition). p.171 2nd and subsequent editions.


cheers,
Robin.

I can't remember seeing anything about "Fancy".

The "Heyday" testpiece is there in the torpedo display room. There's a nice little video with a fair amount of information and video of it. It wasn't really intended as a torpedo, just to test out hydrodynamics for various projects. Probably found it's way into the nuclear subs.

Fancy was a HTP powered 21inch anti-surface torpedo for submarines and surface ships. The project was abandoned on safety grounds and the technology was sold to Sweden which has managed to make very successful incident free use of it. HTP could have solved many of the UK torpedo problems in the period.

Pentane was a heavy 21 inch air dropped ASW torpedo for fixed wing aircraft. It seems to have been aimed at the Gannet and Shackleton and was considered too heavy for the Wasp; this is purely my speculation but I wonder whether the Bristol Type 192 hunter killer ASW chopper that was cancelled in 1957 was also intended for this weapon or a dedicated submarine launched anti ship version of the Mk 20. Sources differ. However I am of the opinion that it was the former, mostly on the basis that more sources state it was and it turns up in relation to the Shackleton Mk3.

There is a great article about UK (and other) Torpedo development from the Journal of the Royal Naval Scientific Service dated March 1972 on the Defense Technical Information Center website. It covers Pentane and others in quite some detail and is very much worth a read if torpedoes are your thing. The article is part 3 of a series but I have not had time to look for the others yet. I am putting it in this thread because it was Pentane I was looking for when I found it but I would understand if the mods want to put it somewhere else!

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD595842&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Parts 1 and 2, littered with various experiments and concepts, can be found here starting on page 33: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/595766.pdf

Some very nice finds!

The links have changed since they were posted. The article covering Pentane and development up to BIDDER is at the link below


Parts one and two are in the article linked below

JFC Fuller said:

Fancy was a HTP powered 21inch anti-surface torpedo for submarines and surface ships. The project was abandoned on safety grounds and the technology was sold to Sweden which has managed to make very successful incident free use of it. HTP could have solved many of the UK torpedo problems in the period.

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Kursk says that HTP on submarines is a horrible idea. So does the UK experience with HTP powered subs.

OTTO fuel, despite the nasty toxic combustion products, is far safer to handle!