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Post by oozlefinch on Jul 21, 2012 13:04:15 GMT 8
No question is silly if you don't know the answer; however, rail spikes are not needed if a rail is set in concrete. On wooden ties the spike is used to keep the rail from moving, either vertically or horizontally. If the rail is set in concrete, the concrete keeps the rail from moving.
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Post by chadhill on Jul 21, 2012 13:23:24 GMT 8
Well oozlefinch, I guess that begs the question: is it possible the Navy used rails on wooden ties in their trolley car system to move the torpedoes? If the tunnel was straight (no curves) the rails might not have to be imbedded in concrete to stay in place with a moving car. The car could be moved down to the South tunnel entrance at San Jose Point to off load a torpedo onto a flatbed truck...just another SWAG
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Post by fots2 on Jul 21, 2012 21:03:23 GMT 8
Hi Chad,
That is interesting about the small rail spikes you found. I have never found any spikes and certainly no rails. Long gone I assume. It makes sense that the tunnels had such a rail system to wheel the heavy torpedoes around.
If the tunnel we know as Queen actually was Queen then no way can you get 20 foot long torpedoes past the bend near the outer entrance. The tunnel from the QM area to the South entrance (where you found the spikes) is straight and most likely to have been used for this purpose. Once outside the entrance you are on the South Shore Road. From there the torpedoes could have been transported on trucks to the Navy South Dock.
I may have an answer for you regarding why the spikes were required. First, here is some background.
The QM tunnels were far from being a completed project. Even today you will see that only 11 out of a planned 33 laterals were ever blasted. Most of the 11 were not finished either. Connecting these laterals is a north-south tunnel that goes down to an intersection heading over to the SW corner of Malinta Hill. This was the original South Entrance.
Only the upper section of the north-south tunnel was concrete lined, the majority being a bare rock “pilot tunnel” (as it still is today). On a July 2, 1940 blueprint, the tunnel extension from the intersection to a future south entrance at San Jose Point did not exist. (Note: the original South Entrance seems to have been incorporated into the Navy tunnels under construction at the time so a new Malinta Storage System South Entrance was required). Sometime after the above date, the new South Entrance was created.
Now this part is just a suggestion as I have no information to confirm this. As war approached, there may not have been time for the tunnel extension to be concrete lined. If no concrete floor existed then it would be just uneven rock. When the decision was made to store torpedoes in there, wooden ties and therefore spikes would be required during construction of a mini rail line to transport the torpedoes.
This longwinded reply ends with another SWAG.
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Post by okla on Jul 21, 2012 22:04:37 GMT 8
Hey Guys....If all this effort was being expended to store/protect Mark 14 Torpedoes, it was wasted, methinks. Isn't that the highly, almost criminally defective contraption in use till 1943 or early 1944??? If so, it would have been a blessing if every damned one of them had been destroyed at Cavite. If these models were not the defective "fish" I will withdraw my over reactive declaration. Every time I read of those early war sub skippers busting their rear ends to get into firing position, making a "hit", especially on a big, fat tanker or capital ship of the line and being rewarded with only a "thud" I want to insert one of those faulty Mark 14s into USN Ordnance folk's anatomical area "where the sun don't shine". Bull Headed bureaucracy at the extreme, forcing brave guys to fight with defective weapons when they were at a big disadvantage anyhow. Heads should have rolled, but I have never heard any such happening back at the Pentagon. Chad, maybe, you can get me up to speed on this very unfortunate circumstance. Cheers. Postscript...I have read somewhere back in the misty past, where some Submarine skipper(s) went out, on their own, to some deserted beach, reef,etc and shot a few of those "duds" into a Torpedo net,etc or some such barrier and found the problem and then and only then did the Navy Dept accept the fact that their highly touted Mark 14 was a piece of doo doo? Please correct my misguided notion if I am in error.
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Post by fortman on Jul 21, 2012 23:48:22 GMT 8
Hi Okla,
This may be a bit off-topic, but the poor USN torpedo plane pilots had the same problems with the Mk 13 torpedos. At the Battle of Midway, in particular, the aircrews of the three torpedo squadrons (plus USAAF B-26 bombers) displayed incredible bravery to launch torpedos that were next to useless at the Japanese fleet.
fortman
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Post by chadhill on Jul 21, 2012 23:54:46 GMT 8
Fots, thanks for the tunnel background information. Your SWAG about the wooden rail ties is a logical explanation and makes sense to me. In the same area where I found the spikes were what appear to be the remains of heavy duty springs of some sort. Here is one next to the spike. Okla, most of the Mark 14's problems stemmed from its defective Mark 6 magnetic exploder. The backup contact exploder had problems as well. The exploder had not been been properly tested before the war, and after hostilities began BuOrd refused to believe reports about its terrible shortcomings and blamed the results on operator error. It was indeed a scandal. A number of skippers were wrongly relieved. As a result, unauthorized procedures such as disabling the magnetic exploder took place, and patrol reports were intentionally "doctored". When all the bugs were finally worked out, the Mark 14 became a fine weapon and remained in service for decades. Clay Blair Jr.'s well written Silent Victory covers this in depth. The book is a tremendous read and even though it was written in 1973 I believe it is still considered a standard reference. Lots of info on the CAST code breakers too, who, although still under secrecy oaths at that time, revealed classified info to Blair.
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Post by okla on Jul 22, 2012 1:16:17 GMT 8
Hey Chad....Thanks for refreshing my failing memory. The Clay Blair work was, indeed, where I learned of the torpedo fiasco. The USN "Pigboats" certainly made up lost time after the "grimlins" were eliminated. The way I understand it, they literally ran out of targets, even wasting ordnance on Sampans and Junks (by the way, what's the difference???) as the Pacific wound down . Cheers. Postscript...If true, I find it ironic that the Germans, actually had some Torpedo problems during the Battle of the Atlantic. Have you ever heard of this??? One thing for sure the Japanese "Long Lance" performed without a hitch as I understand it. What havoc it spread in the "slot" down in the Solomons.
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Post by oozlefinch on Jul 22, 2012 8:32:51 GMT 8
Fots & Chad - While one could put wooden ties & rails down on concrete, it would be difficult to walk on. Is the photo of the "South Tunnel" in the "Malinta Hill" question in reply #172 "Tunnel Queen"? Is that the tunnel that has a turn that could not accomodate the torpedoe? I can't remember whether I saw a picture of a ramp going west down from the South Shore Road outside of Tunnel Queen, or Al McGrew told me about it. I don't have Al's book, so I don't know if he talks about it, but I believe he told me that he, among others, carried supplies down from that tunnel to the South Dock after the surrender. Also, I seem to remember somewhere that that ramp was used to deliver torpedoes from the tunnel down to South Dock to be loaded aboard submarines. I also have a railroad spike that I found by the road goint down to Battery Morrison. I can't remember the name of the barrio that was in that area, but I also have an ancient Coke bottle I found in that area. By the bye, what does SWAG stand for?
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Post by okla on Jul 22, 2012 10:12:14 GMT 8
Hey Oozle....SWAG stands for "Stupid, Wild Arsed (Aussie pronunciation) Guess. The thing is, with these guys, Fots, Chad,etc, who use it so freely, their SWAGs ain't so Wild Arsed, but, in reality, are pretty well thought out and usually prove to be the exact opposite. The longer you are a member of this Forum, the more evident it well be. Those guys are seldom too far off base. There are others, including Battery Boy, Army Junk, among them, who have Technical information that is never in error. I would trust their info over what is included in the official Manuals. EXO ain't exactly a slouch in these matters. I learn something damned near every day. Cheers.
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Post by oozlefinch on Jul 22, 2012 11:10:10 GMT 8
okla - Actually I'd like to hear that with an Oklahoma accent. Having been a member of CDSG for over 20 years, I could tell right off that these guys were good. I've know ArmyJunk for quite a number of years, and met EXO and BatteryBoy on the Rock in '06, so I'm familiar with them.
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