Although the same diameter, the Mark 14 was longer, at 20 ft 6 in (6.25 m), and therefore incompatible with older submarines' 15 ft 3 in (4.65 m) torpedo tubes. The Mark 14 was to serve in the new 'fleet' submarines and replace the Mark 10 which had been in service since World War I and was standard in the older R- and S-boats. The design of the Mark 14 started in January 1931 the Navy allocated $143,000 for its development. Although the Navy conducted other tests, those tests were nondestructive: the torpedoes would not be damaged by the tests.

The second test shot exploded under the target submarine and sank it. In this picture of the first shot, the Mark 10 torpedo with the experimental exploder ran underneath the target without exploding. After the fixes, the Mark 14 played a major role in the devastating blow U.S. Navy submarines dealt to the Japanese naval and merchant marine forces during the Pacific War.īy the end of World War II, the Mark 14 torpedo was a reliable weapon ultimately remaining in service for almost 40 years in the U.S. Navy, and even longer with other navies.ĭevelopment The only live fire test of the magnetic influence exploder before the war occurred in 1926. From December 1941 to November 1943 the Mark 14 and the destroyer-launched Mark 15 torpedo had numerous technical problems that took almost two years to fix. It was supplemented by the Mark 18 electric torpedo in the last two years of the war. This weapon was plagued with many problems which crippled its performance early in the war. The Mark 14 torpedo was the United States Navy's standard submarine-launched anti-ship torpedo of World War II. A Mark 14 torpedo on display at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco A Mark 14 torpedo on display in Cleveland, near USS Cod

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