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Topic: Torpedo warhead colors |
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QM
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Posted on: Sep 17, 2008 - 1:47pm
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| My memory of the boats in New Guinea is that the warheads were painted green to match one of the colors on the boat. The propulsion part of the torpedo was painted with some type of preservative. |
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TED WALTHER |
TOP BOSS
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 Posted on: Sep 19, 2008 - 8:40am
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Steve;
Nice shot of Ray Turnbull's PT 195, notice the 20 mm's in both turrets, do you have any of PT 196 Alfred Vanderbilt's PT 196 at Mios Woendi?
Take care,
TED
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steve deyo
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Posted on: Sep 19, 2008 - 5:28pm
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Ted;
My Dad only had 5 photos of 195. These were late 44/early 45 when Bill Diver had her. I got another picture from Wayne Traxel which he said was 195 because of the quad 50 on the foredeck. Sorry, I can't help you out with any pictures of 196.
Steve
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Gary Szot
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Posted on: Sep 19, 2008 - 5:45pm
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I just posted some color photos on the National Archives topic on this page. There is one good shot of a torpedo with a yellow head.
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TGConnelly
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Posted on: Sep 20, 2008 - 1:28pm
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That MIGHT be a training torpedo ...
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Jerry Gilmartin |
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Posted on: Sep 21, 2008 - 8:38am
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PT Boaters,
I am pretty positive that all the Yellow painted torpedo warheads were training torpedoes. I think that the crews would be wary of advertising their position at the front lines to the enemy with a very easily spotted yellow torpedo warhead! Just think of what an easy target for the enemy to shoot at it would make!! If it were my boat, I would want them to be a color that would blend in with the surroundings. You most often see these yellow painted warheads installed on boats that were NOT on the front lines, like at Melville, and in Panama etc. Frank Andruss has a DVD available for sale called "PT Boats at War Parts I and II", and on it there is a scene in color showing several Mark 13 torpedoes being rigged up out of the magazine hold of a PT Boat tender as two parts, the afterbody and the warhead. The warhead seems to be colored bronze with cosmoline on it and the afterbodies are just plain steel. After bringing the torpedo up on deck, the Torpedomen connect the warhead to the afterbody and then load them by crane onto the PT Boat. Since this is being filmed at a PT Base near the front lines, I surmise that most of the torpedoes were indeed not painted Yellow! Just my humble opinion. Jerry
Jerry Gilmartin |
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QM
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Posted on: Sep 22, 2008 - 2:15pm
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| I believe that it was the propulsion unit [afterbody] that was covered with cosmoline or a similar protective material, and the warhead that was painted, usually to match the color of the boat. |
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Drew Cook
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Posted on: Sep 22, 2008 - 3:06pm
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OK, guys, it seems to me we've determined that the warheads of the Mark XIII aircraft torpedoes, carried by the PTs later in the war in the open-air roll-off racks, were painted a few different colors or combinations of colors (if camouflaged), mostly matching the boat that carried them's color...
What about the warheads of the tube-launched Mark VIII torpedoes on the early-to-mid-war boats? Were they (all ?) unpainted bronze, as seems to be the case in the color photos we've seen of the 61 and the 109 next to her, and as Jerry mentioned seeing in some color film footage, or were some bronze, some other natural metal colors (silver, greyish silver, dull silver), did any of those torpedoes' warheads get painted? If they did, in what colors were they usually painted?
Anyone know?
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