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[tassie48]

Hi crew has anyone build a model that can actually fire a torpedo I am look at different ways so far I have a turbo pop off valve that releases air for the sound effects once the torpedo doors are open ,l looked into a small dive cylinder for the air supply operations now just for sound effects,  I have a idea to use a spear gun as the actual unit to launch the torpedo it throws it a good distance away from the boat ,the running gear is another story to operate it , I made one years ago with some old tamtech car gear launched it missed the target put it in reverse back up turn it around and then hit the target much to everyone's delight, so if anyone has done this happy to learn how tassie48

[Geoff]

Over the years I have seen this done from motor torpedo boats and submarines. Much depends on the scale as the larger the scale the easier it is. If large plastic tubes (cigar tube size) and small motors it can be done and are great fun to watch. They are not particularly fast or accurate but are very effective. If you Google Headcorn model show there are some videos of a submarine aiming at at merchant ship.


The other ones I am aware of which work well but have some issues are for small torpedo's fired from submarines. The guy used butane propane gas to fill small torpedo's which when released shot out of the tubes. As the gas evaporated it exerted almost a rocket thrust and the torpedo's shot off leaving a lovely trail of bubbles, but the problem was they were fast and sometimes would break surface and emulate a cruise missile!!


The bigger problem is that with electrics which are, in my opinion, a much better way to go, is to recover the torpedoes as they are not cheap to make, maybe £5 a go!


Issues for consideration:


- Cost
- Ability to recover the torpedo
- How to control the direction
- Ballasting as if too heavy it will simply dive and be lost and not seen. If too light it will float too high in the water and just go round in circles due to the prop rotation effect. Most real torpedo's have contra rotating props to minimise this and of course giro's to control the direction.


Most of these issues can be solved by careful experimentation and if only used at shows recovery is easy.


Have fun.


Cheers


Geoff