Editing Torpedo (section)

===Submarines===
Modern submarines use either swim-out systems or a pulse of water to discharge the torpedo from the tube, both of which have the advantage of being significantly quieter than previous systems, helping avoid detection of the firing from passive sonar. Earlier designs used a pulse of compressed air or a hydraulic ram.

Early submarines, when they carried torpedoes, were fitted with a variety of torpedo launching mechanisms in a range of locations: on the deck, in the bow or stern, amidships, with some launch mechanisms permitting the torpedo to be aimed over a wide arc. By World War II, designs favored multiple bow tubes and fewer or no stern tubes. Modern submarine bows are usually occupied by a large sonar array, necessitating [[midships]] tubes angled outward, while stern tubes have largely disappeared. The first French and Russian submarines carried their torpedoes externally in [[Stefan Drzewiecki|Drzewiecki]] [[drop collar]]s. These were cheaper than tubes but less reliable. Both the United Kingdom and the United States experimented with external tubes in World War II. External tubes offered a cheap and easy way of increasing torpedo capacity without radical redesign, something neither had time or resources to do before nor early in, the war. [[British T-class submarine]]s carried up to 13 torpedo tubes, up to 5 of them external.  America's use was mainly limited to earlier [[United States Porpoise-class submarine|''Porpoise'']]-, {{sclass|Salmon|submarine|5}}-, and {{sclass|Sargo|submarine|5}}-class boats. Until the appearance of the {{sclass|Tambor|submarine|5}} class, most American submarines only carried 4 bow and either 2 or 4 stern tubes, something many American submarine officers felt provided inadequate firepower. {{citation needed|date=May 2013}} This problem was compounded by the notorious unreliability of the [[Mark 14 torpedo]].

Late in World War II, the U.S. adopted a {{convert|16|in|cm|adj=mid}} homing torpedo (known as [[Mark 27 torpedo|"Cutie"]]) for use against escorts. It was basically a modified [[Mark 24 Mine]] with wooden rails to allow firing from a {{convert|21|in|cm|adj=mid}} torpedo tube.{{sfn|Blair|1975|p={{page needed|date=January 2021}}}}<ref>{{cite book |first1=Charles A. |last1=Lockwood |first2=Hans C. |last2=Adamson |title=Hellcats of the Sea: Operation Barney and the Mission to the Sea of Japan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MBJtDwAAQBAJ |date=29 August 2018 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=978-0-359-05709-2}}</ref>