From the American entry into World War II until September 1943, U.S. submarines experienced an abnormally high number of torpedo failures. These failures resulted from three defects present in the primary torpedo of the day, the Mark XIV. These defects were a tendency to run deeper than the set depth, the frequent premature detonation of the Mark 6 magnetic influence exploder, and the failure of the contact exploder when hitting a target at the textbook ninety-degree angle. Ironically, despite using a completely independent design, the Germans experienced the same three defects. The...