Use of Lufttorpedos by Germany(April-Mai 1940)

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AFAIK the Luftwaffe and after an unsuccessful Lufttorpedo attack the Marine too preferred bombs instead of torpedos for attacking ships. Hitler himself decided to stop the procurement of more Lufttorpedos on 28.11.1939.

What I would like to know is were any Lufttorpedos still used for attacks on ships at the time of Operation Weserübung(April-Mai 1940)?
They must have been used at least for something as the inventory dropped to 40(from pre-war 200 I think) in October 1940 but the reason for this could be the successful attack by Britain against the French fleet and with this the use of more Lufttorpedos by Germany either for training and/or combat.

Well if they were used, what units used them?
One of the several Kampfgeschwader or naval air units like the Küstenfliegergruppen or Bordfliegergruppe 196 or both?(Again I'm mainly interested in the time of Operation Weserübung April-Mai 1940)

[redcoat]

At the start of WW2, the only Luftwaffe aircraft which could carry an airborne torpedo was the He 59 and the Seeflieger only possessed 30 operational He 59s in four Staffeln. At this time the He 115 was starting to come into service, but due to the fragility of the LT F5 torpedo it couldn’t be carried, as the He 115 couldn’t fly slow enough, without stalling, to release the LT F5 torpedo successfully.
From October 1939 the few He 59s flew a limited number of torpedo operations against Allied shipping, but the only success recorded by He 59s using torpedoes in WW2 was the sinking of the British fishing steamer, Active (185 GRT) on the 18 December 1939.

In March 1940 with technical improvements to the LT F5 torpedo (including a new rudder) the He 115 was made operational with the torpedo, replacing the He 59 in the role, even though the torpedo was still far from satisfactory, as it still required the He 115 to fly as slow and low as it possibly could, but even then failures were common.
Over the next few months due to limited available supplies of the torpedo (135 in March) few operations were undertaken and in July 1940 the only operational airborne torpedo Staffel ready for action was 3/Ku.Fl.Gr 506 based at Stavanger, to be followed by 1./Ku.Fl.Gr 106 from mid August based at Norderney

From August, as other He 115 torpedo attack units became operational, combat sorties increased( though the limited number of torpedoes available was always a problem, in September the figure was down to 38 at one point) and the first successes of the He 115 units may have been the sinking of Llanishen (5,035 GRT) and the Makalla (6,680 GRT) of Convoy CA 203 in the Moray Firth on the 23 August 1940, but some sources put their loss down to bombs not torpedoes.
The first confirmed success of He 115 torpedo bombers was the sinking of the Remuera (11,445 GRT) by Ku.Fl.Gr 506 on the 26 August 1940.

Over the next 4 months until the end of the year the Luftwaffe used about 160 airborne torpedoes in operations against British shipping in Northern waters, Luftwaffe claims were high (one unit alone, 3./Ku.Fl.Gr 506 was credited with sinking 124,000 GRT) but when checked against British losses, Luftwaffe torpedo bombers probably sank a total of 7 or 8 Allied merchant ships totalling around 50-60,000 GRT in 1940.


During this period there were attempts to use both the He 111 and Ju 88 in the torpedo bomber role, but due to problems with inter service rivalry, and the LT F5 torpedo, none became operational in 1940, though the He 111 did become operational as a torpedo bomber in early 1941.

Source for the facts and figures
Luftwaffe Aerial Torpedo Aircraft and Operations in World War II, by Harold Thiele

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Thanks very interesting post!