British work on buoyancy, longer fins, and tension cables sought a controlled shallow entry for air-dropped torpedoes attacking ships in harbour. Wilhelmshaven's depth reduced the danger that a diving weapon would simply strike the bottom. The counterfactual allows perhaps twenty weapons from a sixty-torpedo strike to run correctly and roughly fifteen to hit. Ships considered safe in port might have many crew members ashore and internal doors open, making a modest number of hits disproportionately damaging.
Notable Point · 1:52:04-1:54:08
Why early aerial torpedoes might still threaten Wilhelmshaven
British experiments with torpedo entry and a large surprise strike could make even unreliable early weapons dangerous against ships treating Wilhelmshaven as a safe anchorage.