If you look at the Wikipedia article they are: Mark 48 torpedo - Wikipedia
But also if you look at the google image search they seem to be.
That seems very odd to me but I don’t know much about torpedos. So, firstly: are mark 48 torpedos actually colourful, usually? And secondly: if so, what are the advantages and disadvantages of thsi?
Generally, warshots are green and exercise torpedos are orange. The torpedo has different sections: nose, warhead, control, fuel, and engine/tailcone.
A dummy torpedo that is to be shot will be all green except for an orange warhead section. That pic was taken in a refit/repair depot, and the one they are working on has a live warhead, and a dummy/test control section and fuel tank. I’m not sure if the different shades of orange have meaning, in this case the control section may consist of test instrumentation.
Right–warshots are dark green, except for the nose section, which is black.
As for potential disadvantages, I really doubt the color makes any difference. By the time you can see the torpedo coming, it’s way too late to dodge it.
But at least you have something nice to look at.
M203 grenades are color coded, too. Don’t want to get your “high explosive” confused with your “crowd control.”
I was thinking “Rainbow torpedoes? Okay, somebody’s just messing with the military.”
Oh I don’t know, I think if you made a few “mistakes” the crowds would just start dispersing the minute they saw the M203s. You’d never have to fire a shot once the uncertainty was high enough.
A Benetton Armament Group[sup]®[/sup] product.
I was trained and worked on the Mk 48 in the late 60s early 70s.
as mentioned up thread, the warshot is green (only the rubber cover of the transducer on the nose is black).
The exercise torpedo had an orange section for the instrumentation used to control and record the exercise run, and the fuel section was also modified so that seawater could flood in to maintain the bouyancy characteristics without mixing with the fuel (approximately 1/2 fuel load, seawater is about the same weight).
At end of run, a bladder in the fuel section was inflated to eject the water, creating a tail-heavy aspect to raise the nose (and the orange section) for visibility for retrieval.
All other color configurations were used during research and trials.