Talk:Zara/@comment-175.156.32.158-20170301092637/@comment-87.11.238.185-20170304165532

IRL torpedoes were a decisive weapon for destroyers, a good possibility for light cruisers and more a liability than a possibility for heavy cruisers.

For a ship that could disable the enemy from 20 km apart, it made little sense to close the distance to the point to become vulnerable to the 152mm guns of a light cruiser, and to risk to be torpedoed in turn, without having the agility and the small shape of the destroyers to evade them.

Moreover, to have even only two triple torpedo launchers on board meant to have two tons (three in case of the Long Lances) of unprotected explosive on the ship's bridge. Several cases of Japanes cruisers sunk or disabled by their own torpedoes demonstrated how a good idea that was.

It's true that the Japanese had many successes in using heavy cruisers to hit allied ships with torps. But that mainly happened cause they had many heavy cruisers, and were willing to risk valuable ships in actions that could have been (and had been) performed by destroyers with the same rate of success.