Hi, I was reading one of the best christmas presents ever received and found some exotic torpedo warheads that u might find interesting. Picture was taken at the main Kriegsmarine torpedo storage tunnel in Brest. Am sure that many of you will like this unusual warhead painting scheme, just like i do!!
I have seen several photos of storage-areas like this in the U-Boat bunkers and Torpedoarsenals in France (and Netherlands i think). It's annoying, but so far, I have not been able to determine what type of torpedoes this is...
There is information indicating some sort of cooperation between Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe in terms of torpedo storage and maintenance (at least in the early days, before Luftwaffe established their own organisastion) and at the end of the war, were resources was utilized for a common goal). Ie: This could be luftttorpedoes (some are very similar to the F5b). Hard to tell if this is 45cm or 50/53cm torpedoes though. My only other suggestion for a german torpedo would be older Schwartzkopf models like the C35, but it's very unlikely that these would have been in service at this point.
The heads are most certainly exercise-heads, painted in different "high visibility" patterns (making it more easy to spot the torpedo after it has run out the set distance). These patterns are not according to regulation though - suggesting very early days or lufttorpedoes (not sure what regulations they had, but all photos I have seen shows the same pattern as Kriegsmarine).
Regarding the type of torpedoes: There's also the option of this being "beutewaffe", and as this is in Brest: French torpedoes (which I'm not familiar with). If I would have to make a choice, my bet would be the latter.