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westwords2020 wrote:

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For a piece of fiction in my head I was wondering if sixteen torpedo tubes, half 650 mm and half the standard 533 mm could be built into an air indepant submarine design. I remember proposed German Type XXI C was to have eighteen tubes, all reloadable at dockside but though torpedoes loaded through topside hatches there were no reloads on this boat.

Is it possible?
Technically: Yes,
Logical: No
Why would you want that many tubes for in the first place, since a submarine is not expected to engage more than a few targets at the same time at most. Reloading tubes are therefore more recommended, since these are more flexible, if you can use different kind of weapons of your choice. There is an interesting WW-II Italian submarine with no less than fourteen torpedotubes of the small calliber 17,7in to be used as a commerceraider, since the smaller torpedo was deemed efficient against merchantships, where the heavy 21in was more prefered as multifunctional against both merchant and warship. Smaller calliber meant more reloads and no less than 38 torpedoes could be carried for eight bow and six reloadable sterntubes. (I am not very familar with Italian names, but you can look form it youself in any related source of Italian Naval ships of WW-II)

For my boat, I envisioned sixteen tubes with two reloads per tube and no vertical or inclined tubes aft of sail.
The 650mm tubes would fire Type 65 type long range torpedoes and Yakhont ASCMs and a short ranged antiship ballistic missile to complicate the defenders' problems. Torpedoes first, than a Yakhont salvo and the antiship BMs with manuevering warheads and radar guidance with eight each in the salvo.
The 533 mm 'long' tubes would have decoys, dual purpose torpedoes and Klub type ASCMs with terminal supersonic stages.
I envisioned a hard kill antitorpedo defense and a underwater to air missile for defense against ASW helos and planes.
This imaginary boat would use Stirling cycle AIP system and be a Russo-Chinesse collaboration effort bougth by a rogue state and used against a USN surface action group.

Interesting design, but it must be almost as large as a Typhoon Class SSBN at least to accommodate that many reloadable tubes in the first place and what about the sonarcomputer and trackingsensors then??? State of the art targettingsonar can guide four or five weapons at the same time effectively to different targets. More is highly unlikely, so you are not able to fire more then four or five wireguided torpedoes at the same time, or loose some of them. A mix of missiles and torpedoes is possible, but why do you want them to be launched from horizontal tubes then? Seperate vertical launchtubes make more sence, because they use less internal space and can be put elsewhere in the hull, not eating away precious bowtorpedoroomspace. The Newest Akula's and also the USN SSN's all use a mix of normal horizontal reloadable torpedotubes and vertical external missiletubes. This is the most economical way to use internal hullspace in a submarine.

Meanwhile real world Russian sub class employs boats with four reloadable 650mm and four reloadable 533mm tubes plus eight external reload at dockside torpedo tubes with decoys only in those tubes according to Combat Fleets current edition.