The 7.5 inch howitzer was simply a breech-loading recoilless weapon firing a spherical bomb. Both these devices proved very unpopular with ship’s captains, who did not relish the idea of towing explosive charges with a habit of wrapping themselves around propeller shafts.Ī later development was the depth- charge thrower which could hurl an explosive charge some distance from the ship to the area in which the submarine had last been seen. Another device was the explosive paravane, two of which could be towed by a destroyer, in the hope that a submarine would draw the infernal device on to itself. If the sweep fouled a submerged object this registered on an indicator and the sweep could then be fired electrically. The first was the explosive sweep, which was developed from minesweeping gear and comprised a charge towed from the stem of a destroyer, and kept below the surface by a special float. Of course submarines also used camouflage to make them hard to pick out at a distance, and were reported to have hoisted sails on occasions to imitate fishing vessels.Īlthough the depth charge eventually proved to be the best weapon against a submerged U-boat there were a number of intermediate steps. This in turn led to ‘dazzle-painting’, a form of camouflage which utilised extreme colour variations and linear patterns to obscure features such as the waterline, deckline or bridge structures which helped the U-boat commander to estimate course and angle of inclination. Any error in estimation of the speed or inclination of the target could result in the torpedo missing, and so ships were given false bow plates to disguise the bow wave and give a wrong impression of speed. The simplest defense for a ship was to follow a zigzag course, because the U-boat’s commander had to estimate the target’s course and speed by eye. In July 1916 the motor boat Salmon brought off the first successful attack using both depth charges and hydrophones, when she sank UC7. This was simply an underwater listening device which was made directional to trace the noise made by the submarine’s electric motors. Then came the need to devise a sensor to detect the submarine before it attacked, and from this were developed several types of hydrophone. The depth charge was also introduced in 1916 to solve the problem of attacking a submerged submarine it was basically a 300lb bomb fitted with a hydrostatic device to detonate it at a pre-set depth. Although the British took some time to develop a properly effective mine, when they finally introduced the H2 pattern in 1916 it rapidly became the most effective weapon against the U-boat, sinking 25 per cent of the total. First came indicator nets and then mine nets, which had small charges attached to the netting to explode on contact. There were two passive methods of defense, minefields and nets, and these were quickly put into effect by both sides. In all, only fourteen U-boats were sunk by ramming and in many cases the attacking ship also suffered considerable damage. However both these methods depended on the submarine surfacing or giving away her position, and so opportunities were limited. 1 Issue 98 and kindly permitted to be reprinted here.ĪT THE OUTBREAK OF WWI in 1914 the only weapons against the submarine were the gun or to ram. Publication June 2005 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)Ībridged from an article in “History of the World Wars”, previously published in the RAN Corvettes Association Newsletter Vol.
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