hhm@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (herschel.h.mayo) (06/06/90)
From: hhm@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (herschel.h.mayo) In article <16136@cbnews.ATT.COM>, gonzalez@BBN.COM (Jim Gonzalez) writes: > The Hunley, one of the David class, was lost in an apparent suicide attack > on USS Housatonic that sunk both vessels. To attribute the loss to technical > failure is a bit inaccurate; it is unlikely they expected to survive an attack > made with a spar torpedo. I think that a suicide attack was hardly intended. Experiments were made with towing the explosive mine behind the Hunley on a long rope, and diving under the target thereby dragging the floating mine against the hull of the target. The floating mine was too uncontrollable, and posed a greater threat to the Hunley than the target. The boom mount was a solution to this problem, albeit a bad one. The wreck of the Housatonic was examined by divers some time later. The Hunley was jammed into the hole in the hull like a cork in a bottle. Evidently the Hunley survived the explosion, but was sucked into the resulting hole by the inrushing water. Larry Mayo
scottmi@ncar.UCAR.EDU (SCOTT MICHAEL C) (06/06/90)
From: boulder!snoopy!scottmi@ncar.UCAR.EDU (SCOTT MICHAEL C) Attempted to attach an explosive charge to the underside of HMS Eagle, the flagship of Lord Howe. Unfortunately, the Royal Navy had been copper- sheathing it's ships to control marine growth below the waterline. It quite effectively prevented Sgt. Ezra Lee from attaching the charge, which he needed to set in place with something like an enormous hand drill (which had a detachable bit, with the sealed charge and clockwork fuse attached to the bit.) Lee thought he had encountered iron bracing near the keel, so he moved several times to try different spots along the bottom of the ship. Eventually, he gave up, and while taking the Turtle back upriver, he was spotted by a party of British in a longboat. They gave chase, but since Lee could see them coming (the Turtle had a crude periscope) he was able to arm and detach the explosive charge. The detonation occurred rather near the boatful of British (marines?), discouraging them from further pursuit. To my knowledge, no further attempts were made to use the Turtle operationally. --don't like snow, miss Deirdre, and wish I was still in Santa Cruz.