Harebrained Ideas: What are your WWII inventions?

[SubConscious]

One of the problems of historical games, at least for someone with an overactive imagination like me, is that it isn’t possible to invent new ways to combat the enemy. This problem is especially salient for me while playing SH3, particularly while being bombarded by depth charges and wishing I had some way to fight back.

Back in the mid 30’s, a German named Werner Fürbringer came up with the idea of positive buoyancy weapons for U-Boats. In essence, it would be a depth charge in reverse: It would float to the surface and explode, giving the escort a little taste of its own medicine. Fürbringer’s ideas were dismissed in 1936 and I can’t find any further notes regarding whether anyone else attempted to champion this idea (Source: Jak P. Mallman Showell: U-Boats Under the Swastika).

According to V. Hogg & J.B. King, who wrote German and Allied Secret Weapons of World War II, the Germans experimented with a device they called the Wasseresel (Water Donkey). The concept was the make a dummy conning tower and fill it full of high explosives. We all know how much escorts love to ram conning towers, so the principle is pretty simple. Apparently the fly in the ointment was that U-Boat commanders weren’t too keen on having a ton or so of high explosives strapped to the exterior of their boats. Reportedly the few that were tried were “accidentally lost at sea” (probably with Bernard strapped to one of them).

My idea is to expand on Fürbringer’s proposal, but with greater functionality and less risk than the Wasseresel. Imagine if you will a mine shaped like a short torpedo. Similar to standard mines, this weapon would exhibit positive buoyancy (e.g., it floats). On this cylindrical tube are fins, but these fins aren’t fixed – they are adjustable. At the underside of the nose of this weapon is a very thin cable that runs to a spool affixed to the U-Boat. The weapon is stored in tubes on the U-Boat’s back, outside of the pressure hull (vertical tubes would be ideal for carrying a number of these weapons).

Here’s how it would work: The weapon is deployed at depth. When the outer door is open and the release triggered, the weapon beings to silently float to the surface. The depth of the weapon could be determined by the difference between the depth of the U-Boat and the amount of cable played out (with adjustments being necessary for the speed of the U-Boat, of course). Within the cable are two control lines: One for elevation, the other is for the weapon’s rudder. To use the weapon, enough cable would be played out to bring it within 2-3 meters of the surface of the ocean. It could then be swung from side to side using the rudder, much like a water skier behind a speed boat, albeit a very slow one. Using the hydrophone as a targeting device, the goal would be to ram the weapon into the escort(s) prosecuting the U-Boat. In a nutshell, it’s a mobile mine. In a pinch, the weapon could conceivably be used to sink merchant ships. It is also theoretically possible that several such weapons could be deployed at the same time, each at a different distance from the boat – like trolling lines, creating a line of mines that could be moved across the path of a ship or ships.

Please feel free to comment on this idea. I’m posting it just for fun and perhaps to generate some discussion of other harebrained ideas. ;)

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

One thing I've always been curious about why it was never done was a modification of sorts to the sonar decoys.

The sonar decoys were devices to make noises that would (hopefully) be picked up by passive sonar and tracked, instead of the U-boat itself. Nice idea, actually, and at least from my game experience, seems to work pretty good in certain instances.

However . . .

Since an exploding depth charge effectively 'deafened' both passive and active tracking for a long period of time (I've read anywhere from 3 - 15 minutes), why wait for a warship to drop one?

Some subs were designed for mine emplacement. I've always wondered why all U-boats weren't retrofitted with something similar: a rack of deployable, remote-armable and settable bouyant charges on the aft deck. In a bad situation when trying to evade, time set it for detonation a minute after release (you do need to be away from it, after all, when it goes off) and let it go. It would rise up off the deck and very slowly float upwards before going off, thereby creating your own 'deadened' area. Plus, as the warship's sonar operator probably still has his headphones on (and not expecting a loud explosion) you might deafen the operator as well.

I can't see where having those on the aft deck would create any more of a hazard than having externally stored torpedoes, and the ability to create your own planned 'dead zones' sure sounds like a good idea to me!

[THE_MASK]

I dont know anything about hair brained schemes for combating the enemy . But if you want to know about hair brained mods i am the expert .

[bookworm_020]

I remeber seeing some photos of some test done with rockets fired by U-Boats while underwater, they were never used in active service, but they did give an idea of what to expect when the first submerged ICBM were launched.

[Vikinger]

Ive read about thos rockets as well. But cant remember where i saw it.

One thing about the historical value eg realism in sh3 is the lack of accuracy of different weapons.

One example is the hedgehogs. Thos was entering service around 1943 but they where quikly replaced by a far more effective weapon called Squid mortar, also in service by May 1943.

This weapon was a three-barrel 12 inch (305 mm) mortar with the mortars mounted in series but off-bore from each other in order to scatter the projectiles. The barrels were mounted in a frame that could be rotated through 90 degrees for loading.

The weapons were automatically fired from the sonar range recorder at the proper moment. The pattern formed a triangle about 40 yards (37 m) on a side at a distance of 275 yards (250 m) ahead of the ship. Most squid installations utilised two sets of mortars. All six bombs were fired in salvo so that they formed opposing triangular spreads. The salvos were set to explode 25 feet (7.6 m) above and below the target, the resulting pressure wave crushing the hull of the submarine.


There is 50 known attacks where they used this weapon against submarines and 17 confirmed "kills" in thos attack. So it was a very effective weapon.

To bad we dont have this weapon in SH3 to fight against. It would surely be much harder to evade thos frigates and corvettes.

Only tactic i can think of to evade them is to dive real deep cuz maximum depth was 900 feet (274 m) for thos barrels.


Another thing ive been wonder about. Why dont the game use the kreigsmarines grid system? When we get a message they allways use the kriegsmarines gridsystem but for the player we have to use the other gridsystem.

PS. For the Aussies on this forum it can be intressting to know that the hedgehogs was installed on the Tanks. Cant be fun to be a Japanes infanterist to face that kind of weapon in battles. It must have been the first kind of "clusterbombs".

[TarJak]

PS. For the Aussies on this forum it can be intressting to know that the hedgehogs was installed on the Tanks. Cant be fun to be a Japanes infanterist to face that kind of weapon in battles. It must have been the first kind of "clusterbombs".

Yep the Australian Army in WWII installed a bunch of 6 or 7 barrelled Hedgehog spigot mortars on the rear deck of some Matilda II tanks. The projectiles weighed about 30kg with about 14kg of explosives. They could be elevated but not traversed so the whole tank had to be steered in the right direction to aim them. They could fire out to about 400m so you wouldn't want to be walking in front of these babies when they let loose.

The radio antenna was in the way of one of the tubes so they had to traverse the gun turret to get it out of the way!

The other problem with them was that the crew had to get out of the tank to reload them so it was a back to base job.

There is a photo here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Matilda_Hedgehog%28AWM_133687%29.jpg

[SubConscious]

One thing I've always been curious about why it was never done was a modification of sorts to the sonar decoys.

The sonar decoys were devices to make noises that would (hopefully) be picked up by passive sonar and tracked, instead of the U-boat itself. Nice idea, actually, and at least from my game experience, seems to work pretty good in certain instances.

However . . .

Since an exploding depth charge effectively 'deafened' both passive and active tracking for a long period of time (I've read anywhere from 3 - 15 minutes), why wait for a warship to drop one?

Some subs were designed for mine emplacement. I've always wondered why all U-boats weren't retrofitted with something similar: a rack of deployable, remote-armable and settable bouyant charges on the aft deck. In a bad situation when trying to evade, time set it for detonation a minute after release (you do need to be away from it, after all, when it goes off) and let it go. It would rise up off the deck and very slowly float upwards before going off, thereby creating your own 'deadened' area. Plus, as the warship's sonar operator probably still has his headphones on (and not expecting a loud explosion) you might deafen the operator as well.

I can't see where having those on the aft deck would create any more of a hazard than having externally stored torpedoes, and the ability to create your own planned 'dead zones' sure sounds like a good idea to me!

That's a very interesting idea. Taking it a step further, I think it would be ideal for each of the noise makers to contain several small explosives, rather than one large one - like a cluster bomb. My logic is that if each of the individual explosives was timed to go off a few seconds after the previous one, the result would be a sustained "dead zone", during which the U-Boat could attempt to exit the search area at high speed.

I love thinking about this kind of stuff...

[Safe-Keeper]

For some reason, I found the "reverse depth charge" idea to be hilarious:rotfl:.

[_Seth_]

Yeah, stuff Bernard full of beans, and let him surface........ :help:

[Hartmann]

*For the antisubmarine warfare:

two big ships with a giant net, like fishing , this net sweep the depth to 300 meters or more.

when a u boat is captured , the net is recovered or closed. capturing the boat,
also is possible know the exact location .

other option is release a heavy wheight tied to the net, sending the boat to the bottom

*for submarines:

a container filled with small or medium bombs that are released to the surface, acting as a mines , it coul blow or damage hidrophones, screws, or hull.


The flower mortar
a device filled with grenades ready to be fired in a circular pattern around the device.
it is released and autofired when it reach surface.

The big boy

a huge bomb released to the surface , it could blow up in depth, making a water turbulence or damage the sonars.

or jump out of the water and explode, it could be filled with thousand of iron balls, explosive or a toxic gas.

:88) :88)

:rotfl: :rotfl:

[SubConscious]

For some reason, I found the "reverse depth charge" idea to be hilarious:rotfl:.

So did I, until I saw the logic of it. Torpedoes can't be fired at depth, but an unpressurized locker could be opened, with the positive buoyancy charge floating out. Other than the door opening, it could be a completely silent weapon. If we assume that the escort must typically pass over the U-Boat in order to drop depth charges (other than side-throwing charges), it makes sense to send a gift basket upstairs, so to speak.

The flaw in the original reverse depth charge idea is that it would take some time for a charge to float to the surface, particularly if the U-Boat is very deep (200+ meters). As escorts typically have to move very fast to escape the destruction of their own depth charges, I would guess that any delay would degrade accuracy significantly. Having a mobile mine, however, overcomes this problem: The cable could be played out and the mine kept hidden below the surface above the U-Boat.

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

For some reason, I found the "reverse depth charge" idea to be hilarious:rotfl:.

So did I, until I saw the logic of it. Torpedoes can't be fired at depth, but an unpressurized locker could be opened, with the positive buoyancy charge floating out. Other than the door opening, it could be a completely silent weapon. If we assume that the escort must typically pass over the U-Boat in order to drop depth charges (other than side-throwing charges), it makes sense to send a gift basket upstairs, so to speak.

The flaw in the original reverse depth charge idea is that it would take some time for a charge to float to the surface, particularly if the U-Boat is very deep (200+ meters). As escorts typically have to move very fast to escape the destruction of their own depth charges, I would guess that any delay would degrade accuracy significantly. Having a mobile mine, however, overcomes this problem: The cable could be played out and the mine kept hidden below the surface above the U-Boat.

The idea I had wasn't a floatable depth charge intended to damage or destroy a warship. It was to float upwards and detonate underwater, and it's sole purpose was to create hydrophone/ASDIC dead zones.