Destroyer hooks

[Schultz]

I recently saw the movie "Below", and that a german warship being out of depth charges used hooks.Now comes the question did american or british ships had hooks?

[Dread Knot]

The Japanese did experiment with such a device..

At least two types of anti-submarine explosive weapons designed for underwater tow by small surface vessels are known to have been developed and used by the Japanese, particularly early in the war. The first of these was called the "Yokosuka depth charge," and was set to explode upon contact with a submerged object. The charge was cylindrical in shape, about 1 foot in diameter by 5 feet in length, and contained 55 pounds of Type 88 explosive filler.

The second weapon was designated by the Japanese as the Mark 2 Explosive Hook and, although developed primarily for minesweeping, was occasionally used for anti-submarine work. This device was a cast iron cylinder, 8 inches in diameter and ten inches long with four grapnel-like arms projecting from the main body, each 71/2 inches long. The body contained a charge varying form 8 to 19 pounds of Type 88 explosive. Firing was accomplished after the hook secured on a submerged target; the Mod. 0 either electrically by an observer on the towing ship or automatically when an additional tension of 550 pounds was put on the towing line, and the Mod. 1 by electrical control from the towing ship. Although several reports were received from U.S. submarines of small Japanese vessels apparently using these two weapons, no large-scale employment was made and there is no information to indicated that damage was ever inflicted.

From hyperwar
http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/...8/WDR58-3.html

As far as I know, the Germans and Americans never did.

[Sailor Steve]

Submerged Type VIIc uboat displaces almost 1000 tons. British 'J' class destroyer displaces 1690 tons. Destroyer hooks uboat while it's diving:

1) Hook snags outer hull of uboat and rips a hole that really won't affect the boat other than slowing it down a bit due to the jagged edges.

2) Hook snags something solid and destroyer suddenly finds itself attached to 1000 rapidly sinking tons. Kind of like deep-sea fishing and snagging a whale.

[Schultz]

Thats what happend in "Below" a hook snatched the coning tower until the periscope tubes bended and cracked so they had to clear the coning tower beacause of the water.
Here are 2 ss of the hooks.

[Sailor Steve]

My point was that they wouldn't do it because there's a perfectly good chance that the sub might drag your destroyer down with it.

[Schultz]

The point is that in the movie the sub was already at the bottom so the hooks were long enough to reach the sub. Maybe they should put this on sh5 .

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

My point was that they wouldn't do it because there's a perfectly good chance that the sub might drag your destroyer down with it.

Your saying it was never tried in RL back then ?

[Letum]

I'm not so sure Steve.

The Sub may displace 1000 tons, but it' weight in the water with tanks
flooded will be far, far less than 1000 tons. At neutral buoyancy the weight
will be zero.
I would be surprised if the basalt tanks could get more than 10 tons extra
weight, but I could certainly be wrong.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

My point was that they wouldn't do it because there's a perfectly good chance that the sub might drag your destroyer down with it.

Surely they would have some sort of emergency release, what if the hook snagged a reef then you would be stuck

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

2) Hook snags something solid and destroyer suddenly finds itself attached to 1000 rapidly sinking tons. Kind of like deep-sea fishing and snagging a whale.

" Brody: You're gonna need a bigger boat."