HMCS Huron Association - Early A/S Weapons

Early A/S Weapons

Would you believe that for awhile it was said that the RN’s only solution to enemy submarines was to send our small boats carrying a matelot with a canvas bag and a sledgehammer? The bag was to be slipped over the periscope to blind it while the sledgehammer was for smashing the upper mirror and lens. When the sub surfaced, still blind, it would be captured. Boarded by sailors armed with cutlasses perhaps!

Actually, there were only two ways to attack a submarine in 1914 – ramming them or hitting them with gunfire. Right after WW1 started, U15 was rammed by the light cruiser HMS Birmingham and sank with all hands. U19 escaped with serious damage after being run down by HMS Badge, a destroyer. Later, an armed trawler rammed U18 near Scapa Flow. The sub sank to the bottom the resurfaced only to be rammed again this time by a destroyer, the HMS Garry. The crew was rescued when the sub sank for good. To reduce the risk of damage to the ship doing the ramming it was decided thereafter that all small vessels be fitted with a steel spur at the forefoot to act as a ‘can-opener’.

Loops of wire fitted with explosive charges were tried as ASW weapons as well as paravane sweeps originally designed for minesweeping. But now fitted with explosives and towed from each quarter of an attacking ship. There was also a ‘lance bomb’ thrown like a spear down onto a sub discovered alongside – and each of these had two or three successes, believe it or not! But, it was not until 1917 that destroyers and patrol craft we fitted with depth charges with depth charge throwers not appearing until 1918.

But, the device that sank the greatest number of U-boats during WWI was the mine, many of them German mines! They accounted for one third of all U-boat sinkings in the conflict.

From the Peterborough Naval Assn. Bulletin