Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Sunday for Monday
In 1917 the United States built some 400 wooden ships (not the transports mentioned as trivia several weeks ago) for the purpose of defending against submarine warfare. Although they were to be used close to home off the Coast of the U.S., they were instead diverted across the ocean to duty as part of an international task force elsewhere. What was this group of ships nicknamed by the regular Navy? What were the two items on board that were �new� to warfare?
Re: Sunday for Monday
one new item was sonar
Re: Sunday for Monday
I'll guess the other innovation were depth charges?
Tom
That's one!
That's the second one!
Monday answer
John got the first of the innovations and Tom the second. The sonar John mentioned was as primitive as it gets. It was a tube beneath the water line that at the water end was shaped like the letter �T� inside of the arm of the �T� was a rubber bulb to pick up vibrations. By turning the �T� the operator was supposed to hone in on the propellers of a submarine. In as much as there were no audio filters it did a better job of finding its own propellers noise and after that, other surface ships in the area�not the submarines that were a mere 60 to one hundred feet below the surface. The headphones, by the way, were more like a doctor�s stethoscope rather than the ear cups we have today.
Depth charges were TNT exploded by a pressure activated �pistol� that fired a shot into a container filled with 300 pounds (later more) of explosive. In WWI the depth charge had to be on top or within 10 yards of the pressure hull of a submarine. Not an easy task considering the weak charge as well as the straight path rolling of the charge off the stern of the ship. The familiar �Y� style depth charge shooter was adopted later and replaced a 3� cannon. A lot was made of the depth charge, and claims were made for its effectiveness, but there is no evidence that they caused any submarine damage during WWI from the wooden American ships.
The wood ships with a SC designator collectively were called the �splinter fleet� by the regular steel Navy. The name continued into WWII. They were almost whaleboats by design, but 110 feet long, 15 feet beam, 75 tons displacement, 2 or 3 officers, 24 men. They also had a high wheelhouse for sighting mines and submarines. They were stronly built but acted like a bobber and rode every wave with a pitch or roll. No matter who was on board or how long they served, good seas or bad, they were seasick at least part of the time.
During the first war there were claims for up to eighteen submarines destroyed. By the beginning of WWII all of those claims were dismissed. The WWI splinter fleet made mostly of wood was sold off or used as anything else from rescue to targets. They did however lead in a left handed way to the idea of PT boats built by a multitude of smaller shipyards as a holding action in WWII while a steel Navy could be rebuilt in the major yards after Pearl Harbor.
The wood ships (sub chasers) of the �splinter fleet� were designed to be non-magnetic mine sweepers and sub hunters. As sub hunters, they were slow (16 knots �submarines could outrun them on the surface and the subs had bigger guns (4� vs. 3�)), and with six of seven bulkheads, three engines with 39 inch propellers, plus armament all of metal it made them have about equal weight of steel to wood. Their eventual role was to keep subs down below torpedo launch level and allow convoys they were protecting to pass before the sub could fire. Those that served on them were loyal but to the regular Navy there was little respect to the Cinderella�s of the fleet.