Can a battleship survive a torpedo?
Unlike the numerous aerial bombs or cannon shells required to sink large warships, just one or two torpedo hits could and sometimes did suffice to sink huge aircraft carriers and battleships.
How did torpedo nets work?
Torpedo nets could be hung out from the defending ship, when moored or otherwise stationary in the water, on multiple horizontal booms. Each boom was fixed to the ship at one end at or below the edge of the main deck, by a steel pin that permitted the boom to be swung against the ship and secured when the ship sailed.
Why do battleships not have torpedoes?
For one thing, battleships were way too heavy. Torpedoes on submarines are fired from water-tight “tubes” under water, and to have such tubes below the water line in the hull of a battleship would compromise the integrity of the extremely thick hull. For another, torpedoes are precision weapons.
How do ships stop torpedoes?
The effective anti-torpedo defense depends on early detection of the torpedo. Once the torpedo is launched, sonar tracking from ships and helicopters may manage to spot it in time to destroy it with anti-torpedo torpedoes or by maneuvering the ship away from any visible torpedo track.
Could a torpedo sink a cruise ship?
Back through World War II, the primary way torpedoes did their damage was with a direct hit. The impact of the torpedo on a ship’s hull would drive a firing pin that sets off a warhead. Generally, this approach worked well, but it could take many direct hits to do damage enough to sink a vessel.
What are the Nets on a ship called?
Designed to hang from a ship’s masts and encircle its deck, the boarding net could be deployed during battle or at night when a ship was at anchor in unknown or hostile waters. In the Royal Navy, boarding nets first gained widespread use in the 1790s.
What could boom Defence nets stop?
Defenses Against Surface Ships All that was required in those early days was a barrier capable of stopping a small, shallow draught slow moving trireme, a fire ship or a primitive sailing ship.
Can a torpedo sink a battleship?
The answer is of course, that one torpedo can sink a ship regardless of her size. Nevertheless, there have been cases when a torpedo caused disastrous damage but the ship remained afloat. On April 13, 1940, British and German destroyers met in a duel during the course of a naval battle near Narvik.
Can a destroyer survive a torpedo?
It is unlikely that a World War II destroyer would survive a torpedo attack. The greatest problem faced by a destroyer is that its main engineering spaces, the largest spaces on the ship, are distributed over such a great percentage of the ship.
Why do battleships have bulges?
The anti-torpedo bulge (also known as an anti-torpedo blister) is a form of defence against naval torpedoes occasionally employed in warship construction in the period between the First and Second World Wars.
What happened to two World War II boats that sank next to each other?
Two World War II vessels that sunk within moments of each other 72 years ago have been rediscovered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, resting only a few hundred yards apart. The Allied merchant freighter Bluefields and the German U-boat U-576 went down on July 15, 1942, part of the larger Battle of the Atlantic that raged throughout the war.
How many merchant ships were lost to German U-boats in 1942?
In the first eight months of 1942 alone, more than 50 merchant ships were lost to U-boats patrolling off the North Carolina coast, NOAA estimates. A sonar image of the German U-boat U-576, which was sent to the bottom of the Atlantic by U.S. Naval forces after attacking a guarded merchant convoy on July 15, 1942.
How many World War II warships were there in total?
Thousands of warships were deployed around the world during WWII by both Allied and Axis forces. Wikipedia has accumulated an incomplete list of around 1400 major military ships of WWII with displacement of 1,000 tons or more. That list is prepared excluding oilers, landing crafts, troopships.
Are there any shipwrecks of WW2 that are yet to be discovered?
Here is story of top 10 Shipwrecks of WWII that are yet to be discovered on the ocean floor. USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73) was a Casablanca class escort aircraft carrier with a displacement of 7,900 tons. 50 of these carriers were planned and commissioned within two years from November 3, 1942 to July 8, 1944.