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From: hhm@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (herschel.h.mayo)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: History of Submarines
Summary: no suicide
Message-ID: <1990Jun6.144845.7317@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 6 Jun 90 14:48:45 GMT
References: <16003@cbnews.ATT.COM> <16136@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: hhm@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (herschel.h.mayo)

In article <16136@cbnews.ATT.COM>, gonzalez@BBN.COM (Jim Gonzalez) writes:

> The Hunley, one of the David class, was lost in an apparent suicide attack 
> on USS Housatonic that sunk both vessels.  To attribute the loss to technical 
> failure is a bit inaccurate; it is unlikely they expected to survive an attack 
> made with a spar torpedo.

I think that a suicide attack was hardly intended. Experiments were made
with towing the explosive mine behind the Hunley on a long rope, and 
diving under the target thereby dragging the floating mine against the
hull of the target.  The floating mine was too uncontrollable, and posed
a greater threat to the Hunley than the target. The boom mount was a
solution to this problem, albeit a bad one.  
   The wreck of the Housatonic was examined by divers some time later.
 The Hunley was jammed into the hole in the hull like a cork in a bottle.
Evidently the Hunley survived the explosion, but was sucked into the 
resulting hole by the inrushing water. 

                                                Larry Mayo