Thanks! I did think of one additional question about the attack on the Housatonic while looking at that diagram; maybe you have already discussed it.
Did those who designed and then modified the Hunley’s torpedo spar apply the principle of incompressibility of water, to insure that the point of detonation was as deep as possible? Like the RAF `skip bomb’, where the bomb detonated after sinking to the bottom of the dam wall.
Yes, we as a society are lacking in pioneer skills (looting supermarkets after a hurricane doesn’t count). There’s a growing `prepper’ movement but that’s mostly a matter of stockpiling & not telling anyone. Ask me about the fallout shelter craze, I was there.
My grandmother used to tell me how they survived the Depression in a small East Ohio town. It wasn’t so bad; Grandpa not only dug his own coal but hunted, fished, maintained a vegetable garden, and made homebrew & wine. Grandma canned and sewed, raised two kids and found odd jobs until Grandpa was working full time. Hardly any money, but adequate shelter, clothing, food and a social climate where nobody locked their doors even with unemployed men passing through seeking work. Completely destroys the “poverty causes crime” argument.
Finally, there’s something about the American Civil War: it’s been nearly a century and a half since Appomattox and yet bring up the subject and the entire conflict becomes like recent news. It’s in the present, it’s like unfinished business. World War Two seemed more distant as we watch its veterans age and pass from us. I just finished Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln”; it’s like many Civil War books that read best in the presnt tense. Maybe because then, like now, was a time of tremendous technological advances accelerated by the tempo of war.
History is fun, there’s nothing else like it, except somebody recently observed that Santayana should have added, “Those who do remember history are also doomed to repeat it”.
V/R
"Did those who designed and then modified the Hunley’s torpedo spar apply the principle of incompressibility of water, to insure that the point of detonation was as deep as possible?" Not sure how well they understood the incompressibility physics of water-tamped explosions, but I do know that they always planned to implant their "spar" torpedoes well below the waterline. That is, after they abandoned their first approach of towing a floating contact torpedo behind them, and dragging it under the target vessel.
When they got in a strong following current/wind situation and the torpedo almost caught up with them, the rope tangled in their propeller, and they almost blew themselves up, they abandoned that scheme as a bad idea!
I intend to do further research on the semi-submersible steam-powered "David" class Confederate torpedo boats that also operated out of Charleston Harbor:
According to Ragan, it was the "David" boats' crews who recommended the vertically-pivoting "Y-yoke" torpedo mounting (shown in the above drawing) to the Hunley's officers. (Recommendation made after Gen, Buregard forbade Dixon's crew to attack submerged...)
Somewhere in the forum files there is/was a small, enhanced and annotated photo of an abandoned "David" grounded and listed over at low tide -- with the "Y-yoke" visible... Maybe I can recover it.
Here's the photo online:
If you examine the bow closely, you can see the Y-yoke mounted torpedo spar...
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BTW, you have FReepmail...