How eight crew members on board the Confederate H.L. Hunley submarine were killed by their OWN torpedo after they sunk a Union warship in 1864

The scientist who cracked the 150-year-old mystery of the the sinking of the H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine has revealed the painstaking steps she took to demonstrate what killed its eight-man crew.

Rachel Lance, a biomedical engineer and blast-injury specialist, describes her breakthrough in the forthcoming book In the Waves: My Quest to Solve The Mystery of A Civil War Submarine, due out April 7.

The Hunley was the first combat submarine to sink an enemy warship, but as soon as it succeeded in its mission targeting the USS Housatonic in Charleston harbor in 1864, it mysteriously sank with all hands lost.

The sub was raised from the ocean floor in 2000, adding to the mystery when it became clear that there was no damage to the hull itself.

While many theories have been put forward, Lance believes that the crew was killed nearly instantly by the pressure wave from their own torpedo.

I expect that I was "the FReeper who posted the pictures" to which you referred...

Your name certainly looks familiar. I think you might be he.

Thank you for joining this discussion. I found your information to be very interesting and very eye opening.

Do you still have the pictures of the spar with the copper parts still attached to it? It was those pictures that convinced me that the thing was designed to blow up with the Sub still only a short distance away.

I don't know why the people of that era would not have recognized that as a suicide trap.

"Do you still have the pictures of the spar with the copper parts still attached to it? It was those pictures that convinced me that the thing was designed to blow up with the Sub still only a short distance away."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's the simplest one:

In this laser-scanned image, the powder cannister was to the left. The explosion shoved the torpedo remains to the right -- back up the spar. The (unmoving) mounting bolt ripped a slot through the copper mounting sleeve as it was shoved away from the explosion. (Note the 30-degree angle of the folded-back remains of the copper canister and sleeve-mounting plate.)

Examples of some of our stepwise CAD analyses of the above dynamics:

Bottom line conclusions:

The torpedo was bolted solidly to the spar.
The torpedo was the 135-lb. Singer design, with the mounting sleeve attached at a 30-degree angle.
The (triple) Lanyard-triggered Singer torpedo fuzes were converted for contact triggering.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope this clarifies the "Lanyard vs Contact" triggering question...

TXnMA

"That is fascinating work, TXnMA. I envy you-the REAL contact with history is something that I occasionally only get touches of, and you were immersed in it."

~~~~~~~~~

<GRIN...>

Speaking of "immersion", I became so, re the Hunley -- only because I "immersed" myself. (See new tagline...)

Shortly after the Hunley was investigated, and Chris Amer published that no trace of a mount for a torpedo spar was found on the upper bow, we visited our daughter and her husband in Charleston. By that time, Son-In-Law had become a big-time Hunley fan -- and I "caught the "Hunley bug" from him.

It was while we were standing atop Fort Sumter -- and looking out toward where the Hunley probably lay -- that I had the idea of creating the "Hunley 'Spar'" webforum. So -- atop Ft.Sumter -- I announced that I had decided to "get on the Hunley team"... Since we were living in MA at the time, S-I-L's, "Yeah, riiiight..." response was expected. (I kept to myself that I intended to use the Internet...) '-}

When we got back to MA, I hand-coded the forum (using lots of HTML Tables). Then I contacted Chris Amer of SCIAA and said that -- if he would put me in touch with at least one archæologist, one historian, and one engineer from the Hunley Team, I'd have us try to ID how the torpedo was deployed. And, if possible, ID what torpedo and triggering method was used...

Long story short: Not long afterward, S-I-L told me to check out the SCIAA's webpage. Thereon was a statement to the effect that, "One of our more promising avenues of research is a new webforum on the Hunley's torpedo and its deployment mechanism -- hosted by [TXnMA].

That research was encapsulated in the collage I posted in #34, on this thread. Then -- Ca 2013 -- seeing the torpedo remains still bolted to the spar...

...stimulated me to resume work on the subject.

Again -- I self-started and gave myself an assignment to determine what torpedo was used -- and, how it could have worked when bolted firmly to the "spar"....

That led to my new work on how the Singer "Box Fuzes" could have been converted from Lanyard triggering to Contact triggering...

TXnMA

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.