Turtle Sinks Eagle, boon for submarines

What if the Turtle, a primitive submarine used in the American revolution, successfully sink the Eagle, a proud Royal Navy ship? Would it make submarines much more widely used, or researched? Will they get a huge leap ahead, and impact some wars?
 
The only way the Turtle is sinking anything is blind luck, but if it manages to sink something - and if David Bushnell is indeed able to refine his design over time - it'd be a nasty little surprise for occupying forces to watch out for.

However, the Turtle was so barely-mobile that spotting the thing, once you knew it was a threat, wasn't an overly difficult task. The technology simply didn't exist yet to make a submarine into a genuine threat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bushnell
 
Perception vs reality

If Eagle ended up destroyed by a submarine, then there;s a very serious threat in the minds of the admiralty--IF they know it was a submarine that did it. Nights that are dark enough would allow for future raids, meaning that darken ship routines might become routine when blockading a nearby port.

Something that can slip up on a ship of the line and blow it up is not a good thing to the most powerful fleet in the world--I'd expect ASW to be investigated...
 
I think the Turtle could be a potent weapon, but it is such junk that it would probably never work and have the pilot survive.
 

Driftless

Donor
Depending on how much detail (or how little) the Admiralty learns about the Turtle's technology; I could see where the fear of the unknown far outweighs the reality...

The original concept was a marvel of imagination, but to make it an effective weapon, you would need better propulsion and a better mechanism for deploying the explosive device.

*edit* An artist view of the Turtle

alg-turtle-jpg.jpg
 
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Sorry, for whatever reason every thread on the board today is making me think of Native spirituality/mythology.

"Turtle sinks Eagle: boon for Coyote and Raven who got the two of them fighting."
 
Sorry, for whatever reason every thread on the board today is making me think of Native spirituality/mythology.

"Turtle sinks Eagle: boon for Coyote and Raven who got the two of them fighting."

Or Turtle (Island, native conception of North America) sinks Eagle (US conception of America).


More seriously, all the early submarines were death traps, more dangerous to the attackers inside than to the ships outside.

I doubt it would make much difference, really, in the long run.
 
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