WI: H.L. Hunley and his submarine

The submarine known as the H.L. Hunley, which was used by the CSA during the ACW, is famous for being the first combat submarine to sink an enemy warship. The vessel was designed by Horace Lawson Hunley, James McClintock, and Baxter Watson and it was given Hunley's name after he died when the vessel sank during a test. Also after the Hunley's successful mission of sinking the USS Housatonic it sank was lost and was lost with all hands onboard due to unknown reasons with no other submarines built after it.

Now let’s say that Horace Lawson Hunley had not died and that he and his team had been more successful than in OTL. This then allows them to make more submarines like the Hunley, which was called the fish boat," the "fish torpedo boat," and the "porpoise." Before Hunley’s death. With this being the case what other uses would the CSA make out of such submersibles and which ships may have been their next targets?

http://www.hunley.org/
hl-hunley-civil-war-ship-sinks-housatonic.jpg

 
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The most obvious targets would be the blockade ships trying to stop supplies reasching the South.

Given the large number of British RN officers trying to run the blockade they would see the advantage of subs very quickly if they were more sucessful and the RN may have submarines 50 years ahead of OTL.
 
I'm not sure. Submarines are the kind of weapon the Royal Navy wants to keep underdeveloped, judging by its OTL response to when they were actually becoming useful.

Not to mention that that the submarine had a terrible record even before its final mission in terms of killing crew but not enemies:

http://www.charlestonillustrated.com/hunley/#

It's intriguing, but the idea of causing anything to be sped up by 50 years is far fetched.
 
It's an intriguing idea, but i suspect it will run into a couple of problems. First and foremost, how good was this vessel reallky? It could dive, all right, but what about its performance? how many miles out to sea could it operate? Could it catch up with a target under sail or steam? How sure would a successful attack be to actually sink the target if it was, say, a full-sized frigate or iron-hulled steamer rather than Housatonic?

Submarines will not stay invulnerable for long. The nineteenth-century mind was quite prolific when it came to gadgets. I don't think either side in the ACW could deploy anything like Whitehead torpedoes, but mines, primitive depth charges, booby traps or even heavy objects dropped from yardarams could do damage to a vehicle that had to come so close to attack. Not to mention the damage a single shell would do if it could be made to burst on the surface of the water over it. If I was a union admiral, I'd start patrols on steam launches armed with hand grenades and harpoon guns. Unless Hunley's next boats are a lot faster and can dive a lot deeper, that would take care of that problem.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I'm not sure. Submarines are the kind of weapon the Royal Navy wants to keep underdeveloped, judging by its OTL response to when they were actually becoming useful.

Not to mention that that the submarine had a terrible record even before its final mission in terms of killing crew but not enemies:

http://www.charlestonillustrated.com/hunley/#

It's intriguing, but the idea of causing anything to be sped up by 50 years is far fetched.

RN was fine as long as submarines were "Day Time Torpedo Boats", seen as only useful in harbor, coast defense. The RN had a bit of blue water snobbery, they accepted some brown waters being hard to attack, as long as the deep blue was British. Bit of over simplification, but largely reflects the attitude of many. It is hard for people to get their mind around, but building more torpedo boats and U-boats would have made the British more comfortable with the High Seas fleet, even if the capital budget was unchanged. Trade a couple of battleship for 100 more U-boats, destroyers, or Torpedo boats, and a lot of the tension goes away.

It's an intriguing idea, but i suspect it will run into a couple of problems. First and foremost, how good was this vessel reallky? It could dive, all right, but what about its performance? how many miles out to sea could it operate? Could it catch up with a target under sail or steam? How sure would a successful attack be to actually sink the target if it was, say, a full-sized frigate or iron-hulled steamer rather than Housatonic?

Submarines will not stay invulnerable for long. The nineteenth-century mind was quite prolific when it came to gadgets. I don't think either side in the ACW could deploy anything like Whitehead torpedoes, but mines, primitive depth charges, booby traps or even heavy objects dropped from yardarams could do damage to a vehicle that had to come so close to attack. Not to mention the damage a single shell would do if it could be made to burst on the surface of the water over it. If I was a union admiral, I'd start patrols on steam launches armed with hand grenades and harpoon guns. Unless Hunley's next boats are a lot faster and can dive a lot deeper, that would take care of that problem.

Reliable - had huge issues. In software terms, it would not even be a beta version, think Alpha version of totally new category of program. It was hand cranked, suffocation was an issue, visibility is horrible, etc.

It performance was a few knots, it range was maybe 5-10 knots. The attack it did took all night. It successfully attack, and made it most of the way back to port, then sank, probably do to battle damage or flaws in the design. Seems like it also sank on a previous trial, and took all lives aboard.

It could not catch a row boat, much less a moving ship. Useful to keep ships from anchoring too near a defended port.

All a union admiral would have to do not anchor his ship right next to a know harbor with a submarine. It is a little more work to keep the ships moving as opposed just to anchor outside of cannon range, but the counter measure is easy to implement. Now give a few years of peace time development and a good budget, it might have become a better weapon, of very limited usefulness. That is, it could keep enemy warships 10 miles from a port. But without also inventing a torpedo, and finding a non-human power plant, it was just not that useful. Trained swimmers with a neutral bouancy mine would have been as effective.
 
RN was fine as long as submarines were "Day Time Torpedo Boats", seen as only useful in harbor, coast defense. The RN had a bit of blue water snobbery, they accepted some brown waters being hard to attack, as long as the deep blue was British. Bit of over simplification, but largely reflects the attitude of many. It is hard for people to get their mind around, but building more torpedo boats and U-boats would have made the British more comfortable with the High Seas fleet, even if the capital budget was unchanged. Trade a couple of battleship for 100 more U-boats, destroyers, or Torpedo boats, and a lot of the tension goes away.

Maybe not a hundred more, but yeah. Unless submarines prove to be far more capable than the Hunley ever could be, they'll be at best countered as they were OTL.
 
When the first submarine, the USS Holland, was acquired by the USN in 1897 it was 1901 before the craft was considered to be fit for naval service as it had many of the problems that the Hunley suffered from, despite an additional 30+ years of scientific and engineering development.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
When the first submarine, the USS Holland, was acquired by the USN in 1897 it was 1901 before the craft was considered to be fit for naval service as it had many of the problems that the Hunley suffered from, despite an additional 30+ years of scientific and engineering development.

Yes, it had issue, but it had solved two basic Hunley problems. First, it had a ranged weapon, the torpedo. Second, it had a gas engine, not human power.
 
Other posters have pointed out the major problems with the Hunley - slow speed, short range, and no good against a moving target. Add to that needing relatively calm seas (which makes detection easier). Against a powered enemy who can maneuver, ramming as a tactic (which is basically what the Hunley did using a spar torpedo as opposed to a ram) is a failure. There was a resurgence of the concept of the ram as a weapon in the early days of armored warships in the 19th century, primarily because issues of gunnery such as rate of fire, ability of shells to penetrate armor & accuracy were still being worked out but essentially ramming never worked unless the target was already relatively immobile and the attacker tended to suffer significant problems as well.

For submarines to be effective you need a stand-off weapon and mechanical power (electric or nuclear for full submersibles as opposed to semis like the Hunley). Supporting technology just not there until 20-30 years later at the earliest.
 
For submarines to be effective you need a stand-off weapon and mechanical power (electric or nuclear for full submersibles as opposed to semis like the Hunley). Supporting technology just not there until 20-30 years later at the earliest.
Actually when it comes to mechanicaly powered subs that technology did come into existance just a couple of years after the ACW. check out this guy named Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol and his submarines the Ictineo I & II. I really wonder how far his designs would have gone if they had been used for war.
Monturiol_face.JPG
 
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