Acoustic and Underwater Warfare

Abstract

Mines, torpedoes and submarines were in the possession of the navies of the great powers before the end of the 19th century. Mines and torpedoes proved their value in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–5. But weapons that threatened the existence of the battleship were regarded with suspicion by conventional naval officers, especially the submarine which, in the words of a British naval officer, was regarded as a weapon ‘unfair, underhand, and damned unEnglish’.¹ Yet it was the German Navy’s submarine arm of little more than one hundred boats that nearly brought about Britain’s collapse in April 1917 by sinking almost a million tons of shipping in that month alone. The belated introduction of the convoy system ensured the safety of Britain’s lines of communication for the remainder of the war. But weapons for the detection and destruction of the submarine were much more difficult to implement.