WWI forum
World War One discussions.
Re: Deep Sea Detectives on USS San Diego
Posted by:
Eric
()
Date: November 16, 2004 03:21PM
Michael,
I watched the show last night, and I'm becoming more and more convinced this show should be renamed Deep Sea Melodrama. After spending what seemed to be 3/4's of the show talking about coal bunker fires and sabotage and even performing a dangerous dive inside the upside down (turtle) vessel, they finally look for the hole on the outside on thier "last dive attempt" and determine it was an external explosion (hull plates bent in).
I guess they had to fill up the hour somehow. They are bringing some WWI history to light, so I guess it's not all bad.
Even once they determined it was an external explosion they still seemed to be in a quandry of whether it was a mine or torpedo. To them the mine seemed unlikely because the explosion took place toward the aft port side of the ship which means the mine would have had to pass by the widest part of the hull without making contact or exploding. The torpedo explanation was partially dismissed because the U156 (apparently the only possible u-boat) had been shelling positions off Cape Cod Massachusetts two days before and probably could make it to the target area off Long Island in that much time.
What say you? Could the mine have a delay by design or failure of one of the detonators? Could the U-156 have made the trip in time to fire a torpedo?
Interesting from the forum thread link you provided that the San Diego was traveling from Portsmouth, NH to New York, which would have brought her past Cape Cod. Perhaps the U-156 saw her and pursued?
Just curious what your thoughts were.
Eric
I watched the show last night, and I'm becoming more and more convinced this show should be renamed Deep Sea Melodrama. After spending what seemed to be 3/4's of the show talking about coal bunker fires and sabotage and even performing a dangerous dive inside the upside down (turtle) vessel, they finally look for the hole on the outside on thier "last dive attempt" and determine it was an external explosion (hull plates bent in).
I guess they had to fill up the hour somehow. They are bringing some WWI history to light, so I guess it's not all bad.
Even once they determined it was an external explosion they still seemed to be in a quandry of whether it was a mine or torpedo. To them the mine seemed unlikely because the explosion took place toward the aft port side of the ship which means the mine would have had to pass by the widest part of the hull without making contact or exploding. The torpedo explanation was partially dismissed because the U156 (apparently the only possible u-boat) had been shelling positions off Cape Cod Massachusetts two days before and probably could make it to the target area off Long Island in that much time.
What say you? Could the mine have a delay by design or failure of one of the detonators? Could the U-156 have made the trip in time to fire a torpedo?
Interesting from the forum thread link you provided that the San Diego was traveling from Portsmouth, NH to New York, which would have brought her past Cape Cod. Perhaps the U-156 saw her and pursued?
Just curious what your thoughts were.
Eric
