Hi Tony,

The German acoustic torpedo was not very successful at sinking ships. I don’t know how much Foxer had to do with it but the acoustic torpedo was anticipated by the Brits and Foxer was ready to deploy when the torpedo was deployed. It was the captain’s choice to actually use Foxer in battle though and I recently heard of a case where a captain chose not to use Foxer and the ship was hit by an acoustic torpedo. I guess nobody can say for sure if using it would have saved the ship though.

Doenitz mistakenly thought the acoustic torpedo was much more effective than it really was. At the time in the war when it was deployed, U-boat commanders were frequently unable to observe the impact of the torpedo as part of the procedure for firing it was to immediately dive to prevent any circle runner from coming back to the sub that launched it. Allied control of the air and much improved anti-sub capabilities also combined to keep the U-boats from sticking around to get a good look at what happened. This resulted in a lot of claims for ships sunk that weren’t even hit much less sunk. Again, I don’t know what roll Foxer played in this if any.

Germany did come up with a refined acoustic torpedo to counter Foxer but I don’t think it was deployed (at least not in large numbers) before the war ended.

Regards,

Ken Dunn