Spar Torpedo

[Barrycdog]

Spar Torpedo Reveals New Info About How Hunley Sank A Ship - By Scott C. Boyd (April 2013 Civil War News)

CHARLESTON, S.C. – The exciting discovery of a damaged copper sleeve at one end of the spar on the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley has overturned conventional wisdom about how the vessel became the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in combat....

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.civilwarnews.com/archive/articles/2013/april/hunley-torpedo-031302.htm

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[Mark F. Jenkins]

For those who came in late... the significance of this find is, in a nutshell, that it's a strong indicator that the torpedo, fixed to the spar, went off only a spar's length from the Hunley itself. This, combined with the evidence of Lt. Dixon's watch (which stopped at the time of the detonation) and the distance of the Hunley's sinking from the Housatonic, strongly suggests that the shock wave from the detonation may have stunned the Hunley crew and quite possibly compromised the Hunley's hull, leading directly to her own sinking. It's very much a "smoking gun."