What if Lusitiana...?

[PFF]

Several years ago there was a program on the Lusitiana and how the British Admirialty had a secret listening post on German submarines. Anyway one point of the program was that the "Lusitiana" could have been used as a batterting ram

against Uboats.

Now what could have happened if the Lusitiana had rammed the Uboat?

Could the Lusitiana-built foir speed-have possibly surivied?

(A US NAvy Book reports in World War II what happened when a US Destroyer

USS Borie rammed a Uboat-both sunk-the DD when the pounding Seas had pounded the Borie (After ramming) against the stronger Uboats-hull)

[Michael Lowrey]

Ships ramming and sink U-boats was a fairly common occurance in WWI. Six or seven U-boats were sunk after being rammed by merchant ships or trawlers, with the merchant ship surviving in all cases. This includes the U 103 rammed and sunk by the liner Olympic. There are several cases of warships ramming submarines as well (in one case, a very small old destroyer, smaller than teh submarine it was ramming, was also lost). The ramming vessel is at a substantial advantage -- as damage is limited to its bow and almost always easily contained (dry docking needed of course).

Best wishes,

Michael

[MikB]

Well, Lusitania didn't even know the U-boat was there until just before she was hit. Even if she had, she had neither the manoeuvrability to force a collision nor, being nearly a hundred times as conspicuous as the U-boat, the possibility of surprise.

Successful ramming was much more common in WW2. It obviously requires knowing where the U-boat is and how it's moving (IOW effective Asdic), coupled with the agility to cross its path, and ideally a situation where the U-boat can't effectively keep tabs on all the ships hunting it.

Regards,

MikB

[per ardua per mare per terram]

There is a considerable difference between the 2: Lusitania displaced around 44,000 tons and USS Borie around 1,000. That’s about the difference of being hit by a 40ton lorry and a bicycle. In WWII Queen Mary sliced the stern off one of her cruiser escorts and continued her voyage.

From what I have seen, the consensus of opinion is that if the Titanic had hit the ice berg bow on, she would have survived. The bows had to be relatively strong!

So If the Uboat had been stupid enough to get under the bows of Lusitania there would have been no contest – exit UBoat. The point is that it had torpedoes and could keep out of the way. The army could have walked over the fields and captured Thiepval, but the Germans had machine guns!