"Anti-submarine Grappling Hooks?" Topic

One of my favorite movies is "Below," an old-fashioned ghost story set on an American submarine in the Atlantic in WW2. I realize it isn't going to be 100% historically accurate (it is a GHOST story, for example), but there is a scene in the movie in which a German warship drags grappling hooks to attempt to snag or damage the sub as it rests on the bottom.

Did the Germans, or anyone else, ever use grappling hooks this way? It seems with all of the gorp mounted on the deck of the typical WW2 sub, it would be a good way to cause some damage to the sail, deck guns, etc.

Not WW2 but quite frequently fishing boats snag their nets on subs and invariably come off worst (worse?).

No. Not in WWII or even WWI

but back when the first Hollands came out some navies, in a an attempt to counter the menace (and remember the early Hollands couldn't dive far and were quite primitive thought to use grappling hooks to snag them. It was a desperation move, they had little else besides ramming.

This of course has never deterred me. In my naval rules of the 1870-1895 period, your ships are allowed to deploy them to "sweep for submarines." Of course, we also allow the Vesuvius (the American dynamite cruier to be an effective weapon, have six types of torpedoes – automobile, towed, spar, lay (early wire guided) steam powered, use the Nautilus, Robur's Albatross, and even Godzilla and Nessy might show up.

Then there's the piloted icebergs of Dr. FuManchu…

Back during the Cold War, someone in the West developed a magnetic grappling device to attach to the outside of a sub.

It had a line, and a noise making buoy, if I recall correctly, so would give away the sub's position.

Supposedly, it was used on at least one occasion against submarines intruding into Swedish waters, back during the Soviet submarine scare of the late 1970's and early 1980's.

I think it was deployed right around the time that "Whiskey on the Rocks" became a popular catch phrase.

The AC-DC song by the same name is quite good too.

I always kinda wondered that too…
I also love that movie.

Not WW2 but quite frequently fishing boats snag their nets on subs and invariably come off worst (worse?).

Yeah, nothing quite like some poor fisherman catching 7,000 tons of 'fish' in his net. If the sub doesn't realie that they've snagged a fishing boat, even a big (~150ton) fishing boat will vanish almost instantly, sucked down before the lines can part.

We were utterly paranoid about where we'd submerge, it's *very* bad juju to snag a trawler!

It's a more even discussion between a 2000 ton destroyer and a 1500 ton sub, but it's still not a fair fight.

Interesting. Thanks, all. It does make for a pretty good scene in a very good movie. Watch it if you can find it, and try to ignore the plot holes.

Grappling hooks were used by Turkish gunboats in 1915 in the Sea of Marmara against subs such as the AE2.

Druzhina
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