Comments by "Vikki McDonough" (@vikkimcdonough6153) on "HMS Black Swan - Guide 375" video.

  1. The advantages of the Hedgehog system over conventional depth charges were that, by using contact rather than depth fuzes, a miss wouldn't produce a sonar-fouling detonation (with a detonation, if one did occur, thus providing direct, solid confirmation of a hit), and in the event of a hit, a direct contact detonation, even with the relatively-small explosive charge of a Hedgehog bomb, was much more likely to destroy the target than a detonation in the water some distance away from an enemy submarine would be, with the lightweight bombs allowing each Hedgehog pattern to use a massive number of them (thus providing many more opportunities for a hit). In contrast, the successor Squid/Limbo systems seemingly gave up all of the Hedgehog's advantages (with the sole apparent advantage over the Hedgehog being that the system was trainable rather than fixed to face forwards); they went back to launching depth-fuzed bombs, which would explode and foul the launching ship's sonar regardless of whether a hit was scored (and, thus, also provided no indication as to whether they'd actually hit anything) and required a much-larger explosive charge to maximize the chances of killing a submarine even in the event of a near miss (which, in turn, much reduced the number that could be launched in a single pattern from dozens to just three or six, sharply limiting the opportunities for a hit). Why did the Squid/Limbo apparently give up all of the Hedgehog's advantages?
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