[rey]

I thought the only way it could sink a ship was to ram a lance into the side of it. Having done that, the vessel was unable to back up and remove the lance from the sinking ship and it went down with it, or am I thinking of another sub?

[C210N]

I think that’s it... something like a cable from “lance” to sub, so that when it became taut at some distance away, kaboom.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It was a mine, so there was no detachment problem

[tet68]

The spar was to sink a harpoon into the side of the
ship the Hunley was then to release a mine and back
away, the rope then pulling the mine against the
ship,

It will be interesting to see what they find.
Have they found the wreck of the Housitonic yet?
Could probably learn a lot from it.

[Riley]

Your technology is almost correct, it rammed a spar into the target that had percussion cap fired explosive charge on it, then backed away and a lanyard fired the charge.

I have been a supporter of the project, but I’m not current. I’m eager to hear what they’ve got. I always figured that they popped a bunch of seams when the charge went off and made it partway home before the submarine flooded.

[Celtic Conservative]

It was what they called a spar torpedo, a lance with explosive attached to it. however if the device which detached the torpedo failed, both the sub and its victim took the plunge together. It worked great...once.

CC

[libstripper]

The ship carried a spar torpedo, a remotely detonated explosive charge with small la nce attached that was mounted on a that stuck out rom the sub's bow. The idea was to ram the torpedo into the target's side, where the lance would hold it, then back up leaving the torpedo in the target's side. Then the sub would get far enough back and the lanyard would be pulled, detonating the torpedo and sinking the target. All anybody definitely knows is that the Hunley did all that and later sank. Nobody definitely knows what caused it to sink.