Wall Of Steel

I was playing Enigma last night, and inbetween dodging bombs and cursing the LFN Alliance DD's horribly inadequate AA defense I suddenly remembered something I had read about a while back. Now I can't remember where I read it or what exactly the AA system was called....actually I don't even really remember if it was a real system or just something my delusional mind came up with last night.

Anyhow here's how it worked:

There were a series of cannons/mortars mounted on a ship (usually a merchant), each mortar had about 50 to 100 or so feet of cable coiled up inside of it. Now when a German plane came in to bomb the ship, the lower the plane was the better chance it had to hit the ship, so when the plane was at it's lowest and closest to the ship somebody would activate this system which would fire all of the mortars at once and thus send up a sheet of cables that the plane would have to fly through. Now as we all now an Iron cable wrapped up in a propeller will really ruin a bombers day. >:(

The end result was that word got around, and since no pilot really wanted to have to fly into this veritable wall o' steel they were forced to drop their bombs from a height out of range of the system, thus greatly reducing their accuracy and reducing losses on merchant shipping due to air attacks.

So the question I'm asking is, Am I on crack here? Or has anyone else actually heard of this or a similar system for merchant ships (I'm not exactly sure how barrage ballons for battleships worked, but I think it was similar)?

Have heard about it, I don't remember what it is called, but I do recall that it was a short lived experiment - a little dangerous for the ship when the cables fell back. I had forgotten about this weapon.

East Posted on Aug 13 2004, 10:06 AM
  Have heard about it, I don't remember what it is called, but I do recall that it was a short lived experiment - a little dangerous for the ship when the cables fell back

Understandable, also, I imagine that there was more then a passing chance that when and if the plane got entangled in the cables that it might crash/be dragged into the ship anyway.

Anyhow as long as it isn't just me.

Not a bad idea, really. Just angle it so the cables rise at a slight angle away from the ship, and you've got a pretty nasty weapon.

Strafing wires? I seem to recall it was more often cable "netting", fired by mortar as a sort of sticky flak.

UP lanchers: ungided projectiles they where also mounted on Hood and the KGV class of battleship in the early years of the war. they proved inneffective so where replaced by AA guns

That could ruin your day

it seems like it would be more effective as a psychological weapon

imagine making a bomb run, knowing that some ships have the weapon, but you don't know which ones do. You're not going to make a straight run with that thought in the back of your head.