The barrage attack was developed during the

Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allies of World War II, ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

as an anti-submarine measure. It was first used by 2 Support Group of the

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after being developed by the Group's commanding officer, Captain "Johnnie" Walker. The barrage attack was a measure devised by Walker to deal with a

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

that had gone deep, and was using the time taken by the attacking escort's

depth charge A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon designed to destroy submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited ...

s to sink to move aside. The design of submarines, to resist the enormous pressure of the water at depth, made them also resistant to the effects of underwater explosions; a depth charge of the Second World War had to explode within about 26 feet of its target to have any serious effect. The barrage, referred to by the group as "the bosses special", involved three ships moving in line abreast over the target area; at the word of command each ship would lay a series of depth charge patterns, one after the other, in a carpet. The cumulative effect of the explosions, sometimes up to 80 in one attack, would have a devastating effect on their target. The barrage was expensive in terms of resources and could quickly empty an escort's magazine, so it could only be used in stubborn cases. The practice of equipping convoy ships with reserves of depth charges to re-arm escorts when necessary went some way to alleviate this problem. The advent of more effective weapons such as

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, and the Mk X depth charge also made the barrage less necessary.

Sources

* Burns, Alan: ''The Fighting Captain'' (1993) {{ISBN, 0-85052-555-1 *

Stephen Roskill Stephen Wentworth Roskill (1 August 1903 – 4 November 1982) was a senior career officer of the Royal Navy, serving during the Second World War and, after his retirement, served as the official historian of the Royal Navy from 1949 to 1960. He ...

: The War at Sea 1939-1945 Vol II (1956) ISBN (none) Naval warfare tactics