Hedgehog (weapon)

The Hedgehog (also known as an Anti-Submarine Projector) was a forward-throwing anti-submarine weapon that was used during the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War. The device, which was developed by the Royal Navy, fired up to 24 spigot mortars ahead of a ship when attacking a U Boat. It was deployed on convoy escort warships such as destroyers and corvettes to supplement the depth charges.

As the mortar projectiles employed contact fuzes rather than time or barometric (depth) fuzes, detonation always occurred directly against the hull of a submarine making it more deadly than depth charges which relied on damage caused by hydrostatic shockwaves. Statistics show that in WWII out of 5,174 British depth charge attacks there were 85.5 kills: a ratio of 60.5 to 1. In comparison, the Hedgehog made 268 attacks for 47 kills: a ratio of 5.7 to 1.

Development

The "Hedgehog", so named because the empty rows of its launcher spigots resembled the spines of a hedgehog, was a replacement to the unsuccessful Fairlie Mortar that was trialled aboard HMS Whitehall (D94) in 1941. Although a failure, the Fairlie was designed to fire depth charges ahead of a ship when attacking a submarine. This principle of forward-firing projectiles was considered viable. It was from this, secret research undertaken by the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD) led to the development of the Hedgehog.

Hedgehog

A hedgehog is any of the spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the order Eulipotyphla. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera, found through parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introduction. There are no hedgehogs native to Australia, and no living species native to the Americas (the extinct genus Amphechinus was once present in North America). Hedgehogs share distant ancestry with shrews (family Soricidae), with gymnures possibly being the intermediate link, and have changed little over the last 15 million years. Like many of the first mammals, they have adapted to a nocturnal way of life. Hedgehogs' spiny protection resembles that of the unrelated rodent porcupines and monotreme echidnas.

The name hedgehog came into use around the year 1450, derived from the Middle English heyghoge, from heyg, hegge ("hedge"), because it frequents hedgerows, and hoge, hogge ("hog"), from its piglike snout. Other names include urchin, hedgepig and furze-pig. The collective noun for a group of hedgehogs is array or prickle.

Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is any device used with intent to inflict damage or harm to living beings, structures, or systems. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as crime, law enforcement, self-defense, and warfare. In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, material or mental advantage over an adversary.

While just about any ordinary objects such as sticks, stones, cars, or pencils can be used as weapons, many are expressly designed for the purpose – ranging from simple implements such as clubs, swords and guns, and to complicated modern intercontinental ballistic missiles, biological and cyberweapons.

History

Prehistoric

The use of objects as weapons has been observed among chimpanzees, leading to speculation that early hominids first began to use weapons as early as five million years ago. However, this can not be confirmed using physical evidence because wooden clubs, spears, and unshaped stones would not have left an unambiguous record. The earliest unambiguous weapons to be found are the Schöninger Speere: eight wooden throwing spears dated as being more than 300,000 years old. At the site of Nataruk in Turkana, Kenya, numerous human skeletons dating to 10,000 years ago have major traumatic injuries to the head, neck, ribs, knees and hands, including obsidian projectiles still embedded in the bones, that would have been caused by arrows and clubs in the context of conflict between two hunter-gatherer groups.