Lusitania A Target

[Tom Pappas]

An Irishman embroider the facts to make a good yarn - with the Irish as victim? Heaven forfend!

(My maternal grandmother, June Finlan Doyle by name, was born in County Cork, so I feel I know whereof I speak.)

 

[Tom Pappas]

By the way, I still like the coal dust theory. The bunkers would have been empty, with deep deposits of gooey coal dust and small chunks of coal in their bottoms. When the torpedo exploded, this mud was vaporized to powder, instantaneously drying it and creating the combustion mixture necessary for rapid oxidation.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>When the torpedo exploded, this mud was vaporized to powder, instantaneously drying it and creating the combustion mixture necessary for rapid oxidation.<<

This is a tounge in cheek joke....right???

 

[Tom Pappas]

Your critique of my theory lacks specificity.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

It was a joke then. Had to be. Tom, don't try to kid a guy who grew up around the Pennsylvania Coal fields. I know full well it doesn't work that way.

 

[Tom Pappas]

Is it well known around the Pennsylvania coal fields that an explosion produces heat and a pressure front? And that the heat and pressure so produced vaporize anything in the vicinity?

Did you get much of your technical knowledge from coal miners ?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Is it well known around the Pennsylvania coal fields that an explosion produces heat and a pressure front?<<

Yes.

>>And that the heat and pressure so produced vaporize anything in the vicinity?<<

Not necesserily. At least not to the point where you could "dry out" anything like water soaked coal fast enough to atomize it and disperse it into the right concentration of powder to air and...BTW...still leave enough oxygen in the air to promote ignition, and then have it all happen in a few microseconds befor the wave front pushes it all out.

You might want to read This Paper [COAL DUST EXPLOSION HAZARDS] to see how it all works. For further research, try These Links that Google came up with in 0.20 seconds.

Joke's over, Tom.

 

[Tom Pappas]

I agree that the secondary explosion might not have been coal pulverized by the torpedo explosion.

 

[Jesse D O'Neill]

this thread is starting to sound like the Simpson and Butler books.

Juno or no other ship in the royal navy was assigned to escort lusitania, if there was an escort lusitania could have been torpedoed without warning.

Captain Turner did recieve zig zagging orders, though was not told what type of zig zag pattern he was suppost to do. the pattern depends on the formation, number of ships, speed of ship, size of ship (gross tonnoage, length, width), and the ships turning radius.

turning was not zig zagging as he was trying to figure out exactly where he was, he did have an approximate idea of where he was.

turner's fatal turn was not to ram the U 20 as turner thought the route he was taking would keep him clear of U Boats.