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 Allied naval blockade ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

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

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

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 were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...

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. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive Shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth ...

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 Galley tactics were the dominant form of naval tactics used from antiquity to the late 16th century when sailing ships began to replace oared ships as the principal form of warships. Throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages until the 16th century, ...

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 of resources, and could quickly empty an escort's magazine, so it could only be used on 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 Hedgehog,

Squid True squid are molluscs with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the superorder Decapodiformes, though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called squid despite not strictly fitting t ...

, 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 Captain 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 enforced medical retirement, served as the official historian of the Royal ...

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