Depth Charges on ships other than DDs

[Oly]

Hi,

I discussed this a while ago and considered the matter closed. However I was watching the movie "Battle of the River Plate" yesterday and there is a scene where one of the British ships (can't recall which) mentioned that they were carrying depth charges.

I'm quite prepared to accept that the movie is/was inaccurate, can anyone confirm that though?

Oly

 

[DM]

I discussed this with John Roberts, one of the UK authorities on WW2 cruiser designs of WW2, as well as consulting some of the design reports that I have available. The conclusion was that cruisers did indeed carry a nominal number of depth charges, and even had basic asdic installations, but that they were generlaly there more for morale purposes than anything else; certainly we could find nothing to suggest that a cruiser had ever made an ASW attack, and not much that even suggested that they ever detected anything worthy of note. In many cases the DCs and asdic sets were removed (the former because they posed ahazard to ths ship, the latter because they were ineffective) and the ASW rolew vested solely in destroyers, frigates and aircraft.

Experiences of other nations were broadly similar.