Die experimentellen Anordnungen und Skalierungen sind verständlich in dem Aufsatz beschrieben, insbesondere die Übertragung des "blast" der explosion (Torpedo an Transportgestänge unweit vom Boot) in das Innere des Tauchboot, inkl. Wahrscheinlichkeiten letaler Verletzungen der Lunge.
The ratios of transmitted peak pressures show that the charge of the Hunley could transmit sufficient blast levels inside the vessel to cause a high risk of injury and fatality to the crew. It is important to note that risk levels are not sensitive to whether the exposure occurs from the side or the front of the torso, so if the airblast propagated inward at an angle relative to the length of the submarine’s cylindrical axis rather than perpendicular to it, the risks of fatality would be the same for the crew.
A common misconception is that people exposed to blast are always physically thrown by the blast (e.g. in movies or television). However, blasts too weak to move or translate a human body noticeable distances are still often intense enough to cause lethal pulmonary trauma. For the Hunley, since the hull was exposed from all radial directions simultaneously and accompanied by motion of the ship itself, there may be no clear direction of motion even if the pressure wave did translate the crewmen. Lethal pulmonary blast injuries are therefore consistent with the lack of skeletal trauma and the positions of the crew at their battle stations.
Respiratory distress is one of the hallmarks of pulmonary blast injury; even if any crewmen had survived the initial blast they would have likely still been above the injury threshold and would have experienced symptoms such as shortness of breath, hemoptysis, tachypnea, and hypoxia. Therefore, even if some crewmen had survived the initial blast they would have likely been crippled in terms of respiration and physically unable to power the handcrank to move the submarine. If anyone had survived, they may have tried to release the keel ballast weights, set the bilge pumps to pump water, or tried to get out the hatches, but none of these actions were taken.
Eyewitness reports stated that they saw a blue light on the water after the attack, the Hunley’s pre-arranged symbol for victory. However, eyewitness reports are notoriously unreliable especially in the heat of battle, as evidenced by the Housatonic crew’s inability to agree on either the level of the tide or direction of the current at the time of the attack. Based on the analysis above, the crew was instantly killed by primary blast trauma.
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