Q boats

[Pudcat]

what were Q boats in the last war

[funkymoped]

a Q boat was a ship/boat that from the outside looked like a regular boat. not a war ship.

but these boats were armed with many a weapon. the idea was to make submarines surface and shoot the boats with a deck gun. obviously a deck gun was cheaper to use and torpedoes very expensive and in short supply on a ww1- ww2 sub.

when a sub came to the surface to kill a ship, the crew would remove the disguises from their own guns and kill the sub before fired on by the enemy.

once the sub was holed, it became a simple target for war ships and the R.A.F.

[sddsddean]

Q boats were used in both world wars and were basically merchentmen that had guns fitted, but these were surrounded by dummy superstructure. If a U boat surfaced, the crew would drop the superstructure and (hopefully) sink the U boat. Heres an article http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southwest/series3/qships_submarine_firstworldwar.shtml

[ploughman]

Werent Q boats built for use by gay sailors?

[Toureman]

The "Q" boat trick actualy backfired on GB because the subs mostly surfaced and told the GB crews to leave thier ship before sinking it, they could no longer take the risk of doing this because of the "Q" ships so they sunk our ships with no warning.