While the US found Hedgehog sufficient during World War II, the advances in submarine technology at the end of the war such as air independent propulsion and high speed underwater hulls meant the Hedgehog would be incapable of coping with the future threat. And that threat was seen as a huge fleet of Soviet submarines. Much of the surface fleet of the US Navy shifted to high speed specialized ASW platforms. And one of the key weapons seen as addressing the threat was a depth charge projector. The RUR-4, known as Weapon Able,* was, much like Limbo, tied into the ship’s sonar system to provide fire control.
Unlike Limbo, Weapon Able was overly complicated, and throughout its service had a reputation of being something of a maintenance nightmare.
While Weapon Able was mounted on quite a few ships, for the most part the Navy would soldier on with Hedgehog until it was replace by the next generation standoff weapons, the subject of our next post in the series.
*after the 1962 shift to an updated phonetic alphabet, it became known as Weapon Alpha.