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Concept
Otranto Barrage
Summary
The Otranto Barrage was an Allied naval blockade of the Strait of Otranto between Brindisi in Italy and Corfu on the Greek side of the Adriatic Sea in the First World War. The blockade was intended to prevent the Austro-Hungarian Navy from escaping into the Mediterranean and threatening Allied operations there. The blockade was effective in preventing surface ships from escaping the Adriatic, but it had little or no effect on the submarines based at Cattaro.
The Adriatic is wide at the Otranto Straits. The blockade consisted mainly of a fleet of drifters, most of them British, and usually armed with a 6-pounder gun and depth charges. In 1915 when the blockade was begun, two divisions of 20 would be on patrol at a time, equipped with steel indicator nets intended to trap submarines or at least alert the surface vessels to their presence. A third division would be at Brindisi. The drifters were supported by destroyers and aircraft. However, the demands of the Gallipoli Campaign and other naval operations left the Otranto Barrage with insufficient resources to deter the U-boats, and only the Austro-Hungarian was caught by the indicator nets during the course of the war. It was later considered that the straits had simply been too wide to be netted, mined or patrolled effectively.
The ease with which German and Austrian submarines continued out of the Austro-Hungarian ports in spite of the barrage (and the success they had in disrupting shipping in the whole of the Mediterranean) strongly embarrassed the Allies, the system being called "a large sieve through which U-boats could pass with impunity". In 1917–1918, reinforcements from the Australian and American navies brought the blockading force up to 35 destroyers, 52 drifters and more than 100 other vessels. Nevertheless, submarines continued to slip through until the end of the war; the introduction of the convoy system and better coordination amongst the Allies only helped to cut the losses they were causing.
The Austrians mounted nighttime raids against the barrage, five in 1915, nine in 1916 and ten in 1917.
Official source
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