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Senior Crew
Posts: 168
Location: St. John's, Newfoundland. | Subject: Deck Guns - smokeboats and opther questions.
Deck guns: Some were mounted fwd, some aft and sometimes both. What decided the choice? Was there a noticeable difference in submerged performance with deck guns mounted? In a rough sea was it better to fire accross the bow/stern - to counter the roll of the boat? Was a deck gun ever mounted on a Nuke, I guess not, but was it tried?
The 20mm Oerlekon's barrell's rusted, were there any, 'non-rusting,' barrells produced?
Hey, Warshot, you have to have some info on this, like to hear SOB's input too.
Beer in the tube! I've heard of an Ozzie (Oberon?) boat that had a tube full of beer and somehow it got fired... Blue, got any info on this? Imagine... all that beer!
Cheers from a COLD rock in the North Atlantic. Hairball.
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Mess cooking
Posts: 36
| Subject: RE: Deck Guns - smokeboats and opther questions.
It was mostly the C.O. that decided on the location of the gun. All of the fleet boats had two deck mountings for the main gun, so they had the choice. Operational experience showed that it was better to have the gun forward. That location allowed you more flexibility in maneuvering, i.e. you could shoot while pointed at the enemy. If you had the gun aft, this presented some awkward situations where you might have to be moving away from the target in order to be able to train the gun.
The 3 inch 50 cal gun the boats started the war with was usually mounted aft. Some of the boats had them shifted forward as the crews learned the above lesson. The 4 inch 50 cal gun was almost invariably mounted forward. It was quite rare to see one in the aft position. The 5 inch 25 cal that came later was strangely enough usually mounted aft. The guns were relatively easy to move and it could be done by a tender between patrols. One of the factors that played into this was the location of the ready service ammo lockers. These were harder to add and usually had to be done by the yard. If they were put on the forward side of the conning tower fairwater, the gun would be put in the forward position, etc. Towards the end of the war, these lockers were mounted in a large variety of positions, so the C.O.'s had more options.
The 20 and 40 mm guns could be mounted either forward or aft on the fairwater and these locations changed often. In addition, if the boat had the main gun mounted aft, a mount for a 20 mm could be put on the main deck location forward and vice versa.
There was no noticeable change in the boat's performance depending on the location of the gun. However, as the war progressed and more guns and equipment were added topside, the boat's max speed and manuverability did suffer a little.
No deck gun was ever mounted on a nuclear boat. However, some of the post war Fleet Snorkel conversions did retain a gun for a short while. They were eventually removed.
Dave Johnston USS Darter SS-576 84-87
http:/pigboats.com
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Mess cooking
Posts: 46
Location: Palm Harbor, Florida | Subject: RE: Deck Guns - smokeboats and opther questions.
Gene Flukey asked to have the 5"/25 installed aft of the fairwater during overhaul but the yard installed it forward. Flukey thought having the gun aft would be better so when the Barb had to run they could still use the gun. |
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Deck Guns - smokeboats and opther questions.
