Re: Submarine Deck Gun... How did it work... Wet/dry?

azb@xxxxxxxxxx (Andrew Robert Breen) wrote:

In article <BTWBi.27511$Db6.14589@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Brian Sharrock <b.sharrock@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Paul J. Adam" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:+GtFbGI3W01GFwMX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
to surface about 300 yards off the target's quarter, and strong men were
picked to open the hatches as the boat surfaced: Brown estimates about a
ton and a half of water would come in.

Although a "a ton and a half of water " seems quite a lot; it's only a
(about) filiing cabinet's worth.

I imagine that it felt like a lot if you were standing below the hatch.
Would have felt like even more to the picked team heaving the hatch open.

Another point - given the sometimes dubious transient stability of
submarines surfacing (trapped water in the casing and suchlike) - it
stikes me that even a tone and a half added well up in the boat could be
potentially awkward. Presumably arrangements were devised for it to drain
to the bilge as fast as possible..

As far as I understand the technique used, a pressure was built up in
the boat so the hatch literally blew open at the last moment of a
rapid surfacing - so a bit of water would not really make all that
much difference.

Getting slightly off-topic, the 3 inch Finch gun used on most S class
boats of the RN had actually been made during WW1 as an anti-aircraft
gun. I know that Ben Bryant, an aficionado of the surface attack,
was not enamoured with it. His description of taking over the HMS
Safari at Cammell Laird says it all: "First and foremost I wanted to
see what gun we had got, that had been the worst feature of the
Sealion class. I looked over the side of the dock and suddenly black
depression replaced bubbling excitement. On the casing was perched
that deplorable relic of World War I, the 3-inch 20 cwt. Mark 1 - this
one had actually been made in 1915." Bryant was the recipient of the
quip, at one stage, from the torpedo room "We know we are only the
secondary armament down here." He calculated that during the siege of
Malta he was averaging 10 tons of enemy shipping sunk for every 16
pound 3 inch round fired. Which is probably not a bad trade-off. He
does mention that the gunner was frequently won't to use, liberally, a
lead faced mallet in persuading the gun to operate during innumerable
problems.

Another little mention that Bryant makes is of visiting a captured
U-Boat at Barrow while he was standing by Safari. His own words were:
"I could have wept; she had everything I had ever dreamed of and some
things which even I could never have dreamed of. It was a boat into
which a brilliant designer had compressed every requirement of the
practical submariner, a wonderful combination of ideal fighting
submersible and economical production."

Eugene L Griessel

If you mix milk of magnesia with vodka and orange juice,
do you get a Phillips screw driver?
.

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