I Think I Just Shot Down A Betty w/ The Deck Gun!
 

I'm headed back to Pearl after a successful patrol and somewhere in the vicinity of Wake Island, the enemy decides to send the entire Japanese maritime air force after my sub. After fighting off repeated attacks, I am out of ammo for the anitaircraft gun. Furthermore, I am unable to submerge, as my crew is in the middle of repairing some damage to the bulkhead from an earlier attack.

I get attacked again by another pair of Bettys and decide to try to spoil their aim, or scare them off, with the deck gun. I fire several shots at them as they are inbound, and it does somewhat distrupt their aim, as their bombs fall wide to starboard.

As they start climbing outbound, I fire another round at them. I am stunned to see a flash similar to the flashes I have seen when my deck gun rounds impact a ship at long range. One of the Betty's then goes into a death spiral and explodes on impact with the ocean surface. I stare in disbelief.:o

Has anyone else taken down an airplane with the deck gun? If so, I would love to hear the story.

Give your gunner a medal and buy him a beer. I don't know how real life taking down a betty with a deck gun would be, but it's nice to know that there is always someone trying there best to do so...:ping:

Did the kill count, and did it list tonnage???:lol:

One of the selectable shells for the deck gun is an AA shell. Does anyone know if it's actually implemented?

You've given me a reason to try, for sure. *loads up training mission*

edit: yep I hit one of those large bombers in the arty training mission with an HE shell on the right wing tank... blew up real good. :)

However it took me around forty five rounds to do it so personally its more of a "last resort" tactic.

Nope pretty sure it isn't.

In other news, hello SubSim community!

since most bombing runs come across the boat and the sides of the AA thing block out my view i just let my boys do the work for me. to get a good view of the action i man the deck gun and depending where i am in the trip (in or out) id let off a few rounds as the come in. easily spent 100 rounds on airplanes but i finally hit one and that with the combined effort of the aa gunner brought em down. lists in the kill book like anything else. the aa round if i had to guess would be a timed/proximity explosion to send shrapnel into plane/pilot. but its not implemented

The deck guns were perfectly capable against planes.

"The 4 inch 50 caliber dual purpose cannon was standard issue to many submarines during World War II. This weapon had a muzzle velocity of 2,700 feet per second, a maximum range of 14,600 yards and was equally effective being utilized against both surface and aerial targets."

From this nice sites article on Deck Guns
http://www.valoratsea.com/arms1.htm

That is a missprint. It should have read the 3 inch 50 caliber, not 4 inch. The four inch gun was the same design used on old flush deck destroyers and had a rate of fire of only 8 to 9 rounds a minute as opposed to the 3 inch gun with a rate of fire of 15 to 20 rounds a minute and it was listed as dual purpose.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_4-50_mk9.htm

The deck guns on the subs are, if I'm not mistaken, a very similar model to the "Bofors" AA guns on larger cruisers and battleships. So they are quite "dual purpose" in that sense. No reason why they shouldn't work on both-- assuming, as I am, that the AA guns on a battleship would be loaded with flak shells and not HE :)

Actually, I had used all my deck gun ammo sinking ships.. switched off it, and my crew took over and continued to fire the deck gun even though it told me I had no ammo...

Bug?

Deck guns against the IJAAF, and the IJNAF, the guns would be very effective as the Japanese planes burned easily due to a lack of selfsealing fuel tanks, and armour plating for the vitals.

The Bofors was a 40mm AA gun. It did find it's way on board subs but not as a deck gun. It could be used on small surface targets, but it's main job is AA:up:

Does not seem like the deck gun mounting would have the elevation to really be effective in the AA role?

If a subs deckgun hit even a heavy armoured American bomber, i doubt it would take it very well. I would think the average higher agility of Japanese planes would make them harder targets to hit.

Your Hired:arrgh!:

a 3 inch hole in any plane will bring it down,if it can sink a ship, it can sure as hell shoot down a plane