Quote:
Originally Posted by Stealhead
The port holes are actually water tight magazines used to store rounds for the various AA guns so that the crew had near immediate access to some ammo they where added into the designs some time in late 42 or 1943 I think. I am guessing that the tube coming out of the deck was to pass shells to the deck gun although it looks like a tight fight for a 4/51.
WernherVonTrapp no pictures of the control room or conning tower?
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You are absolutely right on all counts, Stealhead. Those port holes are actually water tight containers for the 4" shells and they
were passed up through that feeding tube (4th pic from bottom) to restock the ammo containers. The conning tower was off limits, according to the tourguide. He let me climb up there however, only long enough to take a couple of close ups of the 20mm. I do have some pics of the control room, however, they didn't turn out too well. The lighting inside the sub was such that, no flash was too dark and using flash caused a lighting wash-out effect. We were moving through the compartments (not overly fast but) too quickly for me to make constant adjustments to the cam. I ended up keeping it on auto mode the whole tour.
The tour guide was a nice guy but not too well versed on the USS Ling and it's systems. He conceded that he was new and this was only his 5th tour. When I pointed to, and commented on the AA guns being the 20mm Oerlikons, he interjected, pointed to the 4" deck gun and said, "
No, that's the 20mm right there".
