I'm going through the Barb's last patrol in "Thunder Below" and they didn't seem to be shy about using the cannon for aggressive purposes and it was mounted forward. Early on it seems they're using it for target practice on sampans and the like but during this patrol there's an episode where they surface, very stealthily, during a dawn attack on an armed trawler with a 40mm and 75mm cannon mounted along with "possible" machinegun positions.
They came up so that the sun was framing the trawler and they'd be on the dark side of things. From the description it seems standard practice was a very noisy affair but this time Fluckey explicitly told everyone to be silent as possible. When they were ready the the crew opened up on the enemy's weapon positions. The plan was the cripple it and then board to seize charts and possibly a prisoner for better regional intelligence. (Their mission was to "raise a ruckus" and distract Japanese anti-sub defenses from a coordinated wolfpack infiltration elsewhere).
Then again, Fluckey seems like a real nut. This same mission he'd taken rockets, the only ones in Hawaii, along for an experimental run at coastal bombardment of a fortified cable station (he claims this is the first time a submarine ever used rockets but thanks to GWX's fine manual it seems the Germans were using the same tactic years earlier on the Black Sea against the Russians). He also tries to "invade" an isolated Japanese seal farm/observation post in order to plant a flag on Japanese territory as there was a cameraman along. Well, seems a Japanese combined navy/army unit was there and a real firefight broke out. The sub again used AA and cannon to rip the hell out of any building with an antenna, first, and then they blew up any cannons observed. Took out several buildings and bunkers too! But the landing was called off as too risky.
The Japanese later claimed they came under bombardment from six capital ships...
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