Deck gun location preference

[Hitman]

Historically the deck gun was orginally thought of as a last ditch defenseive weapon. Hence the aft mouting. (handy if somethings chasing you) Some more aggressive skippers found other offensive uses for it, and mounted it forward. (handy if your chasing something down).

Correct There is a record in "Clear the Bridge!" or in "Wahoo" (Can't remember right now) where O'Kane comments how much he had to insist for being allowed to mount his deck gun forward....doctrine of that era considered the deck gun as a defensive weapon for subs that were unable to dive and had to run away in the surface, so they could shoot meanwhile at the pursuer.