SS 166/67/68 deck guns

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by Drebbel

Just a litle interesting fact on deck guns from a book that I am currently reading

On Sculpin's 7th Patrol (May-July 1943) she used 103 3-inch rounds to sink 2 fishing patrol boats (called sampans in other sources). They opened up fire with the 20-mm at 500 yards and at 50 yards they started using the .50 machine guns. It took them 30 minutes before she started to sink.

It took them 40 minutes to sink a second vessel.

machine guns, 20-mm guns and 103 3-ich rounds. A lot of fire power. A lot more than I would have guessed one needs for 2 sampans ?!?

Thanks Drebbel. That fits in nicely with why U S skippers wanted bigger guns.

I was wondering if they qualified the deck gun usage a bit more in the book you are reading. IE: How many of the 103 3” shells actually hit the two targets and at what range did they open fire with the 3 inch deck gun?

This probably is not a factor given U S subs usually did not carry AP but, did they list what type of round was being fired at the target? What was the target constructed of wood?