Deck guns

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by Sniper_Fox

what were the largest deckguns used historically, and did they ever mount 2 of them? i think it'd be possible within realistic limits on lets say a XI or XXI and it would make surface defence alot easier:hmm:


what say you?!

The largest deck gun used by a German U-boat was the 10.5cm SK ("schiffskanone") C/32. A Type IX U-boat carried one of these until the Germans started removing their U-boat deck guns later in the war.

I'm not sure adding deck guns to the late-model U-boats is realistic, since German tactical doctrine was that guns would be used only against unarmed targets, and by the time the Type XXI showed up almost every merchant ship had a deck gun of some kind. The 1943 edition of the Handbuch für U-boot-Kommandanten ("U-boat commander's handbook") was pretty clear in that regard:

"The submarine as a gunnery vessel is in itself properly a contradiction in terms. Being incapable of offering powerful resistance, and because of its low and unstable gunnery and controlling platforms, which are directly exposed to the action of the sea, it cannot be said to be built for artillery combat. In the use of gunnery, the submarine proper is fundamentally inferior to any surface vessel of war, because every gunnery duel means that for the submarine, unlike its advesary on the surface, everything is at stake, since a hit on the body of the submarine may render it incapable of diving, and thus lead to its total loss.

"A gunnery duel between the submarine proper, i.e., the torpedo-carrying submarine as a weapon of attack, and surface vessels of war, is therefore impracticable."

Once a U-boat was caught on the surface, manning the deck gun was tantamount to suicide, since it was standard operating procedure for warships to target their automatic antiaircraft cannon (20mm, 37mm, 40mm, etc.) to blast anyone who got anywhere near the deck gun or who looked like they might be manning the U-boat's antiaircraft guns. For example, a number of crewmen from U-515 were literally blown to bits when they mistakenly ran towards the deck gun, rather than towards the stern, when abandoning ship.

Pablo