Real Submarine Technology & History Q&A

[Sailor Steve]

The Germans very occasionally did transfer one from front to rear, using the same method the used for transferring them from a supply boat (milk cow): inflatable life rafts. It was very labor-intensive, time-consuming and exceedingly dangerous in that it left the crew exposed on the surface for a couple of hours.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by Morpheus

No. Neither on U.S. Subs, nor german Subs ...

Bzzt! Wrong! It is documented in a couple of Salmon/Sargo class boats where torpedoes from the aft deck storage were moved to the forward torpedo room.

[DaveyJ576]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

Bzzt! Wrong! It is documented in a couple of Salmon/Sargo class boats where torpedoes from the aft deck storage were moved to the forward torpedo room.

Okay, let's slow down a little here. Externally (deck) mounted torpedo tubes of any sort were very rare in USN submarines. Aft facing tubes were even rarer. They were well intentioned attempts at increasing firepower, but the submarine crews came to heartily dislike the tubes for a couple of reasons:

• Once the tubes were loaded in port, the fish could not be withdrawn at sea for maintenance. With Mk 14 fish failing at alarming rates, the Torpedomen were keenly interested in ensuring that the fish were perfectly maintained. Torpedoes were "routined" as often as time permitted.
• Torpedoes contained inside these deck tubes were very vulnerable to depth charge damage. Nautilus had one fish in a deck tube damaged during a depth charge attack at the Battle of Midway and it started a "hot run", i.e. the torpedo engine running inside the closed tube. This is an extraordinarily dangerous situation.
• Once shot, the external tubes could not be reloaded at sea and thus were a one shot deal until the boat returned to port.

The following boats had two externally mounted forward firing tubes located in the superstructure forward of the diving planes: Narwhal, Nautilus, Porpoise, Pike, Tarpon, Pickerel, Permit, and Stingray. These tubes were not part of the original design and were added after the war commenced. In the case of Stingray, the tubes were removed before the end of the war. In addition, Narwhal and Nautilus were fitted with four non-firing stowage tubes under the raised forward gun deck. Using deck mounted davits and handling gear, these fish could in theory be withdrawn from these tubes, moved forward, and struck below to the forward torpedo room.

The following boats had two externally mounted aft firing tubes added during the war: Argonaut, Narwhal, and Nautilus. Note: Nautilus' tubes were mounted under the aft gun deck and angled outward, Argonaut and Narwhal had theirs mounted next to each other at the very aft end of the superstructure. Narwhal and Nautilus also had four non-firing stowage tubes mounted under the aft deck gun platform as part of their original design. Narwhal retained her aft stowage tubes, Nautilus had two of hers converted to firing tubes as noted above. Dolphin had two external stowage tubes on her aft deck as well.

No other Fleet Boat had aft mounted external tubes of any sort! Luke, I do not mean to call you out, but I would have to see your references that show that Salmon/Sargo boats had aft deck stowage tubes. With a very high degree of certainty I can say that they did not.

As for transferring torpedoes from the forward torpedo room to the aft torpedo room or vice-versa: it wasn't done. Internally it was impossible. Fish loaded forward had the warheads facing forward. How do you turn a 21 foot long, 2000 pound torpedo around inside a submarine, then move it all the way aft to the aft tubes? On the Darter we actually tried this as a gag on a new guy. We had him running all over the ship gathering gear for moving a torpedo from forward to aft, getting permission from the CO, etc. all the while snickering under our breath. After about an hour of making an a** of himself he finally caught on and realized it was impossible.

Doing this evolution topside is, in theory, possible but still faced tremendous problems in handling. Both the forward and aft loading hatches would have to be open with the loading skids raised. Getting the weapon up to the deck and back down into the room is not the problem. But again you have to turn the weapon and somehow find a method to move the 2000 pound, 21 foot long torpedo almost 300 feet, around the conning tower fairwater, all the time on a pitching, rolling, slippery deck. From personal experience I can tell you it would take about an hour just to rig the rooms, skids, and the handling gear. Actually moving the torpedo (assuming it could be done) would take at least an hour under optimal conditions. Two hours on the surface unable to submerge in enemy held waters just to move one torpedo? It is not worth the effort. Just turn the boat and point the needed tube in the right direction. A lot easier.

The external stowage tubes on the Narwhal, Nautilus, and Dolphin were a good idea in peacetime, but transferring torpedoes from these tubes to below faced many of the same problems that I outlined above and in practice proved to be a very bad idea. That is why it wasn't repeated in the later fleet boats. Once again in theory it was possible to maintain the torpedoes stowed in these tubes, but do you really want to try this very delicate work on a wet, pitching, rolling, slippery deck in enemy waters?

[Morpheus]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

Bzzt! ...

Did you just say something?

@ Davey: Thx for that pleasuring post

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by DaveyJ576

Luke, I do not mean to call you out, but I would have to see your references that show that Salmon/Sargo boats had aft deck stowage tubes. With a very high degree of certainty I can say that they did not.

It's talked about in Norman Friedman's book, and the patrol reports (for Salmon and Sargo class boats) also mention these external storage tubes. We also talked about it on the RFB forum here:

http://forum.kickinbak.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=877

Page 201, U.S. Submarines Through 1945:

At their 1934 conference, the submarine officers asked for (and got) more torpedoes: one per tube, two reloads forward, one aft, plus one reload for each after tube carried externally under the superstructure).

[Arclight]

Apparently there's more to that question then I thought.

Very interesting, thanks for all the input guys.

[DaveyJ576]

Okay, so who is right here, Luke or myself? The answer is both of us...to a point.

In the very first post in this thread I stated that in no way am I all seeing or all knowing and Luke's post showed this to be true. If it seems that I prevaricate or waffle on some of my answers I do so with good reason. Just when you think you have the definitive answer, something else pops up. This is actually a good thing as it shows you are learning.

John D. Alden's superlative book The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy makes four brief references to topside stowage tubes on the Salmon/Sargos. He also states that the four tubes were mounted forward of the conning tower fairwater and that they were later removed (when is not stated). I have read these passages numerous times and I either missed it or it didn't stick in my brain.

Having these stowage tubes mounted forward makes more sense than having them aft. The superstructure is wider and deeper forward. This makes for more space to place the tubes, makes it easier to place the davits and handling gear, and provides more space to move the fish around. The much narrower and shallower after superstructure was filled with induction and exhaust piping for the main engines, vents for the ballast tanks, five access hatches, loading skid, etc. and space was at a premium.

Immediately after the war began, the boat skippers began to realize that their boats had many peactime frills and extras that could be eliminated and by doing so would increase the reliability and survivability of the boat. A list of this unneeded stuff was drawn up, submitted, and approved by the General Board and the changes began in January 1942. The list I have access to is a general one for the Gato class, but it is likely that the topside stowage tubes for the Salmon/Sargos were eliminated during this purge. Per Luke's link above the tubes lasted on some boats at least until March/April 1942.

Why would you want to get rid of four extra torpedoes?? To answer this I refer back to my earlier post. This would have been a highly dangerous, time consuming evolution in enemy waters. The high degree of trepidation that Mendenhall and the crew of the Sculpin had concerning this task bears this out (see Luke's link above). What was a good idea in peacetime when no one was shooting at you turned out to be a bad idea in wartime when the enemy was anywhere and everywhere. The risks simply outweighed the benefits.

Luke, if you can find any more instances were these tubes were used during the war I would love to see them. I would like to get a good feeling for how often they were used.

Thanks for the correction!

[LukeFF]

No problem, Dave. Though, I am learning far much more from you than I am teaching others.

As for documented instances of when these external tubes were used, I can only recommend reading through the patrol reports. I have only scanned through the Salmon and Sargo reports at this point, but I do recall the general opinion of the skippers being that these external containers were more trouble than they were worth. I'll see if I can find some specific instances and post them here.

[LukeFF]

From the third war patrol of the Salmon:



From the same patrol, in the "Major Defects" Section:





Then, in the patrol endorsement, Lockwood himself comments on the matter:



In the following two patrols, references are made to crewmen breaking out stores from the external tubes, but no direct reference to striking external torpedoes below. The prologue to Salmon's first war patrol following her 1943 overhaul, curiously, does not mention anything about the external tubes being removed.

[DaveyJ576]

There is an interesting story from WWII, somewhat apocryphal in nature, that humorously illustrates the destructive nature of seawater. Be forewarned that although verified to be true, as with any sea story some of the “facts” may have been stretched and distorted by inebriated sailors during its many retellings.

The USS Seadragon (SS-194) was under the command of LCDR W.E. “Pete” Ferrall on 08 December 1941 when Japanese forces attacked Cavite in the Philippines. Moored alongside the USS Sealion (SS-195) and undergoing overhaul at the time, she was not hit in the attack, but received shrapnel damage from bombs that fatally damaged the Sealion. Heat from the explosions blistered the paint on her starboard side. In the ensuing days she quickly made repairs and got underway for Java.

Over the next several months, Ferrall and the Seadragon were kept constantly on the move conducting aggressive anti-shipping patrols and running special missions back and forth to the Philippines. Operating out of several different ports in Java and Australia, there was little time to conduct proper maintenance and many items of concern had to be put by the wayside. One of these items was paint. In mid January 1942, surfacing after a depth charge attack, the crew noticed that the black paint she normally wore was flaking off in large splotches, revealing the red primer underneath. There was little that could be done at the time and the ‘Dragon stayed on patrol and continued to push back against the Japanese, paint job be damned.

Towards the end of her 2nd patrol, sometime in late March, strange reports began circulating on the air that really mystified the whole Navy, especially the normally reticent Submarine Service. Radio Tokyo, along with its infamous mouthpiece Tokyo Rose boldly announced that the U.S. Navy was contravening the rules of civilized warfare by unleashing a fleet of red pirate submarines on the South China Sea. These “Red Pirates” as she called them would be hunted down and exterminated by the forces of Imperial Japan. “Death to the Red Submarines!” became a Tokyo Rose rallying cry.

While the rest of the Navy scratched their heads and wondered what the heck ol’ Rose was talking about, the crew of the Seadragon were laughing hysterically! It was them! By that time the boat was in full lobster red mode. Her basic black had all but completely shed itself and the red primer announced her presence rather garishly. Apparently during her forays she had been spotted several times by the Japanese and her unusual paint job had left a deep impression on the enemy.

Being the Navy’s sole red submarine was actually quite a liability and Ferrall ordered a return to the basic black at the next opportunity. By this time, though, the legend of the “Red Dragon of the South China Sea” had been firmly established.

[NEON DEON]

Davey,

Here are some pictures that might clear the location of external tubeson on Salmon and Sargo.

I am going to guess here and say the best place to put the external tubes is as close to the torpedo loading hatch as possible. I am further going to guess and say that they would want to do it for the forward room.

Skematic of Salmon/Sargo:




Note the position of the forward torpedo load hatch as opposed to the gun support.

Picture of the Seal's deck forward of the Conning Tower:



Notice the two Hatches to the port and starboard of the gun. Also take a look at the rail and deck expanding the width of the deck just forward of the gun to accomadate the hatches and not the gun.

A picture of the deck aft of the Seal conning tower:



Notice that there are no cuts in the deck for external torpedo load and Look at the four rises along the edges of the deck to accomadate enlarged engine mufflers. The aft torpedo loading hatch is just past the last set of deck rises. No visible sign of cutaways in the deck to store external torpedoes and no room to put em because of the mufflers.

Last pic of Squalis construction:



Notice the big cutouts in the deck with the wooden planks over them. The picture is looking aft from the bow.

A picture of Seal after a 4 inch deck gun was added:



Notice after adding the 4 inch gun the cutaways are no longer there and the deck has been widened around the gun where it wasnt in early pictures of the Seal.


It would appear from these pictures the external storage tubes were forward of the Conning tower and they were removed when adding a four inch gun. Well at least for the Seal.

Anyways thats me story and I am sticking to it.

[DaveyJ576]

Originally Posted by NEON DEON

Notice the two Hatches to the port and starboard of the gun. Also take a look at the rail and deck expanding the width of the deck just forward of the gun to accomadate the hatches and not the gun.

Neon,

The hatches and deck cutouts you are seeing in these photos are actually for two small boats that were used for running sailors ashore for liberty. They were stored under the deck forward and these deck hatches covered them up. In the pre-war years, submarines would frequently anchor out when in port and sometimes liberty launches were not available. One of them would have been for the crew and one for the officers and the captain. The hatches would be removed and the boats lifted out and put over the side using the torpedo recovery davit. Most of the fleet boats up through the early Gatos had these launches.

As I stated in a previous post, once the war started the sub crews realized that they had a lot of frills and extra stuff on their boats that really did not contribute to the completion of the mission of sinking ships. Very quickly a list of desired equipment deletions was drawn up and submitted to the General Board. The request to remove the liberty launches was approved on 10 May 1942, but many of the boats had already removed them.

The 1943 photos of Seal above show the forward deck as it was originally built, with the hatches and cutouts to accommodate the launches. They had probably been already removed at this point. The last photo, taken after the war, show the forward deck modified and the hatches removed. This was done because the larger 4"/50 cal gun required more deck space in order to be safely trained. This necessitated altering the deck and thus the unused boat hatches were removed and the space decked over.

This brings us back to the original point. Where in the heck were these torpedo stowage tubes located? You must remember that these torpedoes were 21 feet long! In order to pull them completely out of the tube and get them on deck so they could be struck below, you would need an additional 21 feet in front of the tubes (probably 25 feet would be more like it)!

Look at the photos of the Seal's forward deck. With the deck gun (it had a substantial foundation hidden under the deck) and the boats, were would they fit? Remember you need 50 feet of unobstructed space. The only thing I can think of is that they were arranged two to a side on either side of the conning tower. The fish were then extracted and hoisted up on deck through the deck hatches for the boats. The problem here is that you would have to remove both boats, put them in the water alongside the sub, extract the torpedoes, then replace the boats! Sounds like a real Rube Goldberg setup to me.

I have done a little more reading and I trust that the tubes actually existed on the Salmon/Sargo boats, but I am having the devil of a time figuring out how they were used. I have handled torpedoes as part of a loading party several times on the Darter and I can tell you the process is little tolerant of haste, poor planning, or mistakes. I'm stumped on this one. What do you guys think?

[NEON DEON]

Hi davey,

I think you are spot on about the boats. However, based on the reports requesting external torpedoes and the logs luke posted show the torpedoes were loaded externaly plus the fact the torpedoes were so darned big and heavy and the fact the torpedo loading gear was used to pull the boats out in the first place I am thinking they pulled the boats and put the torpedoes right there where the boats would have gone in the first place. Also the 3 inch gun in that picture was an add on in that overhaul. The original placement was aft of the conning tower.

[DaveyJ576]

Originally Posted by NEON DEON

Also the 3 inch gun in that picture was an add on in that overhaul. The original placement was aft of the conning tower.

This is true. Many of the senior submarine officers in the pre-war period took a dim view of deck guns as they felt that they encouraged reckless and dangerous surface engagements. This is part of that over-cautious mindset that I referred to in an earlier post. This thinking led to the selection of the 3"/50 cal as the gun of choice as it was felt that the smaller gun would discourage everything but purely defensive actions. Also, the gun was sited aft so that it could be used defensively as the boat was running away from the enemy! This line of thought on tactics just stuns me.

However, some of the more level headed officers (like Charlie Lockwood) argued for better gun armament and were able to work a compromise with the General Board. Even though the dinky 3"/50 was to remain aft, they were able to get approved two gun mount foundations (one forward and one aft), each capable of handling up to a 5"/51 cal gun. This proved to be a key decision because once the war started this allowed the quick move of the gun to the forward position (could be done by a tender at a forward base), and allowed for the mounting of the larger 4"/50 cal and the later 5"/25 cal weapons, both much more capable and powerful guns.

The only question that I haven't answered completely yet is exactly when these twin mounts were approved. I am pretty sure that all of the fleet boats from the Porpoise/Shark class on had them, although my references are somewhat hazy on this point. At the very least they started with the Tambor/Gars.

If a boat didn't have the forward deck mount, it would have been a fairly extensive mod to add one. A large portion of the forward superstructure would have to be removed and the foundation would have to be fabricated and welded to the frames and pressure hull. The superstructure and deck would then be replaced, highly modified to accept the bulk of the foundation. While this type of work would have been no sweat for a major shipyard like Mare Island or Hunters Point, it may have been beyond the capability of a tender.

To get back to point, if the Salmon/Sargos had this forward gun mount as part of the original design (and I believe they did), the placement of the torpedo stowage tubes inside of the forward superstucture would have been very problematic for the reasons that I pointed out above. I am still scratching my head on this one.

[NEON DEON]

I see your point. But if you look again at the three inch gun on the seal and note the positions of the hatches forward and to the left and right of the gun.

Here are a few picks of the Squalus while under construction in 1938.



Note that the foward gun mount is there (that flatheaded mushroomy thing). Also note that under the surface of the platform the support for the mount are actually smaller than what sits flush with the deck. Now refering back to the seal picture and the location of the boat hatches.....

Here is the aft section of the Squalus showing that she was indeed constructed with two deckgun mounts in 1938 when she was being built.




So both platforms for the guns are there and the supports to the platforms are less intrusive underneath the deck which, for me at least, still points to the boats were pulled and replaced with external tubes.

Going back to the Seals ovehaul picture the gun is positioned right at the end and inbetween the boat hatches.

If they didnt use the hatches then the only other place to put them would be to lash them down above the deck.