Sinking ships w/ the flak gun realistic?

[Grayson02sept1980]

also...

imho the 3.7 compared to the 20mm quad is almost useless.

the 20mm quad is so much better from my few experiences

[Maserati]

there are soem video clips here:

http://www.uboataces.com/history-video.shtml

One of them shows a boat shooting merchants with the 88. Big explosions on deck.

[CptGrayWolf]

Originally Posted by piersyf

Things to be kept in mind...

Ship hulls are NOT hardened steel unless it is the armoured belt. From memory the standard plate on a merchant is 1/4 inch mild...that's roughly equivalent to 4.5mm of hardened plate (depending on who's plate). A 20mm AP from the Oerlikon should put a hole in it quite easily at it's effective range of about 1000m. Has a chance out to around 2000. Haven't crunched the numbers on this yet...

Biggest danger is not fire, but ruptured boilers. The AP rounds will puncture a boiler. A destroyer (essentially unarmoured, with high pressure boilers and oil burners) could be very seriously hurt by 20mm fire, assuming the firer lived long enough to complete the act. Aircraft attacks on the beam were a worry. From memory even the .50cal could score mobility kills on Japanese destroyers.

Piers

Interesting!

[jpm1]

the flak gun use was avoided as much as possible because of the rust Reinhart Suhren lost a crew member like that he wanted to shoot at something don't remember what the gun exploded injuring several people on the deck and killing one

Edit : i made a mistake it wasn't Reinhart Suhren it was Wolfgang Luth it was the U-181 cook who died after being amputated

[msalama]

Do we have weaponry rusting as a malfunction, BTW? I suppose not...

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by siber

You don't start getting diesel explosions until it's heated, vapourised and/or compressed (as inside an engine). Compared to petrol it's relatively stable because it's not at all volatile.

Which, as we all know, is one of the advantages of diesel engines in Submarines

Less boom, more varoom.

[kurtz]

Originally Posted by ozzysoldier

real u-boat's dit it some times on smal targets or schuteling charges and handgrenades

Mush Morton ,the Pacific Sub Commander sank a boat with Molatov cocktails he brought with him. (I suppose he didn't mind having bottles of petrol rolling around in the control room)

[Sub mariner]

With my S-boat i only sink half of my ships with torpedeos I sink the anything below a medium cargo with my 37mm gun and anything below a small merchant with my 20mms.

[silentrunner]

A mighty sea story:

I was on a patrol of the North Carolina coast just off of Cape Hatteras. When I was attacked by small trowlers with guns attatched. My deck gun was out of ammo so I had to use the flak guns. Went to flank speed, and ran as far as I could sinking three trowlers with my flak gun before my boat sank.

[Danelov]

Seems plausible, yes, and already was utilised in this function several times.Can be also hardly necessary when you have a little IIA or IID to sink a tug, schooner or other type of "light"small vessel.

[gmccabe01]

Hi all new here, and 1st post.
As to sinking ships with the 20mm flak, yup could be done in real life with maybe a small coastal merchant at the biggest target.
As a retired navy man I know that 20mm ammo comes in Tracer,A.P.,Ball(normal lead bullit) and best of all Explosive, and I can tell you that the explosive makes at least a
10cm hole in sheet of 30mm thick steel. Remember the gun can fire at least
600-1000rds a minute so it can make quite a mess in the side or wheelhouse of a small vessel

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD!

A .50 calibre round will also penetrate 1/4" steel or more. It can be done, but I wouldn't want to waste the ammo on anything over 1000 tons or so.