I do not doubt that such a plan was considered, possibly multiple times. The idea of how effective it could have been early on is...distressing.![]()
A few dozen light artillery shells aren't going to do much.
Guns also increase drag, thus ditching the gun allows faster underwater speeds.
Cutting a big hole in your hull doesn't compromise your flexibility as a a submarine? Also, such a thing would be a maintenance nightmare.A disappearing mount with a streamlined storage unit would do the same thing without sacrificing the desired flexibility.
I don't recall that IRL. Beach did do it in Dust on the Sea.general said:I did read that one US sub actually chose to go into a surface gun engagement with a Japanese escort - and sank it!
Thanks for that. It's interesting, & useful--& IDK most of it.DD951 said:<snip>
Cutting a big hole in your hull doesn't compromise your flexibility as a a submarine? Also, such a thing would be a maintenance nightmare.
You assume way too much sometimes. Pressure Hull integrity isn't threatened if the pressure hull isn't penetrated to begin with.Forgive my ignorance but I don't think those trident hatches are opened twice a day are they? Also a round hatch is less compromising to the hull than a rectangular or triangular one, which is the shape you'd need to have for a gun. Plus, there's 3 1/2 to 4 decades between the various wartime subs and Tridents, hells, it wasn't until 15 years after the war that Polaris missiles were deployed, so of course there's going to be a tech gap.
If anyone remembers my Super-Massive Dreadnought, there was an accompanying submersible that had a large deck gun.
It was also attached to the main hull, turning it into a trimaran.![]()
Those big gun subs were such an terrible waste of money. At the end of the day the idea of the big gun, light armour combination had been comprehensively demolished at Jutland and making it submersible doesn't help. Against any target against which a big gun is useful no sub captain in his right mind would surface.
Would the gap be big enough to take it?
Only if you're putting a hole in the pressure hull.
It'd do fuck all to a sub if it only penetrated the light hull, which exists purely for sea-keeping and Hydrodynamic effects.
How were you planning on powering the pumps?As for maintenance, it's not a particularly complicated set up. All it'd add to the extant set-up A couple hinged panels, maybe opened with hydraulics for the cover, and a pair of swing arms with a basic hydraulic system to raise and lower the gun.
Sure. It's just thin steel for the cover. It'd be easy to make it fit, especially if it's not a refit but included from the start of the design.Would the gap be big enough to take it?
Electric motors would work. You could run them off the power systems in the conning tower.How were you planning on powering the pumps?