Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Deck gun
Summary
A deck gun is a type of naval artillery mounted on the deck of a submarine. Most submarine deck guns were open, with or without a shield; however, a few larger submarines placed these guns in a turret.
The main deck gun was a dual-purpose weapon used to sink merchant shipping or shell shore targets, or defend the submarine on the surface from enemy aircraft and warships. Typically a crew of three operated the gun, while others were tasked with supplying ammunition. A small locker box held a few 'ready-use' rounds. With a well-drilled, experienced crew, the rate of fire of a deck gun could be 15 to 18 aimed shots per minute.
Some submarines also had additional deck guns like auto-cannons and machine guns for anti-aircraft defense.
While similar unenclosed guns are often found on surface warships as secondary or defensive armament (such as the US Navy's 5-inch (127 mm)/25 caliber gun which was removed from battleships to mount on submarines), the term "deck gun" normally refers only to such weapons when mounted on submarines.
The deck gun was introduced in all submarine forces prior to World War I. However, it came to the fore in the German navy, and proved its worth when U-boats needed to conserve torpedoes or attack enemy vessels straggling behind a convoy. Submarine captains often considered the deck gun as their main weapon, using much more expensive but not always accurate torpedoes only when necessary or advisable (as a deck gun necessarily revealed a submarine's position, whereas a torpedo could be used either under water or effectively at night). In addition, submarines carried many more gun rounds than torpedoes - ten or fewer during World War I, fired in spreads of multiple warheads to increase the likelihood of a successful hit.
An example of this approach was Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, who used a deck gun or a dynamiting team on 171 of his 194 sinkings.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.