Coils on deck gun?

[1Patriotofmany]

What are the coils on the deck gun for? Are they wire for some kind of degaussing, or are they for cooling or some other reason?

[d@rk51d3]

If they're the same as the ones on the periscope, it's to eliminate vibration when submerged.....IIRC.

[1Patriotofmany]

Originally Posted by d@rk51d3

If they're the same as the ones on the periscope, it's to eliminate vibration when submerged.....IIRC.

How do they eliminate vibration and what are they made of? They look like copper cable.

[propbeanie]

If you are talking about the coils that parallel the gun barrel, those are for recoil. You wouldn't want a hard-mounted gun on the sub deck, since it would pull out of its mounting location after a few shots. The springs absorb the barrel as it "slides" along its carriage. The springs help cushion the shock from the gun explosion, and then pull the barrel back into position for the next shot.

[Aktungbby]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-inch/25-caliber_gun

5"/25 guns removed from pre-war battleships (especially those rebuilt after Pearl Harbor) had their barrel linings chromed. These guns were remounted for submarine use beginning in late 1943 for extra firepower against small boats and sampans often encountered off the coast of Japan and elsewhere in the Pacific Theater, replacing the earlier 3-inch and 4-inch guns. New production Mark 17 5"/25 guns on the Mark 40 mount designed for submarines became available in mid-1944; USS Spadefish was the first submarine built with this gun. Some submarines had two of these weapons.[2] The Mark 17 gun in the Mark 40 submarine gun mount used semi-fixed ammunition (case and projectile handled separately) and had a range of 14,500 yards (13,300 m) at the maximum elevation of 40 degrees. The submarine mounting had manual elevation, train, and loading with no power assist.
From late 1944 some submarines were built or refitted with two of these weapons. The first of these was USS Sennet, commissioned on 22 August 1944. In February–March 1945 she operated with two other two-gun submarines, USS Haddock and USS Lagarto, in a wolfpack with significant success.To further improve the effectiveness of the two-gun configuration, seven submarines were fitted with a Mark 6 "Baby Ford" fire control computer with a Mark 6 stable element to correct for pitch and roll. The first of these was USS Sea Cat, followed by Flying Fish, Entemedor, Sea Dog, Sea Poacher, Sea Robin, and Sennet. However, some of these refits were completed in September 1945, too late to see action.

Note the 20" recoil BBY!

[1Patriotofmany]