Individual Submarine Boards > USS Cod (SS-224)

Mk. IV TDC

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Mark Sarsfield:
Fred,

  When was the Cod's Mk. IV TDC installed?  It seems like even though the Mk. IV was available during the war, a lot of boats continued to use the Mk. III due to the time it would take to cut a hole in the conning tower hull, to remove and repalce the TDC's, run new wiring, etc.

  In general, do you know how many boats got a Mk. IV during the war and how many were retrofitted after the war?

  Thanks.

Fred Tannenbaum:
Hey Mark: Paul Farace ("far-ah-chee") at pfarace@att.net can definitely tell you when Cod got her Mark IV TDC. I don't know how many boats received a Mark IV. I don't think the Silversides has one and I could check the war patrol reports to see when she got that. Also, you'd have to check with a measuring tape but I think it may have been possible to assemble the TDC in pieces, passing them through hatches instead of having to cut holes in the conning tower. Again, Paul may know more.

Mark Sarsfield:
Okay.  I was wondering how easy it would be to dismantle a TDC to fit through one of the hatches or torpedo loading ports.

Mark Sarsfield:
I was talking to "Gino" on the SubSim forum.  Apparently he works on/helps with the Cod and he said that some of the TDC components are still too large to fit through the bridge hatch.  I had always heard that they had to cut a hole in the hulls to add and remove TDCs on the boats.

Mark Sarsfield:
Here's a follow-up response from Gino.  He corrected several points...


--- Quote ---Just got of the phone with our TDC-guru (as you call him...)

Well, I couldn't have been more wrong... 
The Cod did receive a Mk3, that was upgraded to a Mk4 after the war.

They would 'only' have to separate the PK and AS from each other and fit in the Receiver unit.
Essentially the TDC remained the same, you'd still have to crank in the basic parameters. The receiver 'units' could be used by selecting the appropriate switch on the Receiver.

Now, what utterly puzzles me is that Cod who never was in the Guppy program did receive the upgrade, but e.g. Hawkbill and Icefish never did.
Must have been a government thing...

So it seems that most, if not all boats, received a Mk3 during ww2. And that some of those boats received the upgrade and others didn't.

Let me get out an e-mail to someone who might know the precise data...

To be continued...

groetjes,
__________________
Gino den Ridder
Assistant Curator
--- End quote ---

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