Monitor HMS Erebus

[dick]

My best guess now is there really was a third tub, same diameter (16 feet) as the other two, but positioned about three feet lower. After the two rear tubs were both equipped with single Bofors 40mm guns (the SB one about 1941/42, the Port one in 1943/44), the front tub got the remaining single 2 pdr gun.

As I mentioned, the armament return for the time in question lists just one single 40mm and one single 2pdr. This photo shows the single 40mm in the starboard tub. Above it you can see its safety firing rail which is quite tall because of the (long) length of the 40mm barrel. The safety firing rail above the port tub is different implying a different weapon there. It is lower as it would need to be for the shorter barrel of a single 2pdr:

This is an aerial view showing the area aft of the funnel where you think there was third tub. All I can see there are ventilation cowels and a small rectangular deck office of some sort:

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Hmmm, the argument of the different safety rails makes sense indeed. Good thinking, Watson!

Still very odd to have such different weapons side-by-side. Do you know any other example of this in ship's armament?

And it still leaves me what 'thingy' to make in the position of that 'third tub' I really cannot make out that 'rectangular deck office'.

Keep up the brain working, please! You have been the greatest help so far!

[dick]

Still very odd to have such different weapons side-by-side. Do you know any other example of this in ship's armament?

And it still leaves me what 'thingy' to make in the position of that 'third tub' I really cannot make out that 'rectangular deck office'.

Well, the obvious example is Erebus herself again but three years earlier with a UP launcher to port and the single 40mm to starboard:

Erebus c.jpg (49.93 KiB) Viewed 260 times

(But I will look out for this sort of thing on another ship.)

I also fancy that you can just see the top of a 2pdr's shield above the rim of the tub in the photo I included in my previous post, the shield distinctively higher to the left of the gun than to the right:

Definite ventilation cowl at A, two more smaller ones possibly at B and the deckhouse at which C I have edged in blue:

If you go back to the 1944 starboard view in the YouTube video in FFG-7's earlier post you see the deckhouse from the side.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Still not satisfied:

The deckhouse C you suggested is right behind the SB searchlight tower, definitely not on the centerline behind the funnel. I included this deckhouse already on my model.

The large cowl vent is forward of the SB gun tub, the one with the 40mm gun, so neither on the centerline. I made this cowl as well. And the two (possible) smaller vents (I made only one) are behind the larger one, so also: not on the centerline.

So the area on the centerline I'm searching for is hardly visible in that overhead oblique picture from 1945 you're referring to.

When I'm oogling the pictures from port (1943) I think I'm looking at something that looks like a gun tub, but I'm certainly not sure.

Th search goes on!