Prop guards on WWII US subs

It all depends on the boat and refit.

Some of the boat's kept them till they where scrapped of made intio museums while others whe constructed with out them.

Many had them removed at one of their refits 

2 reasons for removing them

1. so the enemy couldn't grapple them.

2. cut's down on noise. 

Best thing to do is research the boat you are doing to find out it she had any at the time depickted or not.

Information on most boats willl be difficult, I've been looking for info on the Bream for about a year and have only found small blurry images that are mainly post war.

edit... 

Looking at Navsource she had the guards in Dec 45. 

Looks like she didn't have the marker bouys so you'll have to remove the incorrect ones on the model

Looks like an all wood deck, not sure what's going on in the stern. 

She is also flared out in the forward gun position.

Eric... 

Thanks, D6.

Biggest problem with researching the Tautog is that there's little about her appearence at Pearl Harbor durring the time of the attack. There's plenty of her late in the war.

Aside from the hull shortening, the hardest thing to determine is her coloring. There's one image I've found that show's the Nautilus and Tautog at their piers durring the attack. The image is a bit distant and bow on of the Tautog. I'm assuming by late '41 her hull number is painted over and still overall black coloring but significantly showing wear (she is more that a year old and has done several missions by this time).

If I'm right in what I think you are refering to about her stern, I think that plating on the port and staboards sides are from muffler reworking. Tambors had external mufflers attached early in the war and I assume by the time of these shots there was some re-work done that placed them within the outer hull. I assume those are metal coverings.

I've seen this boats name come up a number of times so there has to be some information out there.

This site has a pic of the boat with a flange for the gun at the rear but not the front, doesn't say what year.

Listed on the Bowfin site.

USS Tautog (SS-199) - Moored port side to south side of pier No. 2, Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor, T. H.

History.Nav.Mil

USS Tautog (SS-199) at rest, probably off New London, Connecticut, at the time of her completion in 1940. She is painted black, with large numerals ("199") on her conning tower side, and is fitted with a 3"/50 deck gun aft.
Starboard quarter surface view.

Might want to look around SubCommittee if you haven't already. 

Floating Drydock may have something of use to you. 

Interesting bit of info.

During the second wave of the attack, the USS Tautog is credited with being the first US submarine to single-handedly bring down a Japanese aircraft in WWII.

I believe this actual gun is now aboard the USS Pampanito in San Francisco. 

Eric... 

As a side note, Tautog's big sister Thresher (SS-200) was the reason some boats choose to have their screw guards removed.

On 9 July 1942 Japanese Naval Forces attampted to capture Thresher by fishing for it with grappling hooks. They did manage to hook Thresher's screw guards, and was dragged up to less than 200 feet, before LCdr W.J. Millican C.O. finally shook off the hook.

A full, first hand account, of the incident, can be found in the Fall 1988 issue of Naval History, as part of an article by Billie Grieves TM1.

Mike K.

Thanks for the reference, Mike.

Yeah I can find lots of text references to the 'Terrible T' but not as much in the way of images from the first few months of the war. I really wanted to get a nice image of her foward deck in late '41 - early '42 but I think I'll end up using images of other boats like the Thresher.

From the images of the late war Tautog (something I should of noticed myself since I already have lots of them) seem to indicate that the Tautog did have her gaurds throughout the war.

Aurora-7 wrote:

From the images of the late war Tautog (something I should of noticed myself since I already have lots of them) seem to indicate that the Tautog did have her gaurds throughout the war.

I have a couple pix of her in 59 with them still in tact

They are however the flat type with wide spaced spars, different than those that come with the model.

The Tambor had the guards added  Feb 1945

Thrasher, Triton, Trout and Tuna where lunched with them in place.

Eric...