You know the one, periscope comes down, guy viewing doesn’t hold the handles provided with both hands but slings one or both arms over them.
And wouldn’t you know it, but when I google for an image I can find none, only pictures of people using both hands. So, is this a WWII film cliche or were periscopes just a little different back in the day? Did they require a steadier head necessitating the arm slinging?
This is a bit of speculation, but I think it might have been because in WWII-vintage submarines, the part with the eyepiece was directly attached to the top of the periscope and so the height of the eyepiece in the control room would depend on how much the persicope was raised. Since the optimal periscope height tactically might not have been the same as the optimal height for looking through the thing perhaps captians had to assume the akward stance you describe just to avoid falling over.
I’m sure modern submarines have some sort of zillion dollar high tech solution to this problem.
Also a WWII sub had to make an obsevation to input the data. So depending on the light and seas the scope might be all the way up or only part way.
Former submarine officer here…
First off, with respect to the OP, the periscope does not come down when it is deployed; it comes up. In other words the whole periscope mast is extended up by hydraulics, so that the eyepiece and handles come up with the rest of the periscope mast out of the lower deck (floor).
Next, at least up through the improved Los Angeles-class (688-I) submarines, U.S. submarines still have a WW-II era periscope. That is, one of the two periscopes on the Los Angeles-class submarine is a Type 2 periscope whose design dates back to WWII. It was retained because it has a very small radar cross-section, and doesn’t have a many fancy accoutrements included, so there is less to break and go wrong.
The other periscope employed on a Los Angeles-class submarine is the high-tech Type 18 periscope, which has sophisticated electronics, built in communication and electronic surveillance equipment, night vision, higher magnification, etc.
More info here:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_24/eyes2.htm
Also, periscopes are virtually always raised to their full height, which puts the eyepiece at eye level. You control the height of the scope above the surface by controlling the depth of the submarine. Both periscopes have the eyepiece directly attached to the rest of the periscope by fixed optics.
With respect to OP, the only reason to sling your arms over the periscope handles is for comfort. It’s like asking why someone holds a steering wheel with one hand at the 9-o-clock position vs. the driver’s ed method of two hands at 10 and 2 o’clock. There’s no real significance to the hand and arm position.
For a submarine either on the surface or at periscope depth, it is required that someone be continuously manning one or both scopes. As a junior officer, I spent hours at various times manning the periscope. After a few hours of “dancing with the one-eyed bitch” you hold the handles in just about every conceivable position that you could imagine.
BTW, there is very detailed scanning procedure that you use on a periscope that ensures that the entire horizon is scanned at different magnifications. It’s very tedious, but it is effective.
Finally, the latest class of submarine (Virginia-class) have moved to electronic periscopes (Photonics Masts) which is a whole other ballgame. I got out of the Navy just as these were being developed, but it’s my understanding that the periscope images can be sent to various displays in the control room, including large screen displays reminiscent of the main screen in Star Trek.
Anecdote (for what it’s worth) from a WWII-era submariner I knew years back: one of the occupational hazards of being on station on a war patrol was chronic fatigue. So I have no trouble believing that an officer could be using the 'scope handles to keep himself upright.
(The specific anecdote concerned an officer who had brought the boat to periscope depth preparatory to surfacing toward the end of the watch. Per doctrine, he did a full 360 of the horizon; but he was too tired to move his feet as fast as his upper body, and ended up sort of twisted like a corkscrew.)
Tangent: In Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach, the USS Scorpion has a Geiger counter built into its periscope, which becomes very useful when the submarine goes into highly-contaminated areas. Is that standard equipment on U.S. subs now?
Hey, don’t let respect get in the way of fighting ignorance! I’m only going by way of the movies. In all the time I spent in Castle Archdale’s museum, it seemed obvious to me that sub hunting in an aeroplane must have been a strain on the observer. But it never seemed like it would have been just as bad for a submarine on patrol looking for other vessels.
The movies of course have us popping up the periscope just as the convoy/battleship etc to be torpedoed is moving from right to left across the path of the submarine 
I was on a Virginia-class last year, and while it isn’t Star Trek-like, imagine replacing the area where the periscope is with a console with a flat panel display and a joystick. Voila, that’s it. See the guy in the background on the left, what with the two screens? That’s the photonics operator.
This might interest you. Unfortunately, the Navy, and the Congresscritters we’ve contacted, have shown very little interest: http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/honor_the_monitor.htm
Why a submarine? Wouldn’t a destroyer be more apt? It would seem to me that a destroyer is closer kin to an ironclad.
When I saw the thread title, I knew exactly what you meant. You could probably get a screen capture of Curt Jurgens from The Enemy Below if anyone needs an illustration.
Yes, absolutely. Turn your hat around for maximum effect.
I think I found a photo Pushkin was looking for
Really ? I thought SOP was to leave it up as little as possible, to avoid it showing on radars, or leaving a visible wake for airplanes/ships to see. Or do you mean manning the scope involves bringing it up, do a 30 seconds sweep and bring it back down, repeat in 20 minutes ?
Generally you are correct. You want to minimize the time that the periscope is up.
However, there are exceptions. For example, when you leave port, submarines often have to proceed on the surface for many hours before reaching the dive point, especially on the East coast, where the continental shelf extends far out from the coast. While on the surface, the Officer of the Deck (OOD) is up on the bridge with a lookout on top of the sail (formerly referred to as the “conning tower”). However, most commanding officers (COs) also require that at least one of the periscopes be continuously manned while on the surface. This provides an extra set of eyes to look for contacts, plus the periscope provides a higher vantage point than the personnel on the bridge along with a more stable platform and better magnification capability than a set of binoculars. Anyway, while enlisted personnel are often used for this, ships also use junior officers, especially if they are newly reported non-quals.
Secondly, there are times when you find yourself at periscope depth (PD) for longer than the normal short time required for communications. In this instance, it is absolutely required that a set of eyes be on the periscope continuously. You could be doing a drill where you have to ventilate or run the diesel. You might be communicating with another vessel or aircraft. There are various situations where you might have to spend an extended period of time on the scope.
But in general, while on patrol, and especially if in a tactical situation, you would indeed minimize use of the scope. Modern submarines are quite capable of successfully engaging in combat without using the scope at all.
Off-topic, but speaking of Hollywood and submarines, it always makes me chuckle that Hollywood so rarely gets the lighting on modern submarines right.
Everything has to be dramatic, dark, mysterious on TV or in the movies, when in reality, it always seems like it’s lit like an office.
I did a piece on periscopes a few months ago. The original periscopes were clever optical devices that had to cope with trapped moisture, bending of the tube, and maintaining alignment under trying circumstances. They were shorter than you’d think (although, when you look at the one they’ve got mounted at the entrance to Edmund Scientific, you might think otherwise). They’re pretty impressive bits of engineering.
but nowadays it’s quicker and easier to simply mount a CCD camera on top of a stick – no need to worry about the tube bending under the drag of the current, or about moisture getting into the system and fogging up your #3 relay lens, or about maintaining a straight optical axis and an unbroken relay chain. And you can make the periscope as long as mechanics will allow. I suspect the traditional optical periscope, with its space limitations, is going to be a thing of the past. Since you don’t have to look right into a specifically-placed eyepiece, and can put the monitor anywhere you want, there’s no need for that big intrusive barrel smack dab in the middle of your control room. You can look at a screen on any panel display you want.
It’s the naming connection to the CSS Virginia, the Monitor’s foe, that we have in mind. But the new Zumwalt-class destroyers, or the arsenal ship if they ever build it, could be roughly analogous to the Monitor as a type of warship, I suppose.
That’s actually one thing I don’t get-- why bother putting the CCD on a stick at all? IIRC from when I followed it more closely back in the 1990s, the trendline in sub technology appeared to be in favor of putting sensors on unmanned underwater vehicles connected back to the submarine via fiber optics. Just float the vehicle, reel out the fiber, and the vehicle pops up on the surface to take its pictures. Sure, it may not be as stable as a submarine scope, but with electronic processing, you could get a steady picture. Even better, the sub can be 500 feet down and a thousand feet away instead of near the surface with an attached periscope.
Any of the sub drivers on the board know what’s happening in this direction? It seems to me this would revolutionize periscope use (given that since the advent of radar kinda defeated the tactical utility of using a scope vs. staying deeper and relying on passive sonar).
Gotcha.
Yes, hence my initial puzzlement - why would he be required to spend hours on the scope, when sonar picks up and plots contacts far beyond the horizon ? But then, it’s so easy to forget those bits that come before “contact, bearing X, medium speed, closing !” and after “she’s going down !”. I blame subsims 
This is the periscope pose offered in the OP (arms slung over handles. BTW, I have no idea who is in the pic):
