  We investigate the brightest regions of the kpc-scale jet in the powerful
radio galaxy 3C 346, using new optical HST ACS/F606W polarimetry together with
Chandra X-ray data and 14.9 GHz and 22.5 GHz VLA radio polarimetry. The jet
shows a close correspondence in optical and radio morphology, while the X-ray
emission shows an 0.80 +/- 0.17 kpc offset from the optical and radio peak
positions. Optical and radio polarimetry show the same apparent magnetic field
position angle and fractional polarization at the brightest knot, where the jet
undergoes a large kink of almost 70 degrees in the optical and radio images.
The apparent field direction here is well-aligned with the new jet direction,
as predicted by earlier work that suggested the kink was the result of an
oblique shock. We have explored models of the polarization from oblique shocks
to understand the geometry of the 3C 346 jet, and find that the upstream flow
is likely to be highly relativistic (0.91 +0.05 / -0.07 c), where the plane of
the shock front is inclined at an angle of 51 (+/- 11) degrees to the upstream
flow which is at an angle 14 (+8 / -7) degrees to our line of sight. The actual
deflection angle of the jet in this case is only 22 degrees.
