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NavSource Online: Battleship Photo Archive

Battleship Turret Arrangement

Size	Image Description	Contributed By And/Or Copyright
2.5mk	General arrangement gun chambers of turret and magazines on a battleship showing projectile and powder stowage. The interior of the turret is sub-divided into compartments as follows: The gun chambers (shown here is the breech of the chamber) turret officers booth, sight stations, bull gear compartments and the ventilation unit compartments are all within the weldment, above the pan plate. Below the pan plate is the electric deck compartment including the pinion gear compartment at the front end. Seen here is the turret shell deck of the New Jersey (BB-62). Below the electric deck are the two shell handling levels the upper and lower projectile flats. Seen here are shell men (parbucklers) at work in the projectile flats of Alabama (BB-60). Below the shell levels is the powder handling room into which the lower entry doors to the powder hoists open. Extending from the underside of the electric deck to the wiring trunk below the powder handling room on the centerline of the turret is a central column wiring tube, enclosing the main turret wiring and H.P. air piping. Above the pan plate of the weldment, the turret is divided into six gas and flame tight compartments. A transvers bulkhead subdivides the Booth from the three gun chambers. Longitudinal box girders, together with longitudinal divisional bulkheads, running between the transverse Booth bulkhead and the turret face plate above and in line with the box girders of the turret weldment, to the turret roof, divide the gun chambers, one from another, into three gas and flametight compartments. The outboard divisional bulkheads, together with a small additional transverse bulkhead located just forward of the Booth transverse bulkhead, form gas and flametight sight stations in the wings above the shelf plate. The electric deck is subdivided by non-tight bulkheads running in line with the box girders of the weldment above. The projectile flats below the electric deck are divided by a non-tight circular bulkhead into handling and machinery spaces. The lower flat is separated from the powder handling room by a flametight compartment. All revolving portions of Turrets, One, Two and Three are similar. In Turret Two due to the exceptional depth (This photo is of the Arizona (BB-39) in 1938) of the powder handling room, an additional projectile storage platform which is fixed has been added and rings the upper part of the compartment. Main access to the turrets is by way of two A-B hatches located in the turret overhangs opening into the Booth. Additional access is provided by means of ammunition trunks opening through armored doors into the powder circle which surrounds the powder handling room. The Booth is located in the rear overhang of the turret above the shelf plate, and to the rear of a transverse gas and flametight bulkhead. In this compartment are located the rammers, the rammer power units, the range finder, periscopes, sprinkling tanks, vent sets, remote control switches and valves for sprinkling systems, and fire control switchboards. The entrance doors to gun chambers, and powder hoist operators stations are located in the transverse bulkhead. Control switchboard and microphone units for turret amplifying system are located in the Booth adjacent to the ready light panel. The turret ready light switch, ready light panel, synchro light panel, firing cutout camlight panel are all located on the transverse bulkhead just to the right of the access door to the center gun. Here the turret officer takes his station. Shown here is the entrance doors rangefinder in Turret Officer's Booth. Box girders extending between the pan plate to approximately the centerline of the trunnions as integral parts of the gun weldment, segregate the weldment into three gas and flametight compartments, longitudinally. Longitudinal bulkheads between the tops of the box girders and the turret roof plates, subdivide the three gun chambers from each other and form a tight subdivision between the wing gun chambers and the sight stations to the front of the transverse Booth bulkhead. In way of the guns, gas and flametightness is assured by the gunslide shield plates, which ride between longitudinal cheek plates extending to the turret face plate. The edges of the slide shield plate are fitted with spring bar, pressure type gas and flame shields. Under the guns, 3" S.T.S. splinter protection plates carry the lower edge of the cheek plates in grooves and provide a wiping surface for the lower gas and flame shield, fitted to the slide shield plate. Heavy leather bucklers cover the gun ports. They exclude green seas and help exclude toxic gasses and assist in maintaining air pressure from within. All pipes, cables, operating rods, etc., penetrating the gas and flametight bulkheads above the pan plate are fitted with stuffing boxes of approved type or are otherwise protected to assure gas and flame tightness within the gun chambers. Access doors and hatches are fitted with asbestos gaskets with suitable dogs for tightness. A special gas seal and watershed is provided in way of the shelf plate and the barbette armor belt, protecting the turret interior from external gasses and green seas. This seal is formed by a through section fitted to the top edge of the barbette and a tongue section fitted to the revolving turret. The trough is packed full of grease, in which the tongue rides as the turret revolves. The through is replenished with grease ae required, through fittings located in the seal. The seal is pressed from light gauge C.R.S. and attached by tap bolts to armor and turret. The centering pins are two in number, located just to the front of the Booth bulkhead on the shelf plate, one each in the right and left gun chambers. The centering pins lock to the turret, on the centerline of the ship, to the heavy barbette armor. The pins are operated by screw thread, by means of a special wrench, stowed on an adjacent bulkhead. The control of the centering pin operating gear is located on a ramp forming a vent trunk outboard of the outboard gun girder.	U.S. Navy Photograph submitted by Pieter Bakels.
268k	View inside a main battery turret; In red - the rammer chain casings.	USN photo from publication "Ammunition Handling"- NavPers 16194- U.S.Government Printing Office, courtesy of Pieter Bakels.
188k	14-Inch 3-Gun Turret, Longitudinal Section.	U.S. Navy Photograph and text courtesy of Pieter Bakels.
223k	14-Inch Three-Gun Turret, Transverse Section.	U.S. Navy Photograph and text courtesy of Pieter Bakels.
136k	14-Inch 3-Gun Turret, Turret Officer's Station.	U.S. Navy Photograph and text courtesy of Pieter Bakels.
133k	Gas ejector system for 14-Inch turret guns.	U.S. Navy Photograph and text courtesy of Pieter Bakels.
22m	PDF of 16inch target projectile.	Courtesy of Pieter Bakels.
3m	PDF of 16inch powder tank carrier.	Courtesy of Pieter Bakels.
5.8m	"Sketch of Nantucket Harbor in 1840". PDF of 13 Various G.A. (General Arrangement) prints of 16" battleship construction from 1937 - 1944.	U.S. Navy Photograph submitted by Pieter Bakels. Photo added 08/10/08.
540k	"John Paul Jones hoist the first national colors on the *Alfred. Note that this flag combined the union jack of England with 13 red and white stripes for the colonies." PDF of Faired lines & Molded Offsetts of the Indiana* (BB-58), 30 Jan. 1940.	U.S. Navy Photograph submitted by Pieter Bakels. Photo added 08/10/08.
3.5m	"Sealing up Santiago Harbour". PDF of the Main deck, compartment access & deck support of Massachusetts (BB-59), 13 Nov. 1942. BU Ships # 461571.	Photo courtesy of "A History of the War of 1898," published by Collier in 1898. U.S. Navy Photograph submitted by Pieter Bakels. Photo added 08/10/08.

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