Turret Crawl on Navy Battleship

we're standing here at the business end of the battleship Iowa and as impressive as these 16-inch guns are there's far more to see below deck than there is above to provide maximum protection for the gun crews and the rest of the ship there are only two ways to get inside this turret only a few of the Gunners have worked inside this turret enter through this hatch now I'm going to take you down below show you where the rest of the gun crew went to work one of the questions that our guests asked most often is can we get inside the turret unfortunately the answer right now is no access down below is very tough steep ladders and small crawl spaces everywhere on top of that as you can see by the outfit I have on there's tons of hydraulic oil and gunk down below that we just haven't had the funds to clean up yet what most of our visitors don't realize is that there's so much more to the gun turrets and what they can see from the main deck the machinery that rotates and raises the barrels and the ammo that feeds them are all located on separate decks that extend deep into the hull of the ship we're going to drop down through a strike down hatch which is an armored hatch where the ammunition would come down the second deck is one deck below the main deck we're going to go down three decks straight down on these vertical ladders come on follow me all right a first area here is going to be passing through third deck and we're heading down to the next level which is fourth deck this is where the first of our powder magazines is located lastly go all the way down to the fifth deck which is where the magazine is and also the entry point into the base of the turret by the way there are only two ways into the turret one of them is through the hatch that we showed you up on the main deck five decks above our heads the others down here at the bottom in the event of an emergency for those sailors who worked at the lower end of the turret this is the only way out before we enter the turret we'd like to take a look at the powder magazine here between turrets one and two this is where they would have stored the Gunpowder to fire the guns powder would have been stored in powder cans at each side of the space would have been unloaded and the powder bag is actually placed on these trays made of brass brass prevent sparks from occurring which could ignite your powder that we've added a powder flat where they store the powder for safekeeping here in the powder flat the cans are stacked an interlocking fashion for safety so they can't bounce around the Seaway inside each one of these cans would have been 3 110 pound bags of powder you can see inside this can it's hermetically sealed for safety we feel very fortunate to have these candies provided to us a surplus from the Hawthorne weapon station in Nevada what's really nice about these two is that they date back from the 40s in 1944 here 1945 1941 these were used in World War two and retained for use throughout the years including the 1980s the powder bags is slid along this non-sparking brass tray to the very end and they're passed one at a time through a powder scuttle which separates the annular space around the turret and the powder magazine thus keeping a safe separation between them so now we've entered into the annular space between the powder magazines to my right and the turret on my left this is where the powder was passed through into the base of the turret they would use these shuttles here where the powder would come from here and he passed manually by a sailor in this direction over here we have an immersion tank and he invented a bag broke open the sailors would dump them inside here to make sure that they didn't actually catch fire or explode now we'll enter the base of the turret once the powder bags have been loaded into the passing scuttle they get cranked over just like this right out for the powder man to pass to the elevator once the powder is inside the base level of the turret the powder bit will bring it over to the elevators place three bags on the top three bags on the bottom and then it's hoisted up to the gun house each gun of a three gun turret has its own powder hoist each powder place has its own operator this is the lower operating station for this particular gun inside the elevator travels up where the powder finally meets the shell and is loaded into the gun okay once again we're down on fifth deck now we'll head up we're going to stop at least one of the shell flats on the way up all the way to the gun house so we left the lower section of the turret have entered the center section of the first shell flat this is a location that houses some of the machinery to move shells around throughout the turret so we've now entered one of the shell flats aboard the ship this is where you would store your shells or the big bullets for firing from the guns over here is an example we have a practice round 2,700 pound projectile strapped to the bulkhead with a chain where they restored I'm now standing on the outer stationary shell flat which stays with the ship at all times I step into the center this is the middle ring which rotates with the turret it has the shell hoist associated with it lastly the inner ring rotates independently and allows you to place a new shell in the proper position for loading you'll notice that all the decks here are polished to allow the easy transfer or dragging of shells across the deck here in the shell flap the shells are stored on either side of me in their racks the sailors intake rope and utilize this device here which is a gypsy head wrapping the rope around the gypsy head and around the shell and dragging it into the hoist for transfer up to the gun now I'll climb up to the upper shelf flat which is largely identical to this one here now I'd like to show you something really interesting above my head is the support structure for the roller path that's this white section right here and that supports the full 2,000 ton weight of the rotating turret here's a large 40-foot circle ring gear which allows the mechanism to turn the turret right here is one of many Clips around the base of the turret that helps stabilize the turret during firing in order to preserve accuracy here in the upper shelf flat we have the conical bulkhead which supports the weight of the turret this is an inch and a half piece of steel outboard of which is the three inch lower bar bed protective armor this animation created for a 15 inch British gun turret illustrates how the ammo moves from the magazine deep in the ship up to the gun breech for loading and firing note that on our ship the bullets and the powder bags travel in separate elevators up to the gun for loading now we'll leave the upper shelf flat and head up into the electric deck which is just below the gun pit all right coming up inside here around the machinery that rotates it elevates the guns under the electric deck in front of me here is the largest electric motor in the ship it turns the turret it drives through a gearbox into a hydraulic pump and it's controlled by the plotting system down deep inside the vessel so we were here in the electric deck and the forward end near the training pump directly in front of us are the brass controls for the trainer who is the person that would rotate the turret under local control he has a set of dials directly in front of him that he can read and thereby train the turret in the proper direction he has a little fold down seat over here and an electric foot switch down below to signal the turret officer that his dials match the signals from plot what we see before us here is one of the two pinion gears that rides against a large ring gear that rotates the turret this is where the power is transmitted to the ring gear this is the gear that turns the turret now we'll leave the electric deck and head up into the gun pit of the right gun on this turret we are now in the gun pit inside the right gun of this turret the gun when it elevates actually rotates down into this pit it allows it to have room to recoil the recoil distance is defined by this red line back here in the back it's almost four feet above my head is the recoil cylinder which absorbs the enormous force of the shot right here is this gorgeous jack screw which elevates the 120 ton gun mechanism we are now leaving the gun pit crawling up to the gun captain stationed inside the back part of the gun house so here we are in the breech of the gun inside the gun house inside the gun house there are four positions I'm standing on the gun captain's position his little platform here he's responsible for opening the breech and directing the rest of the crew again captain of course closes the breech locks it in place this is an interrupted screw breech mechanism which actually locks down below is the primer man when the gun is in the loading position and this breech is folded down the primer man can reach the gun lock and insert his primer for firing of the gun back over here to my left is the spanning tree operator in the far corner is the rammer man he rams the powder and the projectile into the gun the spanning tree unfolds for us right into the gun breech right here the top of the rear of the gun here on the breech there's some great stampings u.s. naval gun factory water lay New York 16-inch gun mark seven number 370 and it weighs two hundred and thirty seven thousand one hundred and twenty-five pounds dated 1944 now left the gun house of the right gun of this turret along the bulkhead here to my right are two more doors for the other two gun houses plus three doors for the upper powder hoist operating stations here we have the upper operative position for the powder voice on the right gun and here we have the opening to the center gun of this particular turret let's take a look inside okay now we're inside the center gun house of this turret remember that all three gun houses are the same but they are separated for safety in front of me is the cradle the cradle operator sits over here to my left the cradle houses the shell at the top of the elevator the cradle unfolds moving into the rear of the gun allowing the rammer to shove in first the shell and then the powder here to my left is the operating station for the cradle operator and directly in front of me is the position for the rammer man who rams the shell and the powder into the rear of the gun here we have the upper operator's position for the powder hoist inside you'll find a tractor seat for them to sit some protective gear and also their actuated levers for operating all the machinery inside there's also a window inside so they can look into the gun room and watch the direction from the gun captain it's my right on the corresponding positions for the left gun this particular turret this is a spotting periscope which allows the turret captain to look through and spot the splashes from his shells without depending upon observers from outside the turret this is an additional computer that could be used for directing shot measuring deflection in predicting the next round in the event that the lower-end plot rooms were damaged or taken out of service and in normal conditions all of the control for the turret was actually slaved down to the lower plot rooms either forward plot or aft plot guns were actually controlled from there so redundancy was very critical in the design of these vessels they wanted to be able to control different turrets from different locations aboard ship in the event of any damage during battle and notice here that we have train indicating connection through plot forward or plot aft you can also go to turret to turn three both of which are after this as well you have different connections to the gun train receiver regulators between the turrets and in theory you can send this information to control different guns from different locations just in the event other things are damaged the sailors inside the turret would load the gun give the ready signal which will be transmitted down to the plot rooms down below and the plot area would actually fire the guns down well I booked you've enjoyed this little tour today we can't wait to get our guests inside the turret for real but for now this movie will have to do see you aboard you

Channel: Battleship USS Iowa Museum

Views: 639,994

Rating: 4.9118686 out of 5

Keywords: USS Iowa gun barbette 16 naval rifle, battleship, navy, world war 2, war heritage museum

Id: N0D-ulUrMIo

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2016

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[u/kibufox]

Thought y'all would find this interesting.