16" Gun Powder and Shell Handling Below Decks

I recently figured out how to make a few adjustments to my camera that allowed me to get some shots of the magazine and shell handling spaces in/around the #2 barbett. The shells got loaded into the gun first, so I'll show that process first. Within each barbett there were annular (circular) spaces that rotated around independently of the turret to move the massive 16" shells to point where the shell handlers could man-handle the shells (called "parbuckling") onto the elevators that would bring the shells up to the gun pits.

The shells in the 2nd annular space. There are three of these spaces in the #2 barbett rather than than the 2 in the other two turrets. This is because the #2 turret is placed above the #1 turret on the main deck to keep the two turrets out of each others' way. This lift provides space for the third annular space. In this picture, that small bell-shaped object to the right is what the shell handlers used to parbuckle the shells into position in the shell elevators.

Uppermost shell handling space. The only way to see this space is via a small ladder in the 2nd shell handling space. It's poorly lit, and you can only view it through plexiglass at the top of the ladder. It's pretty barren up there, but it's cool to see nonetheless.

This is one of the shell elevators. From here, the shell goes directly up to the gun pit. It arrives to the gun crew vertically, then is tipped over horizontally by the spanner tray that is part of the mechanism receiving the shell. The rammer then pushes the shell into the gun.

The powder follows the shell. Inside the barbett (what the turret assembly fits into) is the powder handling space. The powder bags were loaded onto elevator cars in groups of 6, with 3 bags per level on each of the two levels of the car. Once the powder was loaded, the cars brought it up to the gun pits where the gunhouse crew rolled the bags on the breech spanner tray and rammed them into the gun behind the shell.

This is part of the powder magazine for the #2 turret. The bags lined up on the right are on a roller rack that the powder handlers moved the bags along to get them to where the bags were passed to the powder handlers inside the barbett.

This is a close-up of a powder bag tank. They had to be kept very dry, and away from sparks.

This is the roller track that moves the powder bags to the barbett. Each bag weighs nearly 100lbs.

A flashproof scuttle keeps sparks from moving machinery inside the barbett from reaching the powder magazines. Boom.

Once inside the barbett, the bags got loaded onto powder cars. Look for the white powder bags loaded onto the elevator cars. This was taken from the lowest shell handling space inside the barbett.

Once the shell and powder were loaded and the breech was closed, the gun ready switch was thrown in the gun house, indicating to fire control (far below decks) that the gun was ready to fire. When given the command to fire from the bridge, the gunnery officer fired the gun.

Fire control. This is where the command to fire was received from the bridge.

This is the business end. This is the fire control computer for one of the turrets (notice three triggers, three guns per turret).

End result?

BOOM!

Recent Trip - Bridge is Now Open!

I took a trip to the ship a couple of days ago to get my fix of wandering around and looking for things that I haven't seen before. While I was walking around on the superstructure, I passed by the ladder up to the bridge on the port side, and it was roped off as usual. Much to my surprise on the stbd side, I found that the curator has opened the pilot house portion of the navigation bridge! This is where the skipper would command the ship while it was underway.

I spent quite a bit of time there checking out the newly-opened space. Last winter I got to see it on my walk through with the curator and it looked decent then. However, he did a great job in cleaning and restoring the pilot house, including adding back some equipment that didn't survive being mothballed. The view was great, and it afforded a closer look at more of the superstructure. Here are some shots of/from the bridge:

Stbd side entrance to the pilot house.

Sepia shot of the pilot house.

Check out the armor thickness on the conning tower. The pilot house sits right in front of (surrounds the forward part of) the conning tower.

Even though there is still some work to do, the curator got some instruments installed that looked great.

Another shot of the interior. I checked out the seats and they're pretty comfy. Took a few gratuitous self-portraits in them as well.

Directly behind where you stand in the pilot house is the armored conning tower. Within the conning tower is one of the ship's helms. There is at least one more place the ship can be steered (that I know of); secondary conn, located a few levels up the superstructure is where the ship's XO would be stationed while underway, and there is a helm there too (see post about "Behind Locked Hatches").

This is a view through one of the view ports in the armored conning tower looking inside while standing in the pilot house.

A view of the port side entrance to the conning tower. 16" of armor. I hear from a guy who served on the USS Missouri during the late 80's that inside the conning tower was quite pleasant during hot weather. It apparently stayed pretty cool due to the thickness of the steel.

There's the helm I mentioned earlier.

Overall, this space was great. The curator did a great job cleaning up, painting and restoring this space and I really enjoyed finally being able to check it out for as long as I wanted. As a parting shot, check out the view from the pilot house:

40MM Anti-Aircraft Battery

These emplacements were, surprise(!), for taking down enemy aircraft that made it past the 5" guns. There 40mm mounts all over the superstructure of the Massachusetts, just as on all battleships during the war. There were so many in fact, that after the war, the Massachusetts had three of them removed during a refit that no other ship of its class got. If you visit the USS Alabama, these mounts are still in place, along with a slew of 20mm guns all over the ship that the Massachusetts had removed during the post-war refit. The removed 40mm mounts were on top of the #2 turret (it partially blocked the view from the pilot house), and two mounts were forward on the fo'c'sle.

Here you can see the remnants of the 40mm mount (and two 20mm mounts) on top of the #2 16" turret.

A better view looking down on the #2 16" turret from the pilot house. Two holes on the sides were where the 20mm guns were located, between them was the 40mm mount.

The guns are quad-mounted in 15 emplacements scattered around the ship. The ammunition was loaded via 4 round magazines per rifle. That may sound like too few shells per magazine, but the firing rate per rifle was just slow enough for the ammo handlers to keep these things fed during a fight. Initially the crew had to make numerous runs back and forth to the ammo lockers to keep these guns firing, but later there was a modification made to the splinter guards (shields around the gun mounts) to allow small amounts of ammo storage at each mount.

Front view of the splinter guard.

Those slots were used to hold extra magazines locally. Seen inside the splinter guard.

Look closely and you'll see what looks like where additional magazine brackets were once welded to the inside of the splinter shield.

These guns, like the other guns on the ship (excepting the 20mm AA guns) are radar directed. There are electric motors on the base of these mounts to move them when under radar control, but they can also be controlled locally in case the radar direction system goes down.

Here is a shot of a radar director for the 40mm mounts in it's sector.

The mounts on top of the 16" turrets are the ones that amaze me. From what I've been told from a modern day dreadnought sailor who served on the USS Missouri in the late 80's/early 90's, the decks were largely cleared when the big guns blazed. During an air attack, I guess the big guns wouldn't be firing, so the 4omm crews wouldn't be exposed to the concussion of the blast.

Here is a shot of the 40mm mount on top of the #3 16" turret.

Access to Spaces Behind Locked Hatches

Every time I see a locked hatch or roped-off passageway on the ship, I am overcome by the desire to see what's behind it.  Often it's an empty, completely dark space with nothing (or uninteresting stored "stuff") in it.  These compartments are usually not restored, painted, decorated with props, or very comfortable to get in to.  All those things make them that much inviting to me because that means they were left reasonably untouched for a looooong time.  Due to the aforementioned description of these spaces, most people don't want to see them and they are considered a hazard to the public by the organization that runs the BB-59 these days.  However, if you ask nicely, and catch the curator when he's not completely swamped by projects, you can see what's behind these locked hatches.  I did just that last winter and had a GREAT TIME.  I had three hours to go through spaces that still had check tags in them from 1947 when the ship was laid up in mothballs.  I saw so much cool stuff I couldn't possibly post all the pictures I took.  I'll limit this post to pictures that most clearly show the spaces they're taken in.  It was incredibly dark, which made taking any video a no-go.  The only light you see is from the camera flash, as I turned my flashlight away when taking pictures.  What you can't tell from the pictures: space was usually very tight, making area shots very difficult, it was REALLY cold that day, and I was constantly impressed by the feeling of entering a time capsule.  

I met the curator in the wardroom, where I gave him a list of the spaces I hoped to see.  He was very accommodating and we just rattled down the list (to my amazement).  He wasn't in a huge hurry, and I was able to spend as much time as I wanted in these places.  In other words, I was a kid in a toy store.  The first place we went was up, through the main tower of the superstructure.  We went up several levels, checking out spaces along the way.  

The first few levels of the superstructure are nicely restored, which include the admirals quarters.  This is his stateroom main space where he likely conducted business.  A large round table is just out of view to the right.  That brown hatch toward the back is a direct entrance out onto the 01 level near the #2 16" turret.

The Admiral clearly slept a bit better than the enlisted folks.  A funny thing that the curator pointed out was a welded plate over what used to be a porthole offering a great view of a... 5" gun mount.  It's right between the two visible structural ribs on the bulkhead.  I thought the guys assigned to the 5" gun mount were probably glad to have the porthole covered because it kept the Admiral from watching them relaxing during down time.  It's hard to goof off with a flag officer watching over your shoulder!

Most of the 02 level is very well restored.

This is what the ladder well inside the main part of the superstructure above the restored spaces looks like most of the way up.  My back is up against the bulkhead here.  It's gets tighter as you get toward the top.

About midway up the superstructure, we arrived at the XO's at-sea post called secondary conn.  The ship can be steered from here, although it isn't obvious with the helm itself gone.  It normally would have been on that horizontal peg attached the equipment facing the porthole to the right in the picture.

Here's the view out the porthole.  Sorry; I didn't clean the porthole first.  Looks like Sky 1 (5" gun battery radar for the forward sector) would get obstruct the view quite a bit.  That's a mooring quay (what you tie up a large ship to) to the right.  There are two that the ship is tied up to.

Finally, we arrive at the top of the superstructure, and I mean the top.  Spot 1 is the primary visual director for the 16" gun battery.  These guys spotted the splash of the rounds and provided corrections for main battery plot down below.  Spot 1's job was undercut a bit by the catapult-launched King Fisher float planes carried on the stern.  The planes could get up higher than Spot 1 and had a better view of the falling shells.  This is one of the stations in Spot 1:

Here's my silly butt parked in the same seat.  Notice how stinkin' tight it is in there.  Yeah, I know that I forgot to take off my headlight before taking the picture.  Hey, it's stinkin' dark in there too.  Getting up here required climbing up a couple of very small ladders and squeezing through a couple of narrow hatches.

On the aft bulkhead of Spot 1, there is a hatch leading out to the air defense platform.  Getting out into the fresh, frigid air was a shock, but the view was fantastic.  For some perspective, look at the highest point on the ship in this picture.  That structure capping the "tower" with the horizontal tube laying perpendicular to the length of the ship is Spot 1.  The platform just below it is Air Defense.  

I won't lie.  The view is AWESOME.   It would've been better on a sunny day.

After my fingers thawed enough to use them again, we squeezed back through the hatches and slid down the ladders into the O6 level to make our way back below decks.  Our next stop was the hold areas in the forward part of the ship.  Lots random stuff is stored there now, but it used to been more berthing areas.  Below the berthing decks was, and still is, random storage.

I thought I would make this blog the I would want to see it if I hadn't been to any of these places, and I would want to see the "random storage."  Here it is.  Pretty random.

It started getting pretty cool as we went down.  The first interesting thing we ran into was the windlass room.  This is the machinery that hauls up the chains.  The chains are understandably huge.  This ship displaced 35,000 tons, so it needs a lot of ass to keep it in place.  The cool thing is that these still work!  When the BB-59 was towed up to Quincy to be dry docked for some hull work in 1998, the anchors had to come up some how, and this was how.

Down one deck (I think) was the chain locker.  This is where the slack from the chains got dumped.  The picture does the chains absolutely no justice with respect to size.  

From this level, we started the long climb down into the hold.  This was the past and present true compartment for random storage.  It was a long way down...  This shot is looking through the first and second (the third is still closed) of many hatches down to the bottom.  It turned out to be something like 6 decks down!

The funny thing was that the curator found a bunch of things he didn't know were down there!  Obviously, there isn't much reason to hang out in the hold, but it was still funny to see him find random useful items.  The following are just some interesting items we found, or just cool shots.

Hydraulic line check tag.  Notice the date.  People haven't been down here in a long while!

I liked all the waaay old original paperwork.

At the very bottom, it felt like we were standing on the keel.  There was some items of interest, like buckets of the clay that was used to make bricks for the boilers (they're on the lower right behind the bars).  It's the lowest you can go below the waterline.  Yeah, I know, not much to see, but it was cool being there and listening to the water lapping on the sides of the ship.

The view from the bottom, before we headed back up.  Yup, that was a long climb in the dark.

Next we went into the armored conning tower and bridge areas.  The view from there was great too, but this area was clearly all business.  Here's the armored fire control above the bridge.  Those slits through the steel armor are for, ...well, viewing stuff forward of the ship.  This was where folks directed fire if the other fire control stations were smashed.  This one was protected by several inches of armor.

To get to the armored fire control station, you had to enter the armored conning tower.  Fire control was accessed through a small hatch in the overhead of the conning tower.  The hatch to the conning tower was massive.  Look at the "door frame" for an idea of how thick the armor is.

Inside the conning tower, you find the ship's wheel (helm).  

The flag bridge/pilot house area was under restoration, so tools applenty prevented me from getting a quality shot.  A view from the pilot house will have to suffice here.

Here's the flag bridge (Admiral's hang out).

The Admirals combat information center was also under heavy restoration efforts, so I'm omitting pictures of that area.  It was pretty torn up then, but it will be great when it's finished.

The captain's areas were all converted to the office spaces used by the association that manages the owns and manages the ship.  Not much to see there.  

Next we went into radio 3, which looks a whole lot like radio 2.  Omitting picture here.

One of my favorite parts was getting into the powder handling area and magazine for the #1 turret.  It's nearly a copy of the restored powder handling and magazine for the #2 turret, so the comparison was really cool.  Here's a picture of the inside of turret 2's powder handling space.  This picture sucks (plexiglass in the way), I know, but just notice that the space is painted, there are cables and tubes appropriately routed and marked, etc.

Here's the same space in the #1 turret.  This was awesome because it was almost a dead-pan answer to my interest in the closed off spaces.  Not much dramatic here, but it felt like stepping into a time capsule.  Markings that sailors made were still on the bulkheads, and nothing had really been touched.

This was interesting too.  Some random helmets left behind by the Navy.  Typical sailors, leaving gear adrift!

The last two places we went through were one of the engineering spaces (think "engine room") and a shaft alley, which is where one of the screw shaft project aft to where they exit the hull.

The engineering space was not as dark as some of the other spaces, though I can't say why.  There was no place for light to enter.  There also seemed to be more space in here.  Ironically, the business end(s) of the ship are occasionally spacious (magazines, turrets, engine rooms) but the living quarters are pretty cramped.  

One thing I will say is that the engine room certainly makes you watch your butt.  There plenty of things to trip over, and you'd regret it if you did.  That said, it was interesting tooling around down there.

Here's a couple of the boilers.  Obviously some of the engine parts got pilfered for other ships while she was in mothballs, but I still wonder how much work it would take to get this thing seaworthy under its own power.

I though this was really funny.  The inside of the boilers are lined with bricks!  I never would have thought.  The curator told me that sailors would occasionally have to make replacement bricks (remember those buckets in the hold) and go inside the boilers to repair a wall.  Those walls would remain so hot that cool air would have to be pumped in to make it tolerable to work for short periods of time.

For anyone curious about which engine type was used on the South Dakota class battleships.

Lastly, here is shaft alley.  Yes, that is the screw shaft, and yes it goes back a long way.  The hatches get smaller and smaller until I decided I didn't want to squeeze through an extra small one.  I think I was getting toward the back end of the skegg.  I really wanted to see the junction where the shaft makes it through the hull, but no dice folks.  The curator said he hated going down there because he inevitebly opens his head on something.  He bumped it, but didn't cut himself this time, so I wonder if the curse has been broken?

After we finished in shaft alley, it was time to ship out for the day.  The curator was awesome, and he had a lot of interesting things to say about the spaces we visited.  If you get the urge to crawl around in dark, dirty spaces I highly recommend this one.  I'm going to try to do this again before September, so I'll post those pictures when I do.