USS TEXAS (BB-35) Part III

Turret II port gun loader tray with 14" round (1,400 pounds)

Turret II Starboard gun with powder bag in the breech

Turret II Battery Train Indicators

Turret I & II from the foc'sle

Continuing our photo tour, I was able to access Turret II via a scuttle at the after end of the turret. It is necessary to duck under the mount, and then climb a short ladder into the turret proper. I'm not certain if it was the lighting (dim) or the atmosphere (humid), but I found it claustrophobic. This may have been the awareness of the armor surrounding me - 14 inches forward, 5 3/4 inches above, 9 inches to either side, and 8 inches behind. It was like being in the middle of some huge steel ingot. The mount weighs 532 tons, and can train at 2 degrees per second, or about 45 seconds to go from dead ahead to amidships.

Each gun (2 per battery) weighs 71 tons. Using a 1,400 lb shell (1,500 lb for armor piercing) at 2,735 feet per second muzzle velocity, the 14"/45 aboard TEXAS have a maximum range of 23,000 yards at 15 degrees elevation. That's 11 1/2 miles for the non-Operation Specialists.

In the port tube loading tray, a 1,275 pound shell is displayed. The green color indicates that this round is likely a HC Mark 19; a high capacity (HC) high explosive round, containing 104.21 lbs of Explosive "D" (Dunnite, or ammonium picrate).

Propellent is represented by the bag in the starboard breech. Four 105 lb powder bags are used per shot.

Notice the really cool weapon train indicators in the third photo. The top segment representation of Turret I indicates that the mount is trained 355 degrees relative. Note that the bearings are "backwards" with the numbers decreasing in a clockwise direction, in the same fashion seen on a pelorus allowing a more intuitive reading.

The guns look much larger from outside!