Hi Hank,
Thanks for your thoughtful consideration!
The Pennsy plan in your post appears to be of the inside of the vegetable locker, rather than the roof. Pennsy plans I have show a 5" practice loader on the v.l. roof, oriented fore-aft, with other detail differences compared to Arizona's v.l. roof. Photos of Pennsy don't show the area well enough to tell whether or not the v.l. roof was planked under the practice loader. (AZ's practice loader was located differently, oriented laterally on the boat deck, port side, just aft of the port side boat stack.)
Pennsy's 1942 Mare Island photos show that a large bulkwark, no doubt serving as a splinter shield, was added to the periphery of Pennsy's v.l. roof. The deck under the practice loader isn't visible, unfortunately, obscured behind a Chicago piano tub and the v.l. locker roof bulwark. Here's a close-up:
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AZ's 1931 general arrangement drawings indicate that the v.l. roof was intended to be planked with 2.5 inch fir (planks 2.5 inches wide or 2.5 inches thick? - the Pennsy photo at the bottom of this post tends to indicate just 2.5 inches wide, very narrow indeed).
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The problem is that the post-reconstruction photos just don't look like the v.l roof was planked at all, and that the entire periphery of the v.l. roof is enclosed by 3-bar railing over a raised coaming, including a coaming at the front edge of the v.l roof/aft edge of the casemate. The v.l roof appears to be separated from the boat deck by railing over coaming. This is distinctly different than the general arrangement plans. See:
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BB-39 Arizona 1931-03-02 Large 04 cropped.jpg [ 298.56 KiB | Viewed 22157 times ]
G.A. drawings differing from actual construction is not unusual; general arrangement drawings are typically different than what was actually built by the yard. Thus the need for photos. What I don't have is good photos of the v.l. roof about 1941. What did it look like then? Was the v.l. roof planked or painted or both in 1941 or was it just painted steel? Was the 3-bar railing over coaming that appears in 1931 photos still there in 1941? Lots of questions.
David is correct that seeing actual planks in photos is very difficult. All we may have is color to go by. He's an example of Pennsy's planked boat deck as it appeared at Mare Island in 1942. Note that individual planks are very narrow, maybe just 2.5 inches wide judging by the length of the sailor's foot and what is stated on G.A. drawings. On a scale model in most popular scales, planks this narrow would likely be invisible. Construction drawings indicate that the planks were of "fir", not teak, perhaps a Great Depression-era cost-saving measure?
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