Senkan wrote:
Ammo boxes against the bulkheads.
Well...let's not forget that in the original build (1941) on those platforms shielded triple 25mm mounts were installed. The space for extra ammo boxes inside those turrets would have been rather limited if at all.
As bucketfoot-al said, in the end it's a matter of common sense. An architect would design a house. On the third floor he would put a balcony. How he would expect people to get there? A. Via a door from the inside the house that opens up to that balcony. B. Climbing a ladder from the floor up, while caring a backpack filled with few tens of kilos (counting for ammo). C. Crawling the monkey bars around the "ears" of the aft range finder tower...of course, while caring a backpack filled with few tens of kilos. Unless the architect is a guy that really hates people, most likely he would go with option A.
As these platforms were part of the original design, I am pretty sure that the interior access would be the only way to get to them. Had they been a post-1943 add-on, then of course all bets were off as the Japanese desperately tried to make up for their lack of CAP support for the fleet following the defeat at Midway by adding dozens of new AA mounts all over the ship ... pathetic though those .25mm guns were ... the US beat the Japanese Empire while expending something like only 15% of the combined US war effort on the Pacific Theater from 1942-1944 ... they could have had their Empire had they not attacked the US ... I am sure that their neighbors are grateful that they did ...