Gilbert wrote:
- If there are rear access hatches to the 12/7cm round turrets, they don't appear on AOTS Yamato drawings. Skulski's wrong ?
- This is what I found in "Naval weapons of WW2" by John Campbell, page 193 "There were one or two hoists per mounting, and it was noted in the aircraft carrier Katsuragi that supply was by one electric dredger hoist that came about 32m (35yd) and at least two bulkheads from the mounting..." . Therefore, I believe that for this gun, hoists were quite distant from the mount, i.e. ammunition supply was manually performed from the hoist to the gun loader. Maybe, but it's just an assumption, the system was a bit different for the blast proof 5" shielded guns. In this particular case, a dredger hoist could be placed in the structure beneath the mounts, much closer to them, making faster the whole ammunition supply process.
Katsuragi was constructed as part of a war emergency program, so it is not clear whether all her internal arrangements and fittings followed normal IJN practice, or whether her design, layout and fitting might have been simplified and certain normal items omitted to enable her to meet accelerated schedule of the program.
Regarding Skuski's drawings, several other more recent illustrations of Yamato's blast proof 5" shield also fail to show any access hatch suitable for men to either go through or hand round in through on the side or in the back of the shield. So I think these mounts can only be access or supplied from below. The problem with a dredger hoist coming to the point directly below the mount is how can the round then be handed up into the mount so that the aperture for this is never blocked by parts of angle at any degree of train, and the aperture in the floor does not inconvenience the loaders in the heat of action.
One thing about Yamato's blast proof shields is those shields were removed from the original guns and shifted to cover newer guns installed later. After the shields have been removed, the inside of the gun tub was exposed, and a standard Japanese 5" mount was revealed. But there is still no evidence of any new door on hatch in the back wall of the alcove where these mounts are located that could serve as a passage for men handing ammunition to the standard open mount. So if the original shielded mount received its ammunition from some hoist coming up from below, the new open mount must still receive ammunition the same way.
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