Some pictures of the New Jersey from off the tour. Actually this first picture is on the tour. This is one of the three projectile hoists in the lower flat of turret two. Note the cylinder that is used to jack the projectiles up through the hoist and the pipe with fluid to drive the cylinder.
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Moving to the upper projectile flat, this is the view into the hoist. Note the pawl at the left attached to the hoist tube. Further down to the right is a pawl attached to the moveable pawl carrier. The piston drives the pawl carrier upwards. That pushes the projectile past the next fixed pawl, which retracts as the projectile goes by then springs back once the projectile goes past so the projectile cannot go back down. The operator lowers the cylinder and the pawl carrier. It's pawls retract as they go downward past projectiles then spring outward once below them.
The operator repeats that cycle five times to get a projectile from the lower flat into the cradle in the gun chamber.
There can be five projectiles in the hoist and and one in the cradle. The system disengages when there is a projectile in the cradle. The official projectile storage count of 1,264 includes five projectiles in each hoist.
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When the turrets were redesigned after the original design would not fit on the ship, books say it produced a cramped layout. You would not believe how cramped. I wish I had taken more picture crawling through but this the level just below where the gun crew stands. You have to crawl on your knees. The ladder in the background leads to the center gun chamber.
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This shows where the picture was taken. The plan shows a ladder immediately in front but it was not there.
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This is the powder handling level taken from the lower storage level. The lower storage level forms a balcony so the two-story room feels like the most spacious on the ship (there are also crew quarters on the 3d deck forward where the rising bow also creates very high overheads).
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This is where the class A belt armor meets the lower class B tier. The plate that is scalloped at the bottom is the backing bulkhead that supports the class A armor. That is attached to the bulkhead with bolts (the two round covers are examples). There is about an inch between the backing bulkhead and the class A armor. The gap is filled with concrete.
The backing bulkhead overlaps the class B armor and is welded to it along the scalloped edge. This gives a larger welding surface.
Below this weld joint, the class B belt armor forms Torpedo Bulkhead 3. Above the joint. the backing bulkhead forms the rest of the Torpedo Bulkhead.
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