Hi gents,
I have often been asked if the acute fore-gun angles in the painting I had commissioned many years ago of HMS Exeter's last battle
https://www.jamesaflood.com/hms-exeters-final-battle/ were actually accurate as to how we found them on the wreck. Well, while sorting through some video of her wreck (to aid in making an accurate 3D image of the wreck) I came across a portion that showed the forward turrets exact bearing. I pulled an image from said video of A turrets' bearing and have juxtaposed it with a plan of Exeter showing her maximum gun arcs. As you can see from the wreck image, the barrel (2 in the below image) of A turret almost touches the deck house (1 in below image) as it does in the painting. This actually tell us something interesting about the actions last moments (see below).
As for B turret, because the superstructure had collapsed down (to starboard) over the years underwater and was hence closer to B turrets barrel, the barrel was almsot touching the bridges' angled side just like A turret does with the deck house. But it was an 'optical illusion' of sorts because the superstructure had collapsed closer to the barrel over the years u/w, hence it gave the
impression that B turrets barrels were basically at the same angle as A turret, when in actuality B turrets barrels would not be quite so acute as the painting shows. That is, the painting shows B Turret pointing to about 4.45 o'clock (if the bow was 12 o'clock), whereas in actuality it would be at about 4.30 o'clock. Splitting hairs I suppose.
Anyway, I know to most folks it is meangiless as to what angle the guns pointed when she sunk, but .................in actuality it tells us a lot about her last moments and whom of the four Jap cruisers (two off each beam) she considered the bigger threat - and more or less where they were - at the time (as all her main armament point off to starboard aft as it were).
So, just saying is all.