Quote:
Originally Posted by fralston
What 16" gun exploded?
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Again, there was a problem with the center gun of Turret II (ala Mississippi, Newport News, etc.). The gun didn't actually explode and structurally it is perfectly intact. The five bags of propellent ignited while the breach was still open and the defagration sent a fireball down through the turret, igniting other powder bags and killing 47 crewmen.
The worst structural damage was in the center powder hoist. The hoist car is still jammed up near the top and the hoist trunk in the lower powder handling room is bulged out quite a bit. Repairs were started on it and you can still see the layout marking on the hoist trunk for removal and replacement.
As for having all replacement parts on board as was rumored, they are not. All we found was a 4-foot high pile of boxes in the powder magazine of nuts, bolts, washers, etc. marked for turret repair. But no range finder, fan motors, etc. Our NAVSEA "guard" (wanted to make sure we didn't damage anything) even took a fire axe to some wooden crates to see what was inside of them.
The above is based upon inspections made by myself and my special team of Battleship experts up in Benicia, California during mid-August and the first week of October.