Through the yellow sections below, a system that extends from the top of the gun
turret down to the 1st Platform and the surrounding magazines. Each turret
weighs 532 tons (of which 128 tons was armor and 62 tons for each gun) and 70
people were needed to operate the system. The interior of the structure has
numerous levels and compartments with simultaneous activity.
The maximum range for guns on TEXAS and NEW YORK was about 22,000 yards. The gun
could fire further but was limited by the maximum elevation of 15 degree. OKLAHOMA and NEVADA had the same gun with 30 degrees of
elevation which enabled a range of 35,000 yards. In 1940, the Navy had drawings
made to modify the TEXAS turrets to 30 degrees of elevation but never
implemented. In the ship's collection on microfilm is an almost illegible
drawings showing the modification dated 1940.
Operating a TEXAS turret in 1945 was done almost exactly as in 1914 for the
mechanical devices are still the same. The one exception was the electric hoist
for the powder bags, which were not present in 1914. In the summer of 1916,
there was one other major improvement with the addition of a range keeper that
could calculate the needed elevation-train and transmit the solution to the
turret trainer and gun elevators.
Firing a TEXAS gun was much more labor intensive than the World War II era
battleships. From the time the powder bags exited the powder hoist, five more
manual handlings were still needed of which the last step was a wooden pole to
ram the bags into the breech.
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