![]() Each turret was also installed with an optical range finder, ballistic analog computer, and a switchboard. The turret interiors were subdivided and designed to permit the independent loading, elevation and firing of each gun. The ships could fire any combination of their guns, including a broadside of all nine. The turrets were "three-gun," not "triple," because each barrel could be elevated independently. The turrets themselves cost US$1.4 million each, to which the cost of the guns had to be added. Each turret required a crew of 79 men to operate. At maximum range the projectile spent almost 1½ minutes in flight. ![]() When firing armor piercing shells, their muzzle velocity was 2,500 feet per second (762 meters per second) with a range of up to 24 mi (39 km). They fired projectiles weighing from 1,900 to 2,700 lb (860 to 1,220 kg) at different muzzle velocities, depending on the shell. These guns were 50 calibers long-or 50 times their 16-inch (406 mm) bore diameter, which makes the barrels 66.7 ft (20.3 m) long, from chamber to muzzle. The new lightweight 16-in/50 Mark 7 was designed to resolve this conflict. However, the Bureau of Construction and Repair assumed that the ships would carry a compact 16-in/50 turret and designed the ships with barbettes too small to accommodate the 16-in/50 Mark 2 three-gun turret that the Bureau of Ordnance was actually working on. A cutaway of a turret mounting 16-inch gunsĭue to a lack of communication during design, the Bureau of Ordnance assumed the Iowa class would use the 16-inch (406 mm)/50 Mark 2 guns constructed for the 1920 South Dakota-class battleships.
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