Building a 1/100th scale Battleship turret, need help

You have the world at your fingertips, son.

http://www.battleshipnewjersey.org/visit/

Trek on over to Camden and visit the New Jersey. I did that when she was here in SF, before she got shoe-ed off with all the no-nuke stuff. It's amazing- those turrets are put together with interlocking plates that are almost a foot thick and there are welds, and I used to be a welder, where there must have been two guys holding a 1" diameter oxygen lance, in full leather, and two guys with a really big fuel pipe, all watching hell break loose while they melted steel the size of pigs and poked it around without burning it.

My advice is to take your camera, plan to stay the night in a Motel 6, and be really friendly to the guides, who usually are volunteers. Shep Paine put it best, and he was a master: arrive with a couple of real specific questions, which in your case would be your project, thereby letting them know you are serious, and build from there. Don't ask for everything there is to know about a turret on a battleship, rather say that you've mocked one up, but it has to be operated by you are going to model in a diorama. Inside turret photos are rare because they are a current weapon system, but from what I know, there's a vertical trunk with an ammunition hoist concentric to the ring, hydraulics galore to aim each cannon individually, a range finding and communications station, as many as 24 to 30 gun crew, officers.

Wow.  I wouldnt need to stay at a motel 6, Im in philadelphia, im not that far from the BSNJ at all.  Im not trying to get into that much depth though, this is just really a stand piece.  I just dont necesserially want the inside of the turret to look hollow and empty.  Also, the other reason I couldnt really see doing all that research, is its not neceserially the same type of gun as you would find on a modern battleship, its for a scifi build, more a giant laser cannon...

Well then I'll leave with this. Those BB guns were the biggest that ever saw combat, at long range. Yes there have been larger bores, but a 16" inch cannon dropping shells on something 25 miles away is to be admired.

Your gunners may be in an oxygen free environment, in aluminum suits, but It would do you well to just go down and see that it takes 20-30 people to rifle off a big destructive shell. And the thousand or so machinists, accountants, pay clerks and for each naval rifle to be operational.

You raise a good point about how to seal the gun. Older units had removable covers, followed by plates that protected the gunners from splinters. Remember, when modeling a turret, it's not a thing. It's a combination of self directed fire, protection, a big team of gunners, and a positin from which to deal out big damage.

Newer ships have a weather seal, and fairly routine internal protection from rain, etc. Your guys are in an atmosphere they can survive in? Or it's a cold space environment? I'd guess the latter, like the deck gunners on a sub in WW2.

 

If there is a X, right click it and got to "open link". Is this what you need?

Eep... im now regretting attaching the bottom to this thing... So im removing it, ill try and figgure something out to build for internals.  That pic is amazing, and thanks for the info, didnt know there was that large of a crew per gun. 

 

Though its a crappy picture the main gun on the front and sides are what im modeling this cannon after.

 

Ok, bottom is removed and I'v done some work with it, since I dont really have any lineart of the inside of one of those guns, I'm gona use my imagination and starwars.  I'm going to try and build a few areas inside the turret with computer banks and such, add a massive slue of cables and whatnot coming to and from the computers and the gun's mounting

bondoman, the japanese 18.1" naval guns were the biggest to see combat.

 smeagol the vile ----- Hey , guy You need a field generation buffer ring set and your compensators and don,t forget the accumulaters . If you are using solid projectiles use depleted uranium and that way your recoil can be handled similar to the 155 mm. long tom cannon . If you,re using lasers then you will need the accumulator banks , oh , don,t forget the focusing array . You can send all down a tube but a solid carbon ,boron rod acting as a focusing guide will work . You will have to remember to cool that puppy down too . so use hollow coils of liquid hydrogen . All this can be built inside the turret with junk p.v.c. pipe ,to go container tops ,scrap wire and a lot of imagination . Good luck and let us see some pics of this thing in development , okay??    tankerbuilder P.S. You may still need a crew of at least four !!!

well im working on it right now.  My dad had given me his old thing of train supplies, so I have alot of wires and such, ill show pics in a bit but right now its all masked down for when I AB the sucker (not that its anywhere near that point just wana do it while I can get to it.

So, what I have so far without pics of it.  I have down two strips of ribbon wire (5wires, not as many in that pic) running to and from the main gun and what im building to be the computer console (in the progress of scribbing that atm)

I have three things of copper wire coming from the cannon and going into the Base of the turret, for cooling purposes.

As far as what the cannon is, its a mega particle cannon used on the larger class battleships of the crossbone vanguard (See Gundam F91)   Its never really shown how the weapons systems work, but giving an educated (and it would be educated, spent way to much time watching these series) there is only one gunner, and a few techies needed, but the guns themselves can be fired by one person only (see Gundam Igloo "The serpent of loom" it shows a anti battleship cannon prototype about the size of a battleship that could take one out in one shot, fired at the end by a single person)  The aiming is done by from the bridge.

 

As far as the crew there is going to be a few problems.  First all the figures I have are either standing with their arms to their sides, or sitting with their arms folded like your knees fold against their legs.  I'd either have to modifiy the standing ones, or scratch build a bunch of chairs, and I'd still need to mod the figures, so that will take some time, there not the best figs.

There is also the problem of the gunner, I dunno if I should make him ambigious or have hm in a chair with his own comptter and screen, and if so, how do I make a chair...

Actually, the largest gun ever to see combat was the German's "Schwerer Dora"

which was an 800mm railway gun.  BTW...a 16 inch gun is 406mm.

All the best,

Ray

Yeah, I'm not sure what I was trying to say. "Among the biggest Battleship guns that ever saw combat" is probably closer, and anyhow it was all in the context of why it's worth driving over to see the New Jersey. Cheers.

Bondoman

Is the USS Iowa still tied up at Benecia?  Just curious because it's been over 5 years

since I was out that way.

All the Best

Ray

Sure, here's some fun:

Go to Google Maps, search for Lake Herman Road Benicia, and switch to Satellite. Third group of ships north of the bridge, righhand end of the row.

Enjoy!

Go to this address for the Wisconsin on google map:   1 waterside drive norfolk va 23510 

(copy and paste the address on the search)

Google map "Clinton street, Camden, New Jersey" for the New Jersey.

And everybody should know where the Missouri is berthed.

Smeagol I don't want to 'jack your thread, but this is fun.

100 sanders street deer park

 

Its quite alright, and I probably see the new jersey atleast once a month, I can see it from the highway when I head downtown, and not from a distance either

Good deal. The last word on big gun design was a fellow named Gerald Bull who designed various cannons that could launch Satellites, destroy Tel Aviv from Baghdad or otherwise perfect (?) ballistics.

Worth looking into if only for the mindset of a supergun designer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP

Yup, Bull was an interesting character with some unusual ideas... And came to grief in very suspicious circumstances too! At RAF Duxford museum in the UK they have a section of the barrel for the famous Iraqi 'super gun;'  Very impressive!

Ok, I'v made alot of progress IMHO on the cannon.  Using some lineart as a guide 

While thats not the type of cannon Im using (thats a smaller variant) I took some of the designs for the targeting and such aspect that are coming off of the gun.  

 

I'M still trying to come up with more ideas for what to go inside the turret