ahzek reblogged your post and added:

EVERYTHING

…

alright.  gonna show you every picture i took!  (although today i only had time for a very quick overview)

even so, this post will be long!

first off, i wasn’t able to see belowdecks this visit because i got to NOAA a bit late and spent a long time making friends with this cutie, whom some may recognize as a famous australian walking shark!  😀  

(he walks his fins up the side of the tank and begs for nose rubs and i deemed petting him to be an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT USE OF MY TIME.)

anyway, some specs to start you with:

to give an idea of the scale of this vessel.  the classification of “super battleship” is reserved for vessels that displace at least 60,000 tons of water fully loaded.  old whiskey doesn’t quiiiite manage it, but at 57,500 tons, she’s still among the biggest battleships floating.

ratioaeternus has requested engineering and fire control, so next time i’m aboard i’ll be looking for things marked “E.”

a copy of one of her two anchors

an anchor chain, near the bow (with my foot for scale).

the view from that spot.

standing wedged into the very tip of the bow  (i like to get people in the shot for a bit of scale and perspective).

over the side, showing how far from the water the tip of the bow is.

answering the siren call of that big-ass turret!  old whiskey’s primary armament is nine 50-caliber turrets, which can fire 2,700 lb. shells about 20 miles.

whoa, that picture has been on this blog before!  how exciting!  and the website offers panoramic google tours-style views of the barbette and the powder magazine.

the shell deck, with shells!

here’s a useful example of the effects those aforementioned shells have on layered steel armor.  (that one is a test piece comprised of 16 layers)

all three of the primary turret housings had these signs on the side.

the port side of turret I, turret II behind it one deck up, and a view of the conning tower and a couple of secondary turrets.

and the port side of turret II

having gone up the stairs shown in the previous picture

(some lovely corrosion i found!  yeah, i know the kind of stuff you guys want from me)

back down to the main deck, past the stairs.  this is the base of the conning tower, and the widest part of the ship.

that teeny electrical box in the previous picture

this is what that looks like from the side (although of course, this is the starboard side and the previous picture was port).  it’s not nocticeable when you’re on deck, but here you can see that this ship has been painted at least 3 different colors of grey.

oh, and here’s how they handle decking on curved edges

since she was about to be closed for the day, my other pictures are hurried and i didn’t make any special effort to note exactly where on the ship they’re from.  most of them are from the lower levels of the conning tower:

next time i’m here, i’ll arrive early so that i can explore the back half of the ship, as well as belowdecks.  (but that might have to be its own visit)

anyway, enjoy!  and if anyone needs reference photos of a specific thing, i’ll try my best to get at it.  (although some parts of the ship are off-limits to guests.)