Battleship being towed for scrapping - photo

[astroscuba]

I lean more with Ductape on his thoughts Marv. I count at least 9 housings for 5 inch guns. Looks like about 17 barrels for 16 inch rounds on the port side. 12 would be used for 4 turrets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montan...ntana_bb67.jpg

[mklotz]

I lean more with Ductape on his thoughts Marv. I count at least 9 housings for 5 inch guns. Looks like about 17 barrels for 16 inch rounds on the port side. 12 would be used for 4 turrets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montan...ntana_bb67.jpg

The armament list here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Kentucky_(BB-6)

shows BB-6 had 14 five inch guns although it doesn't indicate how mounted (e.g. dual turret or stand alone).

The hull in the photo has only one aft barbette which rules out the planned Montana that would have had two aft barbettes for its two aft turrets.

I'm fairly sure that construction of Montana or Kentucky never progressed far enough to mount the turrets or fit the guns.

Also missing in the photo are any aft fittings for the two aircraft catapults and the aircraft recovery crane that were a feature of both the Iowa and Montana class battleships.

One other possibility is that the stuff on the deck did not all come from the ship that was associated with the hull. The hull could be being used as a barge to transport other scrap to the breakers.