After settling in to our RV park in Milton, Florida called Avalon Landing, we went back to Mobile the next day to visit the USS Alabama battleship military park.
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| Obviously, we did not take this photo from the air. This shows the immense size of the ship next to those tiny cars in the parking lot and the submarine in the upper right. HUGE ! |
We saw the USS Kidd destroyer in Baton Rogue and were impressed but this one...WOW ! Monstrous. As a comparison, look at this photo....
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| Battleship in the middle and destroyer on the bottom. |
It took us about 2-3 hours to tour the ship. They had three self-guided tours with Blue, Yellow and Green arrows showing the way...all the way from the very bottom decks up to the very top.
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| View from one of the upper decks. |
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| That tiny cowboy in the picture is me....shows how large these guns are. |
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| This is the ammo that the guns shot. |
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| The description of the armor. |
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| You can see the projectile with the yellow tip in the left foreground. |
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| This is what it looks like when all three guns shoot. I would not want to be on the receiving end ! |
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| Captain's formal dining area where special guests would be entertained. |
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| One of the many kitchens on board. The ship had a compliment of around 3,000 people to feed. |
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| Ymmmmmm. |
They had a scale model in one of the lower decks....take a look at the detail !
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| The ship had observation planes that were catapulted off then retrieved with the hook. |
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| The ship had many many more guns and anti-aircraft guns and they all did damage but the big ones where the most impressive. |
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| View from the very front....looking over the edge was a LONG way down. |
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| This is inside the large guns where the projectile went before shooting. |
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| This is inside the main guns turret looking sideways. There were three gun chambers. |
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| There are three of these guns on the ship. Each turret goes down to the very bottom deck. It took 140 guys to man each of the three 16" guns. |
Here is an animated GIF file that shows how the projectile is loaded below decks, then the powder (explosive) is added, then it's loaded into the gun on the top deck, then WHAM !
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Animated_gun_turret.gif
and this cross section....
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| The weight of the guns dictates that it bets anchored waaaaay down below. |
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| Bob Feller was a sailor on this ship. |
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| They had this set up where he bunked. |
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| USS Alabama...nice visit. |
The park also had many airplanes, tanks and two submarines on display but it was all too much to take in in one trip.
Aircraft listing:
http://www.ussalabama.com/aircraft.php
USS Drum:
http://www.ussalabama.com/uss_drum.php
Military equipment:
http://www.ussalabama.com/military.php
We just cruised through the sub (USS Drum) and airplanes before heading home.
If you're ever in Mobile, Alabama, go see the USS Alabama....you'll love it.
