Читать книгу Deeper into the Darkness онлайн

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Barbettes are huge armoured cylinders that were integral to the structure of the ship, and ran down from the gun turret on the deck to the internal horizontal armour deck above the magazines and shell rooms. On Audacious, the cylindrical walls of the barbette were fashioned of 10-inch-thick Krupp cemented armour at their maximum, tapering to 5 inches or less where armoured decks gave some protection. The barbettes housed the ammunition hoists that lifted shells and propellant from the magazines below to the transfer room, directly beneath the turret itself. Whereas the barbette was fixed in position inside the structure of the ship, the ammunition hoists inside the barbette turned as the gun turret above turned.

If this was B turret and B turret barbette, there was no obvious sign of A turret and barbette in this area. It is believed that A turret fell downwards as the magazine explosion took place on the surface and that the ship has possibly come to rest upon it.

From B turret forward, the ship itself is largely missing. The massive explosion has split the ship open and the bow section has been blown back on itself. Scattered all around the seabed are dozens of her 13.5-inch shells, fallen from the forward shell rooms.