Day five of our trip was started from the RV Park that we stayed at just to the south of Mobile, Alabama. We traveled up to Mobile and visited the USS Alabama battleship park there. It is a fantastic place to visit and I recommend it if you are in the area. One of the best things about this park is that you are able to tour most of the ship at your leisure, and are able to actually handle at lot of the equipment.
The first stop is the ship itself. We spent several hours visiting the areas that were open to us. Here are some of the views. The first is showing the port side of the battleship with all the "smaller" guns. The second is a view from the bridge of the forward Main guns.
Here are the rear guns from nearly the same position, and then from the starboard deck.
We were able to enter the turrets and view the equipment inside. Below decks we visited the interior workings of the turret which extends down nearly to the bottom of the hull. You can see in the second photo here two of the shells for the main gun (yes they are standing up from the deck level so you can compare them to Debbie's height). The shells are about 6 feet tall, and the weight of a small car. They contain no propellent (that is packed in after the shell is loaded). Amazingly enough, they can be fired to a range of over 30 miles!
Here is one of the engine rooms that propelled the ship. They had enough power in these engines to power a small city (and in this case move it at relatively high speed). Above decks you can see Debbie at the battle bridge steering position.
Here we are trying out some of the anti-aircraft guns.
In addition there are many other displays there. Here are two views of the submarine that is also on display there. Unfortunately we were unable to tour it because it was damaged by a hurricane shortly before.
Here is a display of some of the small ammunition used on the ship (for AA guns, etc). And then getting into the display building, here is a Jeep (circa WWII).
Inside the building they had many aircraft displays. A couple of examples are here. First an old WWII type ship launched (not carrier) float plane, and then a somewhat more modern marine jet.
Here is a closeup shot of an SR71 ramjet engine, then a "standard" jet engine (removed from aircraft).
Here are a few of the aircraft displayed outdoors. They include a B25, a B29, and a B52.
This tank was one that was actually used by the Iraq army in the invasion of Kuwait and was disabled and abandoned by them during Desert Storm.
