Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Turret loading picture set

Turret loading picture set

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 1 Mar 2012 at 11:07:40 (UTC)

Original – Photo 1: USS Iowa's Turret Two center gun is loaded to fire. First, a 1,900-pound (860 kg) shell is moved from the shell hoist cradle into the spanning tray to be rammed into the gun breech.

Photo 2:Next, the powder bags are rolled from the two-tiered powder hoist (top) into the spanning tray.

Photo 3:Finally, the rammerman, at left, operates a lever which uses hydraulics to ram the powder bags into the gun's breech. The spanning tray is then folded out of the way and the breech block is closed and locked. The rammerman must carefully operate the ram lever as an overram could jam the powder bags and/or projectile too far into the gun, causing a dangerous situation. On 19 April 1989 this same gun exploded and killed 47 crewmembers in the turret.

Reason: I'm nominating these three images as a set. They appear in the article USS Iowa turret explosion to illustrate how the ship's turret guns are loaded normally. An explosion occurred in the Number Two 16-inch gun turret on April 19, 1989. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. Two major investigations were undertaken, one by the Navy and then one by the then-General Accounting Office and Sandia National Laboratories.
Articles in which this image appears: USS Iowa turret explosion. Also, I have added the first image to Gun turret.
FP category for this image: Engineering and technology/Weaponry
Creator: PHAN William Holck, USN

Support as nominator --Pine^talk 11:07, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~I would appreciate it if someone could make these images appear side by side instead of showing up vertically here in FPC. Thanks! Pine^talk 11:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)~~[reply]
  - Thank you to J Milburn for help with formatting. Pine^talk 11:19, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I don't like the camera angle. Pics 2-3 look like the guys are standing on the wall (not that it is that BIG of a deal, it just gives me a headache, and reduces the enjoyability of looking at the pictures), and there is a guys hand in the right side of each picture (causes distraction from the main subject), and there is some noise/graininess throughout all of the pictures (not that big of a deal, the pictures are 26 years old, and with film, comes some grain.) The pictures have excellent EV, but I don't believe it can outweigh these minor issues. Dusty777 (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Nice set, but the first picture should be rotated 90 degrees clockwise. All photos could use some chroma noise filtering. O.J. (talk) 16:06, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is indeed a lot of grain. I have a sneaking suspicion this is a scan of a print, not a negative, and not necessarily a great print either. Is there something unusually rare about these to offset that quality problem? Wouldn't this have been done in pretty much the same way many times on any ship with guns of this size and type? Chick Bowen 23:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- These photos were taken in the same turret that exploded in an incident that killed 47 crewmen. See USS Iowa turret explosion. Pine^talk 05:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yeah, I got that. I meant, is there anything distinctive about this set up or the process they're following? I mean, if the purpose is to show the right way to do this in contrast to the wrong way that led to the disaster, then it seems like a series that showed what was going on in a clearer way would be more valuable, even if it was taken in a different (but similar) turret. Chick Bowen 19:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Makeemlighter (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]