Good morning Jan,
The appearance of the pre-war Arizona topsides in photos is without exemption squeaky clean, the underwater ship is a different story so I'll probably try the effect I used on the Fletcher again.
In most photos the barrels are plugged with a tampion, generally with some sort of emblem on it. Plugging the barrels sort of ruins the idea of buying brass barrels with nice detailed muzzles though.........................
cheers,
Julian
From Wikipedia:
A tampion is a wooden plug, or a metal, canvas, rubber or plastic cover, for the muzzle of a gun. They can be found on both land based artillery and naval guns. However, the naval tampions have developed into works of art.
Although the cannons of ships of the line were protected as they were retracted inside the ships, many smaller vessels had exposed gundecks which required a plug to protect inside of the barrels. Later, the invention of mobile gun turrets meant that all guns were constantly exposed to water. Hence, when not in use, naval guns were protected by wooden, and later rubber muzzle plugs. Typically, rubber and plastic tampions can be shot through in case of an emergency. Plastic tampions are normally designed to be expelled by the build-up of pressure in the barrel as the first shell is fired.
Over time, tampions were embossed or engraved with the arms of the unit, and they became collector's items. Nowadays, even warships that typically would not carry heavy guns, such as submarines, have their own badges in the shape of a tampion.
