How low could Iowa-class battleship reload times get if the crew was going all out?
Short answerThe limiting factors are gun machinery, safe operating pressures, and loading angles, not simply crew effort.
NotesMain-gun reload speed is constrained by machinery pressure, loading angle and turret space. Rodney's action against Bismarck shows how depressed guns can force a ship to raise, load, re-lay and fire even when sighting is simple. Loading at multiple angles requires heavy, complex machinery. An automated triple 14-inch turret is estimated to need roughly the same space as the British quadruple 14-inch arrangement. The later Courbet example considers the extra delay when two turrets reportedly had to return to the centreline, although the reference does not securely identify which mounts it means.