Thank you for the comments all. To answer the questions, this ship is meant to be a light cruiser as it is designed to operate independently (or with others of it's kind) rather than as an escort or with tenders. There are strips or reinforcing material anchoring the turret to the frame of the hull but no signifcant structures below. The guns are fairly self contained aside from power couplings and control cables leading to the rest of the ship. Though the external structure is similar in appearance to current day ship's guns, the internal technology is very different (the physical component of ammo being low volume and recoil countered with inertial dampeners for example).