Sights in the New Jersey's BIG turret

I took the tour of the U.S.S. New Jersey a few weeks ago and was curious about the sighting mechanism in the one of the 16" turrets. I looked through a sight of some sort and saw crosshairs. I'm wondering why they need crosshairs on a gun which fires at targets miles away. Anyone know?

 

By "sight" are you referring to the big range finder in the back of the turret? It should be the big tube that sticks out on either side of the turret.

 

Sights? They let you look through sights? I was there back in June (pictures are somewhere) and I didn't get to look through no sights. Now I'm jealous.

 

As I recall I entered the turret climbed up a set of ladder stairs and then stepped to the side 2-3 feet. Hanging down from the turret ceiling was a steel box like device with eyepieces and knobs. It turned so I could bring the crosshairs to bare on Philadelphia or the Ben Franklin Bridge. These targets are so close of course that I wonder what the real use of this sight was since a BB never fires at a range like this (less than a mile.) It's magnification was not very great, as I recall.


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The white instrument. There are two in this picture, a sailor is using one in the background.

 

They probably could tell you were from Pa. I was born in NJ and act the part. LOL.