Since the M1A1 Abrams main gun is manually reloaded, I would like to know please a little more specifically how this is done?

For instance, if the ammo is kept in a turret bustle with an armored bulkhead between, how are the shells accessed? Is a door opened, or does some kind of feeder mechanism send through the kind of round desired somehow?

How does the loader get one kind of round instead of another? Can he see them and visually select the one he wants? Or does he press a selector button, which feeds out the right kind?

For the gun breech, is there a handle that you swing down and then swing the breech open? If so, which side is the handle, and do you swing it down or up to open it? Whichever side the handle is on, I suppose the breech opens away from that.

How tall, how heavy, and how big around is a shell?

Thank you for all your answers so far. I am reading them diligently and everything is slowly making more sense to me now.

lol maybe you'd like the blueprints to the M1A1 Abrams? This seems to be almost the detail we're getting into.

Sorry, I didn't realize I was beginning to sound that picky about details. I would be happy with any amount of info.

As it happens, I got a nice answer here;
http://63.99.108.76/ubb/Forum13/HTML/002716.html

Thanks again. God bless.