Bill,
Picture shows the bearings from a Nancay WR before it went to Douvres(France).
Location: Mecagena in Cherbourg, around 1993-1994.
A WR has a ball-bearing (120mm) in top, a self-aligning barrel-bearing (160mm) just below the ball-bearing and a needle bearing (260mm) at the base. Measures are inside diameters.
It looks like the ball-bearing in top carried all the weight, according to DKF-bearing specs it could carry 21.600 kgs
View attachment 678754
The two top bearings were located in a huge bearing cap.
The main support girder was suspended below this cap (or hood? I don't know a proper english term...).
So in fact all the weight was passed via the cap to the ball-bearing.
View attachment 678759
View attachment 678757
One thing is not clear to me :
Measurements indicate that the underside of the ball-bearing is supported by the inner ring of the barrel-bearing below.
This could be standard-engineering practice, I have no idea.