The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-09 00:00:00

1863,

28,731
53663. to'

67,609
588 Od to
—8 Od

832 1:327
i r,700 76,015
i 611 lu4
93.151 116,530
51s 3d 576 3d

1862.

1864.

35,042 40,6 2 50,050
Rs.% to-43861 to 4183 d to
Od —s Od —s Od
1,219 699 1,012
115,171 75,036 71,558
20 279 645
93,407 78,272 83,761
455 6d 448 3d 41s 6d

The Armstrong and Whitworth Trial,

e competition for supremacy between these field-guns
has now lasted a month, each week of which has given
varying results with regard to excellency, though none of
them of such a conclusive kind as would warrant even the
most experienced in pronouncing an opinion as to the ulti-
mate success of either. • We say "either," for though three
guns are in the field—the Armstrong shunt-gun, the
Armstrong breech-loader, and the Whitworth—yet the
varying equality of the competition we have spoken of must
be understood to refer only to the performances of the
shunt-gun and the 'Whitworth, The breech-loader is a
good gun, and most especially is it good in its shell practice,
a missile which it was only made to fire, But, beyond its
shell practice, it is deficient in a thousand minor points, not
much, perhaps, when stated singly, but formidable in the
aggregate to either Sir William's shunt-gun or the hexagon
of Mr. Whitworth. Out of this country, where the science
of artillery practice is carried to a pitch of perfection which
is apparently, to judge from the make of their ordnance,
not even attempted by other nations, the breech-loader would
no doubt be thought a perfect weapon. But, side by side
with such severe standards of excellence as Sir William's
shunt gun and Mr. Whitworth's hexagon, what were before
thought to be minor imperfections are now, with stern jus-
tice, measured as radical defects, and it is not too much to
say that the breech-loader is looked upon by all virtually out
of the contest. It now turns only on the comparative merits
of the shunt and the Whitworth. Thus, then, whatever
may be the result of the trials as regards the supremacy of
the Armstrong shunt-gun or the Whitworth, the competi-
tion has not been made in vain. Already the country has
gained an immense advantage by the incontestable proof
thus afforded that the gun with which our batteries in the
field are now armed is not the best that can be got. Such
an all-important truth is well worth a little cost and trouble
to elicit, and we know now beyond all doubt that, whatever
may be the result of Mr. Whitworth's claims, Sir 'William
Armstrong himself has in the shunt gun invented a very
much fitter piece of ordnance than that on which our troops
are now depending in the use of the breech-loader. The
literal market value of such a result can scarcely be over-
estimated. It now, therefore, only remains to be proved
which of the two conquerors of the breech-loader, the, Arm-
strong shunt-gun or the Whitworth, is the better piece, and
whenever this result is definitively ascertained the country
may rest content in the assurance that they possess an artil-
lery which, until it is copied, will be without an equal in the
world. In the present state of this competition we cannot
venture on even a surmise as to which of the two will
prove the victor; but we can say confidently that the time
is fast approaching when the most momentous question at
issue between the two ordnance—that of endurance--will be
decided one way or the other. Nino hundred and ninety-two
rounds have already been fired from each gun, and each now
gives the signs of wear which may or may not be developed
into alarming weakness at any moment ;'More than this,in the
absence of strictly reliable information, and with the intense
party feeling which prevails among the supporters of each
gun at Shoebury, it would be unwise to say. 'We most add,
however, that both Sir William and Mr. Whitworth disre-
gard these defects as comparatively trivial, and that, on the
other hand, the committee did not quite agree in this opin-
ion, or, at all events, as a prudent measure, have determined
after the thousandth round, which will be fired today, to
treat them as unproved guns and fire them with a long lan-
yard while the gunners are under shelter, The mere fact of
such precautions being taken is an evidence of the begin-
ning of the end—an end which would terminate the whole
controversy if it took place with the big guns, but which we
must be careful not to regard as final with these small ones.
The principle of strength, rifling, and construction which
answers for a large gua will, as a mathematical certainty,
answer for a small one, but as an almost invariable rule
what does for a small gun will not do for a large one. The
great question, therefore, of destructiveness, length of range,
accuracy, and endurance will be tested quite irrespective of
the results of these field-pieces. It will be the trials of the
large guns which will form the court of final appeal,
As far as they have yet been gone through, the trials
embrace almost every kind of performance which could be
exacted from a gun in active service, with very many which
the utmost exigencies of a rough campaign would rarely
call forth. For range at various degrees of elevation the
tests have proceeded up to ten degrees, at which Mr.
Whitworth's gun threw its shot on an average 350 yards
further than the shunt. This may seem a trifling differ-
ence at 4,000 yards, or nearly two and a half miles—a range
qatuiwtehichnhpaonssiebni. It
geagenaenitliuwsitthnostu,chholwigehvetrr bo forgottenns would be
that if at two miles and a half there is an advantage
to Mr, Whitworth of 350 yards, at 20 degrees elevation, or
four miles' range, his superiority would amount to nearly
half a mile of increased range, and increased range as re-
gards the shot is greater penetration and more direct flight,
which is, in other words, a lower trajectory or flatter curve
as it drops from the muzzle of the gun to the earth. As a
set-off against this we must bear in mind that Sir -William's
shunt gun has been found to be sighted too low and Mr.
Whitworth's too high; and, though the difference is far too
minute to affect the results at 4,000 yards, it might make a
material change in the
question of flat trajectory at 400.
In fact, from the tests made of initial velocity, or the speed
at which the shots leave the gun's muzzle, it has been proved
that the actual velocity
is higher with Sir 'William's shunt
gun than with Mr. Whitworth's. At 800 yards, however,
Mr. Whitworth's shot is close upon Sir William's, and at
1,000 or 1,100 yards is, no doubt, equal with it in rapidity.
We only mention this fact of initial velocity to show that
flatter trajectoryfiht
on the question of flat trajectories Sir William's shunt gun
has
a lowflat lines of flight Whit-
worth's. But fiat trajectories, or, to speak in plain Eng-
lish, of shot to 1,100 yards than Mr. Whit-
shot from the gun's muzzle, are
only valuable at low angles of the gun itself—that is, when
its muzzle is not much elevated, and the shot therefore
ranges throughout thegreater part of its course across a field
at about the height of a man. At high elevation of the
gun, when a great range has to be reached, and the diffe-
rence between a high and a low tranjeetory is a difference of
100 or 200 yards above the ground, the low trajectory that
passes at 100 yards is in practice as valueless as the high
trajectory 'which passes at 200, for in both cases the shots
are not more noisy and quite as harmless as the idle wind.
But at low elevations of the gun a low t, ejectors' is valuable
in practice, and is a result which all scientific gunners and
inventors of guns strive hard to obtain, for, as a rule which
never varies, the lowest trajectory at all ranges is the
truest gun—that is, it is the gun that sends its shot
longest in the straightest line. The test of initial velocity
proves that Sir William's shunt-gun has the lowest trajec-
tory up to 1,000 yards, and the increased range gained by
Mr Whitworth at 4,000 yards proves that he keeps not the
lowest throughout, but a low trajectory for the longest time.
Last week trials were made at stockades, very similar in
their power of resistance to the " pahs" in New Zealand.
These trials proved nothing worthy of recording, If meant
to show that men under cover of the stockade could be killed,
the targets were placed much too close to the 15 inches of
green elm which formed the stockade to display the effect of
the shell on bursting inside them. If it was meant to destroy
the stockade, the charges with which the shells were fired
were much to large, as they all passed through before burst-
ing. The whole trial was, in short, one which had evidently
been discovered among the red-tape archives relating to the
tests of smooth-bore artillery, for as a test of rifled ordnance
it was almost worthless. The charges of powder were
either very much too great for such obstacles, or the ob-
stacles themselves were very much too great. The most
interesting trial was made with targets representing regi-
ments of infantry in quarter-distance column. Each gun,
the shunt, the breach-loader, and the Whitworth, had a
series of targets to itself. These targets were of 2-inch
deal, and for each gun presented a front of 64 feet wide,
and behind each front line of 54 feet were placed five
similiar targets, at intervals of 15 feet apart, They were,

in fact, placed for each gun so as to present exactly the
same formation in width and depth of a regiment of in-
fantry, moving, as they almost always do move, from point
to point, when in action in quarter-distance column. The
targets, however, were nine feet high instead of five, as a

regiment at 450 yards, which was the range for the guns to
practice at, would have appeared to artillerymen. The
firing was expected to be made with case shot; but Mr
Whitworth preferred either percussion or time shell, for ma-

sons which we shall presently endeavour to explain. The

practice with all the guns was good, except in the case of
the breech-loader, for the shortcomings of which very plan-
..

sible reasons were given as to wrong sighting, with which,
however, we have nothing to do, merely confining our re-
cords to results accomplished.
Both the Armstrongs ,fired with segment shell and con-
cussion tfuses ; the Whitworth with shrapnel shell and
time fuses. On each series of targets
.the following results