The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-12 00:00:00

Her Majesty's Ship Minotaur.

The iron frigate Minotaur, 6,621 tons, 1,250
horse power, Master F. Inglis, under the command
pro tern. of Capt. F. A. Herbert, and manned by the
crew of the Royal Sovereign, with supernumeraries
from the Steam Reserve, went out of Portsmouth
harbour yesterday afternoon, and anchored at Spit-
head, where she will take in her ammunition and be
swung to ascertain the deviation of her compass
prior to starting for Portland on her trials of com-
petitive 12-ton broadside gun carriages. The trials
will be under the direction and superintendence of
Capt. A. C. Key, C. 8., commanding the gunnery
ship Excellent. Portland Roads will be made the
anchorage ground on her return from each day's
trial until their conclusion, when she will return to
Spithead and await further orders from the Admi-
ralty. 'The trials were originally intended to have
been made with four carriages and slides ; but one,
designed by Sir W. Armstrong, not having been yet
received from Elswick, they will be confined to the
following three :-
1. The Admiralty wooden pattern carriage and
slide, fitted with eccentric rollers and other improve-
ments suggested by Capt.-Key. The training gear is
that of Mr. Cunningham( Patent topsail Cunning-
ham," as he is termed in the navy), and is precisely
similar in every respect to the training gear fitted
to the 12-ton broadside gun-carriage on board the
Excellent, where it is spoken of as the most simple
yet
and yet efficient means of training heavy guns
devised. It consists of a single port chain made
fast on each side of the rear end of the slide, and
leading thence by two single blocks on each side
of the gun and its carriage, by the waterways
to a crab winch fixed on the deck, entirely
out of the way of the guns crew in working their
and also from its position not
gun in rapid firing,
liable to injury from concussion on the ship's side
being struck by an enemy's shot.
The weight of the carriage is 39 cwt. 2 qrs. 4 lb.;
the weight of the slide, 38 cwt. 2 qrs. 81b.—total
weight of carriage and slide, 78 cwt. 0 qrs. 12 lb.
The principal, or, perhaps, more correctly speak-
ing, the only recommendation this carriage possesses
is its antiquity. Its objectionable features are the
absence of an easily-worked running in and out
gear, and the presence of all the inherent defects
and weaknesses of a wooden gun-carriage when ap-
plied to mounting ordnance of such exceptional
weight as guns of 13 tons. Captain Key's improve-
ments have, however, so effectually reformed the
character and power of the carriage and its slide
that it will now act as a most excellent test for com-
parison with the results obtained by the new pattern
iron carriages and their slides.
2. The Woolwich Arsenal, or Colonel Shaw's
iron carriage and slide. The carriage has single
sides, strengthened with its iron framing. The com-
pressor is a large iron clamp athwart the bottom of
the carriage, and grasping the flanges of the slide.
The gun's running in and out gear is a flat endless
chain, working over tooth-wheels at each end of the
slide, worked by small hand-wheel levers at the
rear of the slide. The slide is constructed of double
T-iron. The training gear has been fitted under
the superintendence of Mr. W. Lynn, assistant to
Mr. Murray, the Superintending Engineer of Ports-
mouth dockyard. It consists of a cast-iron bracket
fitted with a chain pinion, and fixed on the ship's
side midway between the gunports. Upon the
under side of the deck, directly below this bracket,
between the ship's beams, a traverse piece of shaft-
ing is fixed, having a chain wheel on one end
and a bevil wheel on the other, the motion to
the shafting being given by means of an end-
less chain between the chain wheels on the bracket
on the gun-deck and the similar wheel on the
transverse shafting below. The bevil wheel at
the other or inner end of the transverse shafting
gears with a similar wheel upon a short upright
spindle which passes through the deck, and there is
capped by a small chain wheel. Round this wheel
an endless chain passes, attached to the slide of the
gun-carriage, and to a single block on the opposite
ide of the carriage. The weight of the carriage is
31 cwt. 0 qrs. 21b. ; the weight of the slide, 13 cwt.
3 qrs. 181 b. ; total weight, 77 cwt. 201 b. The
main features of recommendation of this carriage
and slide are lightness coinbingd with strength, the
acknowledged correctness of the principle on which
it has becnbuilt, and the case with which all its parts
can be got at and repaired in the event of temporary
in jury during action without the delay of dismount-
ing the gun. Its features of weakness arc—a pos-
sible too great lightness of metal to stand without

damage the shock from the discharge of a 12-ton
rifled gun, a faulty application of the compressors,
and an absolute want of leverage power over the
running in and out gear from a want of larger
pinions and lever wheels. All this would be reme-
dial in another carriage built on the same principle.
3. Iron carriage and slide designed by and made
under the superintendence of Commander Scott, her
Majesty's ship Research. This carriage has double,
or box girder, sides of immense strength, and is
filled in with wood to absorb the vibration of the
iron if struck by the enemy's shot. The gun is run
in and out by endless chains, similar to Colonel
Shaw's carriage, worked by powerful pinions and
hand-wheel levers, holding great control over the
gun. The compressors are composed of three tapered
balks of timber lying parallel with each other in the
bed of the slide. From the bottom of the carriage
four iron plates descend and fit in between these
balks ; through the sides of the carriage and through
the upper edges of these plates are fixed right and
left-handed screw levers, worked by wheel levers
on each side, the whole forming a fourfold com-
pressor of tremendous power. The slide is of equal
strength and massiveness with the carriage. It is
built on the box-girder principle, and traverses
on raised metal racers, with hollow-soled trucks
on Colonel Colquhoun's plan. The training gear
forms part of the carriage and slide ; a longitudinal
shaft running under the slide is fitted with pinions
at either end, and works in a rack- way upon the
deck next the fore-and-after racers. The gun runs
in and out and trains, apparently, with great faci-
lity. Another means of training is fitted to this
gun, which, however, is only a copy of Mr. Cun-
ningham's plan. The weight of the carriage is 2
tons 6 cwt., and of the slide 3 tons 12 cwt., giving
a total weight of 5 tons 18 cwt.
The chief apparent recommendations of Comman-
der Scott's carriage and slide are the ease with which
all its parts can be worked, and its evident ability
to carry its gun and withstand the shock of its
esipgrhest
oenf form
t metal,
dis-
charge. Its objectionable features inwit
are its evident cost of manufacture,
and the objectionable metal rackway laid down on \
the ship's deck next to the raised metal races. All
these objections are, of course, removable in any
second carriage and slide made on the same plan.
The forthcoming trials on boardthe Minotaur are
of the highest importance. If our ironclads can, by
the mechanical aid of improved carriages carry guns
of 12-tons' weight on their broadsides, they will not
only do what the ships of no other naval Power
have yet attempted, but also what some of the most
distinguished officers in the American navy have
just declared, as the result of theirrecent experience,
to be altogether impracticable. In the " Report of
the Secretary of the United States Navy in relation
to Armoured Vessels," printed by order of Con-
gress, and containing all the official reports and
documents on the subject received by Mr. Gideon
Welles up to March 30,1864, Rear-Admiral Golds-
worthy, the officer quoted, says in his 44 Opinion of
Ironclads," sent to Mr. Secretary Welles, and dated
March 24, 1861—
tg According to my impressions,
fired with a normal charge
of a gun of
12,0001 b., 211 b of pow-
der, is about the heaviest that can be used to advan-
tage in the broadside part of any vessel whatever."
After recommending that a gun of this weight
should be made and fully tested and reported on,
the Rear-Admiral adds :
"I am fully aware that the New Ironsides has
now on board still heavier guns and of larger calibre,
carried broadside-wise—guns of 16,0001 b. in weight
and 11 inches in calibre—but I am not aware that
either they or their carriages, which occupy una-
voidably so much space, have been subjected con-
tinuously, in action or at sea, to the effect of the
use of solid shot, with charges of powder approach-
ing one-fourth the weight of the projectiles. The
test, no doubt, would prove palpably excessive in