Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1881-08-19
Weapons Exhibited at an English School
of Gunuery
London Tinns

F t4SnOOQ IluSS.
Yesterday the secretary OF state for
war, Mr.. G. Q. Trevelyan, member of
parliament, representing the admiral
lty, and the official chiefs of the various
departments in the war office and the
admiralty, visited the school of gun
merry st ShoeburyneSS. and witnessed
the working of the weapons which
there undergo trial Nearly every
class of gun was tried, including heavy
siege guns. light field guns. machine
guns designed TO make three men more
formidable than twenty armed with
rifles, the Nordenfeldt one inch bore
machine gun for sinking torpedo-hoats.
and also light and heavy ships guns.
the latter including the powerful 4S.ton
sun on the Armstrong principle and
with breech-loading gear Of late design.
On entering the war office grounds
the party was conducted to earthworks
in the malsh raised under the direction
of Major Hime, r. f.. and here were
siege guns of different calibre, fitted
with self-elevating apparatus upon the
principle of Maj. Moncrieff, whereby
the recoil force is stored to serve the
purpose OF raising the weapon to the
firing position. The siege guns attaked
with common shell and hattering shell
some parallels one thousand yards dis
tant behind which were placed "dum-
my soldiers. After the work with the
siege artillery, represented by an S-inch
muzzle-loading howitzer; rified field
artillery, breech and munle loading,
was brough into action, and fired COM
mo .,,,I oi, III Al.
works. The parallels were then visited.
and the dummies" were seen TO be
very much injured, the earthworls,
too, had been much broken up. The
next work was with the machines guns
"A tivc-barreled Gardner of the ordin-
lry ritied 0.45-hore, Il two-harreled gun
and ten-barreled Gatling. This last
worked stitliy, while the tive-barreled
Gardner jammed twice. The two-bar-
relied Gardner had been favorably re
ported upon by the committee on
machine-guns who made the trials last
winter, and the weapon certainly work
ed well; but the superiority of two
barreied machine-gun which would re-
qulre three men TO work 1t over
three magazine guns in skilled hands
would not be very great The four
barrelcd navy Nordenfeldt for pene-
trating torpedo-boats was tried against
half inch steel plates, and passed
through them very cleanly. Mr..
Childers was much interested in this
gun, of which there are four hundred IN
the navy, and Mr. Nordenfeldt explain
ed its working. The largest piece of
ordinance fired was the 43-ton gun de-
signed for naval use. This weapon is
twenty-seven feet nine inches in length,
and takes two hundred and eighty-five
pounds of prismatic powder. 1t is
loaded at the breech. The recoil is re-
ceived by hydraulic buffers, and alto,
gether the large piece of ordinance
presents many ingenious mechanical
arrangements. The gun fired shot and
shell well, and the work as seen from
the shore, both in the battery and mt
the range was exceedingly interesting.
The 25-pounder breech-loading gun, on
Il naval carriage, was fired at n two
thousand yards range; the same gun
on the Albini carriage, at one thousand
yards, and the S-inch Armstrong at two
thousand yards. After visiting the
other batteries, the party returned to
town by special train.