The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-05-26
MODERN BIG GUNS.

Now that this country is going into the
business of building national navy it is
well 10 study what other nations are doing
The two crack ships of the British navy are
the Trafalgar and the Nile. These are sup-
posed to be the very last and best thing in
battle ships. Clark Russell in his Life of Mel
son, just Published, says that tine Trafalgar
could have sunk the entire British and
Danish fleets at Copenhagen with little or
no damage to herself. She is turret ship
with 20 inch armor on the turrets; her dis
placement is nearly 1900 tons; her motive
power equal to 1000 horsepower; she car
ries, besides eight 2-ton guns, four guns of
81 tons each. throwing missile weighing
1850 pounds.
This monster has just had trial trip, on
which her guns were tested. The big guns
were first fired with small charges of pow
der, which did no damage TO speak of be-
You'd knocking few wheels off the capstan
and blowing some odds and ends overheard
But when 67-ton gun was loaded with a
full service charge of $50 pounds and fired
at an elevation Of three degrees the deck
was depressed two full inches, the deck
beams we're bent and one mess deck
Sanction was broken short off. The gun
ners declared that second shot with the
four inches, would have broken more beams
and opened the seams below so as to adm it
the water, and that half dozen shots would
have disabled the ship so that she would have
had to steam out OF action. In other words.
While these crack new ships can infict ter
rible INJURY on an enemy, and their turrets
are practically lmpregnable, they are GER
tain to do themselves up after an engage
ment Of quarter Of an hour What is the
good Of war-ships like that?
There is limit TO the volume of powder
which can be used in a gun and to the size
OF the bore. The force exerted by the ex
plGsiYe power Of powder in expanding the
air is so vast that beyond a certain point it
is as fatal to the surroundings of the gun
as to the object at which its shot is aimed.
Very few objects could stand the impact of
shot weighing fve-eighths of a ton and
driven through space by 600 pounds of
powder, but if the power which impels the
shot Is distributed laterally and vertically
from the guns muZzle with such force as to
depress gun-deck two inches and to break
steel stanehions like pipe-stems the gun
VIII evidently do as much damage to the
battery in which it stands as it can inflict
on the enemy.
1t is proposed to build for the protection
VI OSh AAohNlSNO AOllo armed with the
newest and heaviest artillery AS the
Italians and the French are using guns
weighing 100 and ITO tons, it may be taken
for granted that among the guns sent here
for our new forts will be some that will
weigh over sixty-seyen tons. which is the
weight of those Of the Trafalgar. How
would it answer if when they were fred
they blew the fertilization to pieces, with
She gunners at their posts? Every one
who has witnessed an artillery drill remem-
bers the conclusion produced by the firing
OF ten-ton gun. 1t is not pleasant to
stand within the area reached by the ex-
pansion of the air near the muzzle I; it is
fatal to be too near that muzzle What.
then, would be the effect of discharge
from gun six times the size, with caliber
of thirteen or fourteen inches? If the
missile from such a gun hit an enemy's
ship that would be the last Of her. But
what would be the condition of the fort and
its defenders?
The tendency of modern gunnery is to re-
duce artillery warfare to the historic stand
ard of the Kilkenny cats.