The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-08-26

| that none OF the warships of foreign ma
tons have deckplate exceeding four and
one-half inches thick, while the deck
! plate OF great majority of them is only
] three inches thick. Consequently the
| board recommended, in habors favor
able to their use, the employment Of NOR
tars to drop high-eXplosiye shells upon
the deck of the enemy. The mortar has
not as accurate fire as a rife, and we
might throw q good many without hit
| ting the vessel Of an enemy, bat when'thesc
shells began dropping in his vicinity the
commander, If a prudent man, would
| quickly steam away. By these methods
the board reduced the number of guns
and mortars needed for defense of all our
principal harbors The aggregate number
Is 81 guns and 1900 12-inch mortars.
| 1t will be several years before all these
guns are built and in position, but when
they are ready for use there will be no
further occasion for talk about our de-
fenceless coasts.
I'VE are building as good guns as there
are in the world We have had the benefit
of the experience of other governments,
and in the judgment of experts only two
nations are now building guns as good as
ours-France and Germany. The English
guns are inferior. The English stubbornly
stick to weight and great size as indis-
pensable features, in spite of the fact that
the modern science of gun building has
demonstrated that guns can be too
large and too heavy. Only a few days
ago the English tried a new ITO
ton Armstrong gun at Woelwich. 1t is
a monster, truly-44 feet long, diam
eter at the breech, So feet; caliber, 16H
inches. Its steel shot weighs 1,S00 pounds,
and is propelled by $50 pounds of pris-
matte powder, each shot fired costing 5000.
On trial the shot Of this gun passed through
compressed armor (steel faced iron) twenty
inches thick; then through five inches of
iron backing, twenty feet of solid oak, five
feet of mixed stone and eleven feet of hard
granite, finally lodging three feet within
brick wall This is an appalling force A
projectile from this gun would penetrate
any fort in the world, and go very nearly
through any man-of-war afoat, no matter
where it might hit her. But the gun is
not strong enough to sustain its own
weight. At best it can be fred only sew
enty or eighty times before it is ruined;
and if the reports we get Of its dropping
cut Of shape from its great weight are true
probably it could not be fired dozen times
effectively.
Great guns are growing longer, are not
SO heavy at the breech and are not increas-
ing in caliber In 1866 we had guns of 10
inch bore, but they had not one tenth the
power of 15-inch modern breech loading
rife. 1t is the change in powder which
molds the form of guns. The old powder
was quick burning, very violent and the
gun were necessarily heavy.at the breech
and short. Modern powder burns slower,
is not so violent, and therefore the gun
needs length, not breadth Of breech nor
extraordinary caiber.
awe are now making the best gun steel
in the world. Our guns are built on the
same general plan followed in Europe-a :
steel tube, g jacket shrunk on and series
OF rings, also shrunk on. The cost is about
5000 a ton, and this is decreasing all the
time. A 16-inch gun will weigh 1--WE have
not yet built one) about 125 tons, and by
the time we get ready to build one prob
ably we can turn it out for less than half
a million dollars. Its charge will be LOCO
pounds of powder, costing 1870, and it's
projectile will weigh more than a ton.
This projectile will be larger than a man,
and the gun will throw it fifteen miles. |
Even one of our 10-inch guns weighs 30tons |
and costs nearly $4,000. The projeotile |
for 16-inch gun is feet inches long, and |
for l2-inch gun, feet inches long All |
projectileS are oblong, of steel, and the |