The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-11-24
ENGINES OF WAR.
Report OF the Chief of the Bureau of
Ordinance.

III .~T
Report OF the Chief of the Bureau of
Ordnance.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 .--Commodore Fol-
ger, chief of the bureau of ordnance, In
his annual report to the secretary OF the
navy, which was q very lengthy one. asks
for appropriations u~RcreeatinR nearly two
and q half millions for his bureau, but the
request seems moderate in Wow Of the
achievements OF the present year and prom
isea for the future. The voluminoun re-
port Ia filed with interesting details ms to
how the American navy compares with she
nAvies of foreign nations and how native
skill and inventiveneas have placed this
country in advance Of all others in a COM
paratively new (as far as the United States ia
concornedl field of armor construction and
great gun making. 10 arm vessels of the
navy. 381 guns varying in calibre from
four to thirteen inches are required, and OF
these 237 are already completed and ll6
nfloat. A marked step in advance has been
made in improving the ten and twelve inch
guns. 30 they may be worked easily and
rapidly by hand.
The bureau is now building a nickel-steel
gun on new designs invented by William
Sellers, which will doubtless inaugurate tho
entire use Of nickel steel for naval gun
construction. 1t is stronger and better than
ordinary gun steel and the designs permit
the reconstruction of the gun whenever the
lube is worn. The use in runs up to ak
inches in calibre Of fixed metallic ammuni-
ton resulted 80 satisfactorily 1t ia said to
he merely q question of time before the
idea will be applied to larger calibres.
Rapid fire mechanism as applied to five
inch guns has enabled five shots to be fred
from one gun in nine seconds. but the re-
suit of the application of this mechanism to
a four-inch gun was followed by results
still more remarkable, for it has been possi-
bio to fire Ave shots in four seconds.
Improvements are noted In the quality. OF
domestic brown powder supplied during
the year. and it is stated the bureau has
taken stops to establish the manufacture OF
brown powder on the Pacific const, supply
ing the California Powder company OF
Santa Cruz with a testing implement and
guns and securing for it the use OF the Du-
FONT formulas. Marked progress has been
made in the development of navy smokeloss
powder during the year. 1T is now made in
large quantities. much safer than other
powders, unaffected by climatic conditions
and superior in a marked degree to the best
European smokeless powders. Tests with
the high explosive emensite were made with
great success, and shells filed with this
material were fired at the high velocity
of 1000 feet per second from rified guns,
and exploded upon an impact with
ments with another American explosive
have shown that common shells filled with
this material can be fired through six inch
plates and burst detonatively n mile be-
yond them. These experiments are re-
garded as settling the long discussion rela-
tive to the merits OF firing high explosives
from air guns or powder guns,
The report speaks in terms of praise of
the development III this country of the
manufacture of armor piercing rrojectiles,
and saws in a test recently made at Indian
Head of eiRht-inch shells. two of the Cele-
6rnfa1 Iarnon HnltvInr two Of CprDhnfar
and two of Stirling product. the Carpenter
shells were clearly equal if not superior to
the best Holtzdor manufacture 80 far re-
ceived in this country. One of the Stirling
projectiles showed Qualities OF q very su-
perior character. Deliveries of automobile
torpedoes were delayed by difficulty ex-
perienced in securing suitable TASKS, but
these have at last been obtained from
domestic steel companies. and a number of
Howell, Whitehead and other torpedoes are
expected to be presented for testing at an
early date. Commodore Fol2er speaks ap-
provingly of the submarine boat. now the
subject of experiments in Chicago. While
full success was not attained, the inven-
tion ia promising.
Under the head of torpedo boats the re-
port makes strong recommendations that
petroleum be used for fuel in these boats,
increasing their efficiency. The report says
the labor troubles ut Homestead rut a tenn
porary stop to the armor manufactured by
Carnegie. but work has again begun and il
Is hoped in a short time the total armol
product of the Carnegie and Bethlehem
companies will reach six or seven hundred
tons of finished plates per month.
Some information that may lead to a rev
olution in gun making, and also have far
reaching effects in other directions, is con-
tanned in that part of the report which
treats of nickel-steel alloys. Following ur
certain suggestions made by James Riley,
of Glasgow, the ordnance bureau succeeded
in making an ALLOW of steel with % pei
cent of nickel that possesses all the test
qualities and strength of steel. with high
elasticity distributed throughout the mass
of metal, and best of all practically non
corrodiblo in air and almost SO in water.
Experimental gun barrels and torpedo nets
are to be made at once of this alloy, and il
is believed gun barrels of this material will
not only be rust-proof, but will resist the
corrosive action of powder gases. because
the metal has only one.tenth of the suscep'
tibility of steel to magnetic force. 1t if
also proposed to construct an armofed tower
which shelters the compasses of one of the
new vessels OF. this material,