The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-04-15
LOADING AN EIeHr.INoH RIFLE.

LOADING AN EIGHT-INCH RIFLE.
More lustrums than one cares to re-
member gratefully in these piping days
of peace and slow promotion have passed
since it was my good fortune to sit with
in the interior radius of the salt, and
listen to a cannonade of wit between GER
tain American worthless. The place was
shipbOard; the season a national holt
day; the occasion, gathering of the
war survivors of the station. At the
head of the hospitable mess table sat
Admiral Farragut, to starbOard and to
port twinkled other battle stars, and
in a pleasantly fortified Milky Way, were
blurred the lesser youngsters midship-
men, and other satellites, who thanked
Heaven, feasting aftes fasting, for the
chance the meeting gave them.
The great admiral was in his every
day, holiday mood, for always, even in
the stress and storm period, he had the
heart of merry boy. With quick wit
he filliped new meanings into old sea
tests; he challenged even our end of the
table to a cherry encounter of story: he
twisted deity yarn after yarn of remem
brance into a coil of sea conceits; and,
particularly, he recalled the good things
of the old sailor-men who had taught
him his trade of seamanship, his trick
of fighting (he began in the Essex eighty
years ago); but he never spoke of the
great deeds for which we loved and
honored him so much. With a mis-
chievous twinkle he repeated-indeed, 1
think, he half chanted-an old navy
song, one of the rough and vigorous
sort, for the talk had veered, and hauled
about guns and shot and Jillainous salt
petre.
mo fight" he said, gave my contem-
pories greater pleasure than the duel be-
tween the Constellation and L'Insur-
genie, fought in 1890, long before my
day, or course, but then dearly cherished.
1t was a gun fight. The ship was cruis-
ing in the West Indies, and their batter
les were, if 1 remember Alright, 30 pieces
with us, 40 with the enemy. But after
an hours sharp fighting, Commodore
Tom Truxton captured Barreau, and
gentleman, our loss was one killed, three
wounded; the Frenchman's was 10 in
all. OF course, even," concluded the adj
miral, sin the best ships the batteries
could not be compared with the lightest
we have now, and are not to be named
with the ordnance you younger officers
will have to handle, but in their day
there was none more effective afoat.
None better handled either, for those
earlier sailors were brought up in a
school of sharp experience, and were as
| great in gunnery practice as in seaman
ship"
No one was better fitted by age and
service to judge of these things than
Farragut, for his experience bridged
over a wonderful period of ordnance
achievement. He had handled the long
32s, had seen the days of cOrrOnades,
had watched the slow growth of she'll
firing, had studied the question of breech
and muzzle loading, of battering and
piercing effects. 1t is far cry, though,
from the guns he thought might be built
to those used in the end of our century,
for the development has been not only
marvellous, but so excessive that the
highest calibres are being abandoned for
more moderate types. The Victoria's
110-tOp gun, which rallied upon trial, il
Illustrates not the EXTREMIST piece yet
constructed, but one of the highest class.
1t is 1926 inches in the calibre, and over
40 feet in length; its shot weighs 1900
pounds; its charge, $50 pounds; the en-
ergy developed is 57,4S0 foot-tons, the
penetration in steel 30S inches at the
muzzle, and its cost is beyond ninety
thousand dollars.
|
though at present, with the exception of
the four le-inch guns on board the
Miantonomah, the heaviest piece
mounted in our compact but competent
feet of cruisers are the S-inch all-steel
breech-loading rifles. Arrangements ex-
list for producing Pinch guns, and the
Chief of Naval Ordnance is prepared,
whenever authority is given, to create
the plant demanded by the highest cali
bres. The S-inch occupies middle
ground between what should be the bat
terry of all swift cruisers of good dis
placement and that which would be car
ried by battle ships. l think its asso-
citation with 6-inch guns in the Atlanta
type, and even in the next higher class
of vessels, is mistake, for to my mind,
all those ships should be armed with
lighter pieces, giving greater intensity of
fire, notably with rapid-fire guns, rather
below than above six inches in calibre.
This, of course, does not effect the spe-
cific value of the gun, but its relation to
other conditions, for in its own sphere it
is an excellentweapon. The rifle is capa-
BILE of firing a projectile weighing 250
pounds with 125 pounds of powder, and
of developing velocity of 2050 feet, an
energy of 1885 tons, and a penetration
into wrought iron of 1872 inches. 1t
may be stated here that this term energy
denotes the work gun can perform, and
that it is expressed by the weight in
tons which can be lifted one foot; thus
the work of the S-inch projectile is
equivalent to an energy capable of lift
ing 1885 tons to height of one foot. In
the practical powder tests made with the
type at Annapolis these theoretical re-
suits, even with less charge of powder
were exceeded.
The S-inch gun is handled by man-pow-
err, and is not subject to the difficulties
imposed by the delicate mechanism re-
quired for the calibres above twelve
inches. In the operation of loading, four
of the crew furnish the projectile, and
an equal number supplies the charge.
The system adopted for closing the
breech was invented in America; but as
it has been employed in France from the
earliest experimental period, it is known
as the French fermetTe. 1t cannot be
described without drawing, and there
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