Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-05-31
Something About Big Guns.

fely, Lydia NJ Waldo, '92 3, Washington.
Something About Big Guns.
To the Editor Of The Evening star:
In recent notice of jacketing one of the 49,
inch guns at the navy yard the types. by mis-.
take of some one, state that the projectile to be
used weighs II 900 pounds 1t should be /. 100
The largest projectile ever made-if, indeed
any of them have been made-is that for the
krupp gun now at the Chicago fair. The projec-
tile for that is four feet long and weighs 2,7OC
to 2 800 pounds.
The gun itself weighs 24s, 900 pounds. or 124
tons, is 46 feet inches long and feet = 8
inches at the breech-the largest ever made,
though Krupp previously made one or more for
Italy that weighed over 11S tons. in 1885, and
England some that weigh ITO tons. This
krupp gun will take 700 pounds of powder for
a charge and it will cost about 81 500 at each
discharge. 1t is estimated that it will pierce
twenty inches of steel armor at a distance of
nine miles.
Krupp had 14-inch gun at the Philadelphia
fair, and at the Paris exposition of 1867 he had
one weighing so tons. l4-inch bore. 49, feet
long. tho shell for which weighed 1OSO pounds
and the solld shot 1 .2l2 pounds.
These krupp guns are made of solid steel
and are not built up in sections as are ours and
the English guns.
And this reminds me of an article / pub
lished in the Scientific American in 1868, in
which | predicted that the time would come
when guns would be made that could pierce
any ironclad that could be made to float, but
that they would not be made of cnst iron, but
of steel.
Exception was taken then to my statement. it
being contended that cast iron the best
material known for big guns. Who now thinks
of making one of cast iron?
About that time the Scientific American pub
llslcu n notice of n made b,- ms pf
Massachusetts that would use sixty pounds of
powder. and spoke of it as "a fearful charge
certainly Compare that with 500 and 700
pound charges of today and one gets some idea
OF the tremendous advance that has been made
in the past thirty years in big guns.
When Gen. Gilmore planted his "swamp
| angel i'll front of Charleston the London
Times ridiculed the idea and said no gun ever
had been or probably ever would be made that
could throw shot five miles At the queen 8
jubilee a year or two ago one OF theirs threw a
shot twelve miles and one of our officers made
calculation which was published before hand
of what its flight would be and varied but a few
rods from the actual result.
1t is calculated that some of the guns in ex-
| istence today will throw shot fifteen miles
more than one-third OF the distance from here
to Baltimore!
Some idea of the tremendous power of the
II 0-ton gun can be formed when. as is stated.
it has thrown 16-inch steel proiectile feet
long. at n velocity of 2,O79 feet second.
piercing 20 inches OF steel and many feet OF
timber backing.
To strike such blow, ii is said, a LOGON OF i've
weighing 200 600 pounds would have to go at the
rate of 1876 miles an hour, Persons who have
witnessed the effect of collision with a train
moving so miles an hour can by that means
obtain faint idea of what the result would be-
1t is not pleasant to contemplate the idea of
all the civilized nations being engaged in the
foo of rct "a
war. These, with the ironclads. the rapid
firing guns. magazine small arms and the yari-
Gus explosives, will make the next great war
by far the most destructive ever known unless,
as was said by Bismarck last year, their very
destructiveness will prevent nations from,
going TO war. which is surely to be hoped.
1t is curious fact tina: III proportion as
| warlke weapons have been improved the num-
Der of killed and wounded in proportion to the
whole number engaged has been lessened.
One only needs to read the history of battles in
early times, or even those in the Bible to see
this.
When men were armed with clubs the spear.
battle ak and similar weapons the fighting was
done hand TO hand and the slaughter was far
greater. Now war is Il science. and with the
long-range firearms the opposing forces seldom
como into actual contact. Then. too. as peo-
pie have become more civilized the treatment
of the conquered is far less barbarous. though
war i'll any form is barbarous 1t is to be
hoped the time will come when we shall
know war no more If ever that day comes
it will be due to commerce and the inter-
minging of peoples and of their financial and
social interests more than to any other one
cause. The means OF rapid lntcrcommunlca-
tion mainly the result of invention. with the
spread of the English language. which is rap
idly becoming the universal commercial Ian
guage of the world. is doing more 10 prevent
war than all the peace congresses Of the world
good they are.
Then. too. there is no question that ample
means for protection eXerts powerful i'll
fuence for peace. This was well illustrated in
California In 1919. when there was no law and
no organized society and nearly every man
went armed. In those days there GUAR
relinS and very seldom any violence except
among drunken men, for every one understood
that the first thing would be a shot. VI. c. ID.