The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1895-05-08
REMARKABLE TEST.
A Battle Royal Between Power
full Guns and Heavy Armor.
The Largest Cannon In the Navy Fail to
DemOiish Harveyized Steel Plates
Made by the Carnegie Company
Results of a Days Work at
Indian Head.

WASHINGTON, May 2.--There was u
battle royal at the Indian Head prov
ing grounds yesterday, between the
biggest guns of the navy and an 1S-inch
Harveyized steel plate made by the
Carnegie works, with wholly unprece-
dented results. After firing twice at !,
the great piece of steel with 12-inch |
rife without making any practical i'm !,
preston upon it, the great peace
maker" as the 1S-inch gun is called,
discharged its half-ton projectile point
blank at the armor and, though driven
bodily back into the sand bank sup
porting it, the plate survived.
Great interest has been manifested
in this test as it was practically COM
petition of the hitherto suspected Car
negie product and the uniformly sue
cessful Bethlehem manufacturers.
The Bethlehem company furnished
the 19-inch plate that passed the ordeal
two weeks ago and Wednesday the
Carnegie armor was tested with exact
ly the same grade of shells made in
France for testing purposes, and all
the conditions were made uniform. The
plate was finished to size and cost
about $40, 900. 1t weighed $4,000 pounds,
was 16 feet 81 inches long, Z feet l5-
16 inches wide and was of tapering
thickness, being IS inches at the top,
extending four feet down where the
taper to eight inches thickness at the
bottom began. Represented the Sec
ond of 306 tons of ten plates for the
side armor of the battlcship Oregon,
nearly completed at San Francisco.
During the test it was attached to a
backing of 86 inches,of solid oak by 26
three-inch bolts, the entire structure
being firmly anchored in hillside,
about 100 yards from the muzzles of the
gun battery. The first was an $50
pound 12-inch Hotter shell, driven by
249.s pounds of Brown hexagonal pow
der, resulting in velocity of 1,465 feet
per second which struck the plate with
an energy of 1862 foot tons, the point
of impact being rs inches from the left
edge and 38 inches from the top.
This was designated the cracking
shot and its velocity was so calculated
as to split the armor if possible. The
Carnegie plate, however, showed no
crack whatever when the smoke blew
away and the PARTICLES of shell ceased
falling. The nose of the projectile
pushed into the hardened metal about
six inches, causing an annular bulge in
the surface half an inch high and ex-
tending for three inches around the
hole, characterized by small patches Of
the surface scaling Off OF the $50
pounds of shell no piece heavier than
few pounds could be found.
With the Bethlehem plate the shell
had gone in over twelve inches and the
naval ordnance experts agreed that the
new plate would have to be classed
alone. The gun was mopped out and
behind another projectile similar to the
first one, 443.4 pounds of powder were
placed, giving a muzzle velocity of 1926
feet per second and the enormous strik-
ing average of 2l 1855 foot tons. The
shot struck forty-two inches to the
right of the first shot. Tne plate had
passed the cracking ordeal and this
shot was intended solely to try It's re-
sistance to being penetrated. The pen
etration was ten inches as well as could
be estimated
The head of the projectile as far as
the explosive chamber was completely
smashed on the plate, looking as if a
lot of black mud had been splashed
upon the armor. The two metals had
been melted and welded together by
the terrific temperature due to the sud
den and complete Stoppage of the shot,
the energy of nearly ~, 3,OOO-foot tons be-
ing suddenly converted into heat. The
metal of the plate for depth of three
inches around the point where the
projectile struck had been fused and
bubbled up like a volcanic crater. A
crack three-fourths of an inch wide
was developed in the surface of the
plate extending from the top to the
bottom. The plate was accepted by the
government, and then with the view of
determining what its ultimate condi-
tions might be under the most extreme
conditions, it was decided by the chief
of ordnance to attack it with the great
est of naval weapons, the big 13-inch
gun, from the turrets of the battle
ships.
A 13-inch Carpenter she'll, weighing
1,1OO pounds, driven by 4S9 pounds of
powder specially adapted to this gun,
was discharged with velocity of 1,s1O
feet per second in this test. 1t had the
unprecedented striking energy of s5,
600 foot tons and its impact was only 32
inches to the left of the first shot. The
result was remarkable. 1t was ex-
pected that this test would demolish
the plate. A crack three inches wide
extended some distance from the top
and the shell after penetrating ten
inches was, as one Of the officers de-
c!ared, ''almost pulverized.
The effect Of such gun fire on bat
tleship in action in the opinion Of the
experts present, would be incalculable.
Upon careful examination the ability
of the plate to keep out the heaviest
projectiles was fully proven by the fact
that but one Of the fastening bolts was
damaged and the other twenty-five
would have held the plate in position
on shipboard.