The Pascagoula democrat-star. (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1878-1920, 1896-01-10
FRIGHTFUL WEAPONS OF WAR.
ONE SHOT COULD DESTROY A wARsHIP
OR A REGIMENT.

New York World.
The carnage in the next war must
be awful. Regiments will be wiped
out where in other times individuals
would have been killed.
The Krag-Jorgensen rifle, now in
use in the United States Army, will
discharge forty shots a minute within
a radius OF 5000 yards. Its pcnetrat-
ing power is six times greater than
that of the old Winchester or Spring
field. Speaking roughly, a bullet from
this rifle would penetrate the bodies
OF six men at a distance OF 1000 or
1000 yards. 1t will also penetrate
thirty inches OF solid oak. 1t will
kill at two miles.
With the enormously increased
range of arms and smokeless powder
it will sometimes be impossible to tell
where firing comes from. Regiments
may be moved down before they are
aware OF the neighborhoOd Of an enc
my.
While Thomas Coney, a military
prisoner at Fort Sheridan, was at
tempting to escape, a sentinel fired at
him with Il Krag-Jorgensen rifle at a
distance of twenty yards. The bullet
blew off the top of his head. Had he
been ut a greater distance it would
have passed through.
An ingenious man of science, DR..
DemostheneS, of Roumania, has had
the happy idea to practice on living
horses and dead men with modern
!, army rifles.
: Firing at a corpse with a Mann
licher rifle at a distance of $500 feet
he produced complete perforation Of
, the Uranium with simultaneous rupt-
urc of the stomach and intestincs.
. With the living horse the bullet
passed through the head and length
/. wise through the backbone, grinding
it to powder.
At shorter distances a bullet strik-
0 ing the head smashed it into pieces.
D According to the doctor, the bullets
cause an amount of hcmorrhage which
is sure to be fatal wherever the wound
is received. A soldier accidentally
shot in the leg died and four quarts of
" blood were found in his pleural cavity.
10 All the nations OF Europe, as veil
as the United States are armed with
W new magazine rifles Of nearly equal
power.
A Maxim rlpid-fre gun, weighing
only l27 pounds, has a capacity for
placing 100 bullets in Il minute wher-
ever they will do the most harm.
. The Browning rapid.flre gun, used
y in the United States Army, is capa-
bic of firing 400 rounds in one minute
and forty seconds.
The pneumatic dynamite guns at
Sandy Hook are capable OF throwing
" "A shell containing 800 pounds of dyna-
, mite a distance OF three miles.
Each gun weighs $780, 900 pounds.
They are 80 feet long and the bore is
=" 10 inches IN diameter.
:, A shell from one OF these guns
l. would, according to 1.-THE United States
military officers, destroy the largest
y warShip atioat. 1t would destroy
- every artificial construction within a
" radius of 400 feet OF the explosion. A
city block would be wiped out by it.
u 1t is claimed for this gun that one
shell well placed would destroy three
men-of-war.
70 In testing the dynamite gun three
~ dummy shots were fired in tiftcer
" minutes. From the subsequent test
!" with the full charge of dynamite ther:
- is every reason to believe that this
rate could be maintained with tn,
explosive charge.
A l000-pound shell from one of TIL,
Pinch guns at Sandy Hook will pene
tratc 1871 inches of steel. Stone f0rti
~ flcations will be useless against sucl
- weapons, for the splintering stOn'
will only make so many addit ioda
missiles.
A Hotchkiss quick-dring gun il
" made which weighs only twcnt.
y pounds. 1t is capable Of frin,
. 600 30-caliber cartridges a minute, O
at the rateo o 0 900 an hour. Each on
:, will kill six men.
This gun Is easily portable by on
'0 man, and several Il be carried by
horse.
" In France the gun has been free
" rapidly without rest for three hours
- During this test 10000 cartridge!
W were used.
" A llO0-pound projectilc fired from
- l3-inch gun, the largest in use in til
=, United States navy, has passe'
~ through fourteen inches of H~aryeyize'
i, nickel steel plate, five inches of oak
two plates OF half-inch steel and the
gone a mile or two beyond. The stee
used In this case is the most success
~ full armor yet made.
The shell weighed 100 pounds an
u was propelled by 4S4 pounds of pow
der. 1t moved at a velocity of 1870
feet per second and exerted a force 0
%, 1000 foot tons. 1t made a clean
al round hole.
m One of the newest engines Of de
10 struction Is known as the Maxim