The San Francisco call., 1896-07-05
Speculation Based Upon the Swiss
Discovery of " Charmed
Bullets"
Engineer w. Stuart Smith Discusses
the Matter for the Benefit of
"Call" Readers.

fluid will work revolution in methods OF
warfare The particular phenomenon
upon which such speculation is based was
observed by committee of the Swiss Fed
eral Rifle meeting in summing up the re-
suits of the practice shooting of the troops
at Winterthur. This committee noticed
that nearly all the shots fired from the
right side of the range had hit the target
TO the right of the bullseye, while those
fired from the left side had. with an
equally singular persistency, hit the left
half Of the target. The great number OF
men who took part in the shooting pre-
cluded the idea that this singular result
could have been due to the personal pecu-
harities of the soldiers, for while it may
be true that one marksman habitually
shoots foo high, another too low or to the
right or left of the mark with a large
mum Der OF individuals firing at the same
target these idiosyncrasies of marksman-
ship would be set off one against the other
and the misses wonld be fairly distributed
on all sides of the bu!lseye. 1t became
necessary therefore, to find an extraneous
and single cause for the remarkable uni
formity with which the bullets appeared
to have been DETECTED from their proper
course.
The wind could not have produced the
effect noted, since, in the first place, allow
ance had doubtless been made by the
riflemen for DETECTION by aerial currents,
and on the other hand, if the wind had
diverted the missiles the detection would
have been in the same direction on both
sides of the range. An examination of the
steel-clad bullets extracted from the tar
gets disclosed the fact that they had be-
come magnetic and this led the commit
tee to entertain the theory that the phe-
nomenon observed by it might have been
due TO electric influence exerIed by the
large number of telegraph and telephone
wires which run along both sides of the
range at Winterthur. Further expert
ment at the ranges of Thun and Berne
proved this theory TO be correct, and the
remarkable discoveries made at these trials
may effect another complete change in
military tactics. The following account
of one of the experiments is given by the
journal de Geneve:
"At Thun, authorities established parallel
with the rife range, at a distance of little
more than forty yards, an electric current
of 5000 volts, carried along four steel
cables. With view of tracing the whole
effect, paper circlets were placed at inter-
walls of ten yards along the line of fire.
The first experiments were made with the
Swiss model rifles of 1889. With this the
influence of the electric current was at
once apparent. In a distance of 260 yards
the bullet took a lateral deviation of
twenty-four yards, and after that the curve
OF the trajectory was still more marked.
The second experiments were made with
the Japanese 3.3mm rife of Colonel va
4 L i
the bullet being rapidly attracted to the
electric wires and following their course
with absolute servility. Further attempts
were made with artillery. The range
selected was one of 5000 yards. Two
hundred yards in front of the targets, but
forty yards to the side, was placed the
electric battery. Every shot was diverted
by its influence far to the side of the target
Ito be exact. the deviation was one of IA
degrees"
It is interesting TO note some of the re-
markabe conclusions drawn by Eastern
writer's from those results. One of them
says, for instance, that "a dynamo or ac-
cUmulator of the requisite power placed on
the flank of company of infantry would
insure the men complete immunity from
the fire of small arms within a range of
500 yards and upward; for all of the bull
lets would be diverted toward the mag
netic field created by the electric current
from the dynamo or accumulator. SINH
larly, artillery fire could be rendered
harmless at a range of 1000 yards and
over. 1t would, perhaps, be prem ature
to assert that the consequence of this
discovery Will be the doom of the mod
ern small-bore military rife, with its
steel-jacketed bullet. for it might be
practicable to lnclose the leaden missile
in hard bronze or some other metal not
affected by magnetism. Artillery would
probably remain destructive enough on
the battlefield by the use of explosive
Shells 1t is in naval warfare that the
discovery may have the most important
consequences. In Conan Doyle's Stark
Munro Letters the hero is credited with
an invention to render warship immune
from the shots of an enemy by placing
electric accumulators at It's stem and stern.
The idea was to defect steel proiectiles by
magnetism, just like the Swiss military
authorities have IN fact succeeded in do
ing. 1t would certainly be revolutionary
departure If instead of incasing our battle
ships in heavy bombproof armor we could
encom pass them with an impalpable mag
netic veil which would ompel the great
armor-piercing steel proiectiles to pass
harmlessly by"
A representative of THE CALL inter
viewed w. Stuart-Smith, electrical and
mechanical engineer, United States navy
(retiredJ on the subject of the electrical
influence above mentioned. Mr.. Smith
smiled broadly as he read the Eastern
newspaper deductions. His own views
are valuable as coming from recognized
authority on these matters. "The expert
ments made by the Swiss military au-
thouties," said he, while OF onsidera BILE
interest from a scientific standpoint, will
hardly result in the adoption OF methods
for rendering the firing of small arms and
great guns so ineffective that these
weapons will be relegated to the military
scraphesp. and the battles of the future
become hand-to-hand conflicts as in days
of old. very superficial examination oi
the conditions prevailing during the tests