The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-07-14

ported that every time the Spaniards
fired they emptied the magazine of their
rifles, which contain five cartridges,
without taking any particular aim, and
consequently without doing any dam
age. Our troops, on the other hand, are
trained shots, and their fire will be
deadly.
Special attention has been paid in the
army to firing as skirmishers. In the
skirmishers' practice the men start at
600 yards and 60 toward the target at
the ssdouble" until a bugle sounds.
Then they throw themselves down and
fire as many shots as they can at the
target during half a minute. Again the
bugle sounds, and they rise, run for
ward for 100 yards. lie down and fire
again. They keep this up till within
200 yards Of tho target, at which point
they turn and retreat, lying down and
firing in the same manner. They have
practiced this till they can work their
guns SO fast that it looks as if a contin-
uous stream Of fire were coming from the
muzzies.
l1Cl0 Id ii SlCdU Ao4Oho VI Op114Oh Ia
the army in regard to the new Krag-
Jorgensen gun, with which it is armed.
Its caliber is 80, while that of the old
Springfield rife was IS. The smaller
caliber gives the bullet great velocity,
and consequently a very fiat trajectory.
It was supposed that this would also
prevent its being detected sideways by
the wind. Experience has proved that
the bullet is SO light that the wind af-
fects it very greatly. In addition, the
rapidity with which the bullet reyolves
causes it to move sideways, being what
is known as the drift. The result of this
is that frequently it is necessary in
shooting in distances above 500 yards to
make an allowance Of from 8 to Is feet
to the side of the target. Upon the
Springfield rife this allowance was
made by what is known is a wind
gauge-i g., by moving the rear sight
of the rife to one side by a screw, SO as
to make up for this deviation.
The weakness of the Spaniards may
be explained by their lack of both nerve
and experience.
An artillery expert, in discussing the
comparatively poor craftsmanship of
the Spanish gunners, as shown Ill recent
engagements, explains why they cannot
shoot as straight as the gunners on
American ships. They are not generally
equipped with scientific instruments for
finding the position and range Of the n
envy. 1t is considered likely that the
nearest approach they make to such APP
paratus is possibly the employment of
some such appliance as is used on many
English ships, on the principle of the
Watkin position finder. They are known
also to use a range finder consisting of a
telescope with a drum marked in hun
dreds Of yards fitted below it and a slid
ing bar, which enables the instrument
to be adjusted to the height above tide
at which it is mounted.
When the telescope is focused IN the
target. the drum shows the yards in the
range, and an arc on the base Of the in
strument, which corresponds with the
arc on the guns, gives the training in
degrees and subdivisions of degrees.
While this materially reduces the posi-
Bile error, it entails the necessity of
more trial shots than a ship can always
afford to be wasting time N, and it is
only effective against ships at anchor.
With the position finder used on the