Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1898-06-25
The NIodern ButIct.

The Modern Bullet.
Baltimore American: 1t has been
said that the new army rifle Is hui
mane'-that it punctures clean holes,
and is less likely to infict dangerous
injury. According to the best evidence,
however, the fact is very much the
Dther way. The new style bullet, very
long and with a diameter about the
same as that of a lead pencil, leaves
the gun with a velocity of half a mile
Il second, with a pressure behind 1T of
10000 pounds per square inch. Four
miles from the muzzle of the weapon
IL is travelling at the rate of 100 yards a
second, and will penetrate the abdo-
men of a mar who happens to be in the
way. Owing to its velocity, and to its
rotary motion of 2,400 revolutions a
second, it develops an explosive energy
when it strikes anything at a moder-
ate range, splintering bones into small
pieces and effectually destroying any
organ like the liver or kidney. f,
Owing to these conditions, u man who
is hit on an arm bone or leg bone by a
bullet from a modern rifle must in
nearly every instance die or submit TO
IN amputation. A hole through an im-
,ortant blood vessel, being punched
clearly out, results in profuse and dan
perous hemorrhage right away, so
that the victim is likely to die before
surgical aid can arrive. Much yaluable
information in this line has been obi
tanned by firing eXperimentally at
eorpses at various ranges, and observ-
ing the character of the injuries in
dicted. 1t has been found in this man
ner, incidentally, that II of these
bullets will pass through seven men
stood In line. The French have done
a good deal of experimenting with
silhouette soldiers, cut out of boards
and fired at from given distances.
From the resulting hits they have tried
20 reckon casualty percentages
Under modern conditions troops
within firing distance of an enemy will
ave to meet a veritable hail of bullets.
A modern rifle is able to deliver forty
shots a minute. Herr Prinz, a German
military surgeon, writing Of the recent
civil war in Chilli, says: d,
The Balmacedists, who were no
towards, declared that their astonish-
ment, caused by the terrible storm Of
projectiles, left them unable to use
their own weapons"
In a battle the rifles described Will
be supplemented by improved Calling
guns, which fire 1000 shots a minute,
with "a muzzle velocity of a quarter OF
Il mile a second, and an effective range
of one and a half miles. Under such
circumstances, obviously, 1t will not
be possible for military commanders
TO risk their troops in the open, mas
much as to do so would be wholesale
suicide.
To illustrate the destructiveness OF
modern weapons on land, let it be sup
posed that a command is well posted
and concealed with n six gun battery
Of these small breech loading cannon,
u couple of Cuttings, and a regiment
of 700 infantry armed with Krag-Jor-
gensen rifles. A hostile force of twice
the strength approaches TO within q
distance of 5000 yards. The range be-
ing carefully calculated, allowing for
the expansion Of the cones, of fire from
the artillery, the six cannons will COW
er a line of LAO yards. At the word
firing begins, and in n minute thirty
six shrapnel are hurled at the advanc-
ing foe. They burst 200 yards in from,
of the enemy, scattering 10000 mes
of death among them. In the
same minute the two Cuttings deliver
1000 shots, and the 1000 rifles dis
charge $4,000 projectiles. In sixty the
space occupied by 1900 men has been
swept by Il tremendous storm Of 26,SOi
missiles. and two-thirds of the oncom
ing soldiers are laid low. One more
minute, with another discharge, ano
few survivors are left to tell the tale Of
the disaster.
The wounded in a modern land bat
tie will have small chance of rescue
1t will not be possible to remove then
from the fighting line during the con
f.ict, because the hospital bearers at
tempting the task would be killed
The best that can be hoped is to at
tend to them within the next twenty
four hours. The stern facts having
been realized, instruction has been Civ
en- to every private in the United State
army in the art of taking care of him
self in case he is hurt. lie carries a
his belt what is called n first aiC
packet" containing a roll Of bandages
IN antiseptic compress and antisepti
gauZe, inclosed in q sealed rubber cas-
ing. If he suffers from n bullet woun,
he stuffs q pug of the gauze into tn
hole and applies a bandage. This ma,
save his life and give the surgeon
chance when there is an opportunit,
for treatment.