The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1898-07-30
FINEST GUNS
IN The WORLD
THESE ARE WHAT THE UNITED
STATES WILL Haze.
FIFTY Five-Inch Wire Wound Seq
mental Guns Nearing Completion
The New American Gun Differs
In One Essential Particular From
All Other Wire-WOund Pieces
Bigger One to BE Tested-LessOns
of the War With Spain That Will
Be Needed. LII q bill

q ~. --"-Trt- s~s
This war is bound to teach Uncle San
many Lessons. many ,ofWhich. are. already
clearly and generally apprehended. 9th
ers scarcely less important have yet to bt
perceived by the majority. One Of the
most vital of these lessons is the neces.
sity of fostering the ingenuity Of inven.
tors who turn their attention ito the i'm,
provement of fighting materials anC
mechanism. We have been unaccountably
indifferent to many things for thirty
years or more; our treatment Of our own
citizens who have devised improvements
IN shooting apparatus has been little less
than criminal. ~ '.#
1t is true that measure of encoura ge-
ment was extended by. the government
some years ago to the Zalinski pneumatic
gum that few Sims-Dudley guns for the
shooting of projectiles containing high
power explosives by the use Of powder
nave recently been purchased for use in
CUBA, and that a beggarly $4,000 is now
pelns expended in the construction of a
solid cast steel piece of heavy ordnance
according to the designs by the venerable
Gatling. Yet on the whole this govern
ment has been by far the most niggardly
and unprogre@sive in such matters Of all
the so-called civilized governments de-
clares the New York Press. The Zalinski
gun has not been improved in the Slight
est since the VesuViuS was built the Sims
Dudley gun received no announcement
whatever from us until after the poverty
stricken Cuban insurgents had tested it
ana found 1t good, and the work on the
single heavy Calling gun has now been
IN progress for nearly a year. yet the
piece is still unfinished. Hotchkiss and
Maxim had to go abroad with their ma
chlne guns Tor recognition, and so did
eating with his, as matter of fact since
France made use Of it under the name of
the mitrailleuse, long before we would
have anything to do with it.
AT least four years ago it was known
that better snokeless powder could be
and had been made within twenty miles
OF New York than any producer abroad
yet to-day our brave boys in Cuba are
using the old-fashoned black powder that
betrays their position and thus adds 100
per cent to the fatalities while ignorant
unprogressive Spain has smokeless
powder in abundance. Our infantry rifle
IS away behind the times. because, al
though we have d lew Krag-Jorgensens,
we can by no possibility furnish more
& than small proportion of our soldiers
with them, and must, perforce,- fall back
on the Anticipated Springhelds. And what
is more the foregoing examples indicate
only a few of our many shortcomings in
this ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS due partly to
the steady increase Of bureaucratic meth
DDS at Washington, partly 10 other causes
which need EOt be enumerated here, and
partly to that general false economy
which broaght about the utter lack of
preparat ton for anything but "pping
peace which existed when the Maine
was blown up.
A policy that should lead to the expen-
diture Of thousands or even millions in
hunting for new guns, new powder and
the like would be much better and more
economic in the long runs as Uncle Sam
has lately been finding out at frightful
cost of blood and treasure
1t was eight years ago that John Haml-
ton Brown of New York, experimenting
at GreenVille. N. j., brought new sys-
tenn of heavy ordnance construction to
the attention Of the United States gov
eminent. We had then barely begun
making big guns on the built-up plan now
in use at the Washington and Watervliet
ordnance shops, though England and
every other European power had been
making use of that construction for
period OF time long enough to demon
strate its imperfectons. ..",. +.
These imDerfections have been dwelt
upon so recently in the public prints to
make a detailed recapitulation necessary
here, though it may be said in brief that
the efficiency Of the built-up gun is great
ly impaired after comparatively short
service by the Irregular expansion and
contraction Of the different ''rings'' of
Which it Is made. This impairment has
never been considered serious by the Ger
man authorities who still make use Of
the Krupp buiIt-up ordnance; but Eng.
land abandoned bullt-up guns long ago,
and for years has been replacing her
most expensive pieces constructed accord
ing to that plan with guns Of a wholly
different type.
Pieces of ordnance made according to
the new plans are descriptively known as
wire-wound, segmental guns ai
1t may properly be said that although
? the wire-wOund segmental gun had the
Endorsement Of Gen. Miles and other ex-
perts from the first, there seemed to be
no chance whatever of inducing the gov
ernment to take effective steps toward Its
adoption until recently.
The destruction of the Maine brought
about a great change. That war must
ensue was undoubtedly accepted as a fact
by the administration within twenty-four
hours after the disaster. That being the
case it behooved the government to cease
3 it's policy Of indifference and to adopt
one of encouragement. There were many
throughout the land who believed it pos
sible to whip Spain without much prepas
ration, but that has never been the view
taken by the war department It's chief
saw the need Of calling every resource
into play, and action was promptly taken
on that line with regard to the wire
wound gum contract for fifty pieces
being entered into without delay.
Owing to the previous do-nothing policy,
fve-inch caliber had never been made,
and while it was desired to arrange for
the construction Of larger ones, only i've
inch pieces could be included in the first
contract But the fifty pieces of this
size are rapidly nearing completion, and
Ri if they prove satisfactory contract for
$50 more, of varying size, will be made
at once. A sample, ten-inch piece will be
ready for testing within few weeks.
The. new American gun differs in one inns
81 Dortant particular from all other Wire
Z wound pieces. The foundation of the
8 English gun of this type, for instance. is
u a solid tube, forged and rolled in such a
way as to make it Of exceptional strength
and homogeneity of fiber. 1t is surround
ed by a steel loop or layer of loops, over
which steel wire or ribbon is wound, at
an average tension of about forty-fve
tons, until from nine to seventy-eight lay
Saers have been superimposed.
# The inner tube is made fof segments
varying in numb with the size of the
gun. 1t is believed by those who favor
g this construction that the segmental inner
4 tube is of much greater strength and elias
ITCHY than could be obtained in any other
81 way and this would seem to be borne out
81 by the fact that though the powder. cham
a Der of the fve-inch piece tested was re
peatedly filled from end to end with pow.
der and then plugged up and discharged
81 fl was impossible to burst it. IL should
be stated in partial exDlan ton Of this
extraordinary ghness that the wire rs
wound under a tension Of from IS to- 10l
tons bout double that enlplo yed IN wind
i s ss ssss