The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1898-06-13

SMALL ARMS
FOR NAVY
Guns and Ammunition Of
Little Value.
THE PECULIAR POLICY
Adopted BY Certain Permanent
Officers Of Department.
DIFFERENT GALLERIES USED.

NEW YORK, June is.--[Special. Little
by little the people of New York are be-
ginning better TO understand that 1t re-
quires vast deal Of preparation to prose-
cute q war. preparation which cannot
properly be done in a few days or weeks,
preparation we are even now making in
confused haste and under great difficulties
not yet ready to carry ON hostilities with
the vim and vigor which are'desirable.
As to who is to blame for this unreadi-
ness there are, of course, many and widely
divergent views here as well as elsewhere,
which need not be rehearsed. At the same
time, II is interesting to note the constant
growth of the belief that, whatever may be
the shortcomings OF the men now In pow
or, those who had authority before them
and In turn those before them for years
and years must bear their full share of the
blame, and that perhaps more than any
men or set of. men the sentiment 30 prev
alent among the people until lately that
we need never have another war is at the
bottom Of IL all. Little by little, too, IL IL
leaking out that some of the permanent
authorities of the navy have been at fault;
that, although every member of that
branch of the national forces seems now
to be doing first class and prniseworthy
work, part Of the unreadiness Is due TO
tho stand taken some years ago by officers
now high In the service.
Ine6sctivs Naval Small Arms.
In substantiation Of this I am going TO
transfer to cold type the talk Of one Of the
boat informed men In the United States
regarding naval officers, man whose
words carry weight with every naval and
military authority In the world. / give
this report with his full permission,
though am allowed to quote neither his
name nor the names of others whom he
mentioned to me-
ssFor some reason, said this man, "the
small arms for use In the navy are made
of different caliber from those in use by
the army. As to which Of the calibers So
lected Is tho better I do not care to give
an opinion. A bullet from either an army
rDrA navy rife would surely kill any man
who should get In its way. But one obvi>
Gus mistake In the policy adopted was In
having different caliberv, rs this neces-
sitates the making of cartridges and bull
lets of two sizes and the maintenance OF
duplicate manufacturing plants and rem
ders 1t impossible to use naval ammuni-
lion by the army or army ammunition at
sen. The dcplorabie fact that the ammu-
milton Is not interchangeable has been re-
ferred to moro than once, however, In
print and otherwise, and will not dwell
on IL, especially as 1t Is not the worst of
shortcomings Of which wish to speak.
when. the present naval small arm was
adopted, the naval authorities made stu
pendous blunder with reference TO the
riding of the pieces. II is virtually the
universal practioe to so rife small arms
that the bullet win turn only once, or at
most once and q half, In travelin.s the
length of the barrel This rule Is the re-
suit Of long practice and expensive expert
n1ents and 10 undoubtedly sound. But the
naval authorities ordered their rifles 80
constructed that the bullet would turn no
less than seven times in traversing the
tarrel.
Unavailing Protests.
"If you were well posted in the science
II gun building, this statement would
astound you as the fact did astound every
practical gun man who heard about It.
This being the oase, you can readily un-
derstand why many protests against
adopting the plan were promptly lodged
with the government.
"The burden OF the protests was, first,
that such riding would diminish the range