The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-04-15
WHEN THE BATTLEsHIPs MEET.

! Now every one expects war with
Spain, and expects that it will be
! chiefly a naval war. Every one knows
| that the modern warships carry great
guns of tremendous destructive power;
that they will shoot miles, and if their
projectiles hit the object aimed at that
they viii do much execution. But it is
very doubtful if two vessels firing at
each other at the distance of three or
four miles would inflict much harm on
each other. and this chiefly for he
against hitting each other; if the war
ships of the two countries shall come
to close quarters then the world Will,
in all probability. see such fighting as
it never saw before.
a lieutenant attached to one of our
battleships now at Dry Tortugas, writ
ing of life on shipboard, incidentally
speaks of target practice. We quote
what he says from the New York
Commercial Advertiser:
We have had so much target prac-
tice that every one feels quite expert.
Indeed one old jacky, after being COM
!
Piled: We'll, sir, l couldn't see the
small target through the sights, so
had to just calculate on it." What
couldn't a man like that do to the
dagos? Not a thing" as the boys
say. We have literally been popping
away in some way or another daily now
for weeks, and we ought to do fine
shooting. The target practice we had,
coming from coaling at Dry Tortugas
Monday, was rather disappointing, as
we found being under way made it
much more difficult. One tweIve-irich
shot fell fully mile over the target,
and as these guns cannot be loaded in
much less than minute and half.
miss with them is most disastrous
Still, though, even this would probably
have hit somewhere in the enemys su-
Derstructure.
Some interesting facts regarding ma
rine artillery are given in an article in
an Austrian military journal, and
translated for the Literary Digest. on
the subject Of modern warships and
their fighting capacity, it says:
The power of modern guns of heavy
caliber is such that every projectile
which does not hit a thickly armored
part, or strike at a very acute angle,
must cause frightful destruction in the
interior of a vessel. But as the heavy
almor covers hardly more than a third
of all parts visible above the water
line. it is more likely that an IN
armored part is hit than that ar1nor
Will be struck. One lucky shot can
disable a ship, a few lucky shots may
decide a battle. 1t is this considera-
ton which causes the Germans to be
so specially careful in the training of
their marine artillery. But it is not very
likely that the percentage of hits will
increase in future. The increased speed
of the vessels prevents that Ships
armed with the heaviest ordnance can
begin to fire at a distance of 5000 or
1000 meters (31a to AZ miles); with
guns of a somewhat lighter caliber, at
5000 TO 5000 meters. The heavy guns.
indeed, carry much farther: but il
would be useless waste of ammuni-
ton to fire at a ship more than three
or four miles away, and a modern ship
cannot afford to waste it's ammunition
any more than its coal. With modern
facilities for loading, a battleship coul1
fire away its entire stock of ammuni-
ton in less than an hour. and who can
say that il will be quickly replenished?
Then come some statistics from the
British admiralty reports as follows:
only two of the 1o1 ships that are
considered in the report still carry
muzzle-loaders. OF these the InfleXible
fred eight times with its enormous l6-
inch caliber guns. The Dreadnought
fired 16 times with its 15-inch guns. No
hit was recorded. The same was the
case with 13 shots fired by the Benbow
and Sanspareil SISTER ships of the I'M