The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-03-24
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gatig Eagle
N. NJ. MURDOCH. Editor.
HOW WE CAN SHOOT.

Within a week the appeal of the
american people to the government
at Washington may be: Look to your
coast defenses and man the navy"
The war, If it comes, will not be one
Of charging cavalry and moving col
Gmns of infantry, but booming coast
guns and mortars and broadsides from
Snen-of-war, Of exploding mines and
torpedoes and charging rams and
rushing cruisers. It will not be a hand
st long range. The firing of big guns
has become a science which includes a
knowledge of mechanics and which ne
eessitates the firing of cannon from
z vessel moving a dozen or twenty
knots an hour at another vessel NOV
ing more or less rapidly in an opposite
direction, in which distance, time and
motion must be most accurately meas
hred. A naval gunner is required to
hit his target perhaps miles distant,
ind which he cannot see. Under the
old method he simply pointed his piece
at vessel a quarter of q mile or so
away, moving under sail, perhaps at
the rate of four miles an hour. The
mortar battery in the coast fortifca-
ton is placed in a deep pit with NOR
tars capable of throwing a thousand
pound projectile six miles The gunner
cannot possibly see the object he is
expected to hit. He must depend upon
the science of the thing, throwing dis
tance, power of powder, range Of the
projectile, etc. The Cincinnati Times
Star says that for several years the
board on the regulations of sea coast
artillery fire has been preparing the
system Of fire control and direction for
sea coast forts, and their report has
just recently been adopted by the sec
rotary of war. In active service each
fort would be organized into one or
more fire commands, each of the lat
ter divided into groups" under each
commander of which Would be the
r'gun directors" each in charge of a
single gun. Each 1-inch gun requires
fifteen men-not including men for
magazine range finder, reIocator serv-
ice or allowance for casualties. The
''group" commander by the system of
polar co-ordinates, ascertains the po-
eition of the approaching hostile ship,
say at a distance of five miles; he
makes calculations as to the position
the ship will be in in a certain time;
sufficient to set the guns, fire them and
the shot to reach its object; gives the
gunner. who cannot see the ship, a GER
tain elevation and azimuth, or angle of
direction, by which to set his gun, and
the huge piece is set and fired. By the
use Of the position finder and with
practice officers can become remark
ably accurate in their calculations, and
the possibility of the shot reaching its
intended object, despite the distance,
amounts to probability.
In order that a layman may under
stand what remarkable mechanical and
engineering work has been necessary
to render practicable the huge 12-inch
gun, Capt. J. c. Ayres of the ordnance
department gives some interesting
facts. The 1,-000-p pound projectile leaves
the gun travelling 2,100 feet a second,
nearly half a mile a second. The en-
ergy developed by the sun to accom-
plish this is $3.50 foot tons. This is
5000 foot tons greater than the energy
stored up in a train of cars comprising
Cotton locomotive and eight sleepers
of thirty tons each, or 800 tons in all
travelling at a rate of fifty miles an
hour. Railroad men think it marvellous
that the Westinghouse air brake will
stop such a train within 500 yards So
great, however, has been the engineer
ing and mechanical skill in the army
that the recoil of this gun is stopped by
hydraulic brakes without jar in four
feet.
The veteran, who in modern war
would be as much out of his element
as a newcomer, whether in infantry,
cavalry, artillery or the navy, can APP
preciate some of the advances by COM |
parsons. During the civil war the
greatest gun was the 15-inch smooth |
bore. This had only a muzzle energy
OF 1857 foot tons; the 16-inch gun Of
today has a muzzle energy of 64OS4
tons. These delicately adjusted weap-
ons only weigh sixty tons and hurl a
1,Oo0-pound projectile at a speed of
over 1900 miles an hour. The old gun
carriage was a simple support for the !
trunnions, which, in the recoil, ran |
back upon an inclined pair of rails and |
were checked by friction and the dead !
weight of the gun. The recoil of the |
modern gun is so great that it requires |
the wonderful hydraulic brake
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