The evening times., 1898-05-17
foot tons: for the Pelayo's 12.5-inch gun
it is 3c,000 TONS and for ner Il-inch 24,JOo

foot tons; for the Pelayo's 12.5-inch gul
1t is 3G,0o0 tons, and for ner u-inch "a To
| tons.
| Usually four of these guns of large cali
Der are mounted on board a battleship
Two of the guns are placed in Il turre'
on the fore and aft line of the ship for.
ward, and two are-similarly situated aft
The advantages of this method Of EN-.
placement are that il allows the creates,
thickness of armor protection to be used
for fixed weight. II offers the poorest
| target to the enemy's guns. II secures the
| maximum weight of fire over the larges,
arc OF train. and a greater number OF
pieces can be mounted in the secondary
| battery without interfering with the arcs
| of fire OF the different guns.
When the turrets are placed as they
were in the Maine, en- echelon. the armor
and guns are out near the sides of the
| ship. making the vessel roll In a seaway,
| though more big guns-when mounted
| cattycornered-can be trained to fire right
| ahead and right astern than when the two
| turrets are on the middle line of the ship
| The practice observable in the most re-
| Gently constructed battleships of foreign
navies is to have the two turrets, with
their pairs of guns, situated as far apart
| as possible. utilizing the space between
for the mounting Of the secondary arma-
ment.
composition of the primary armaments of
our battleships when compared with the
batteries on board foreign bull, ships.
other nationalities as we have said place
in their battleships four guns of large
caliber-l0. II. u or 13-inch-supplemente
by large number OF rapid fire pieces of
4. .. or 6-inch. and to these are added n
still greater number of much smaller
pieces. usually known by the weights Of
the proJectiles fired from them as 3
ana l2-pounders. These three types we
nnd IN our ships. but We have in addi-
tion, an intermediate caliber. the s-inch
gun. and herein lies the peculiarly spo-
Ken OF. for no other battleships the world
over possess this feature. Abroad when
there is difference 1t is not especially
great; thus the Spanish ship Pelayo car
ries two 12-5-inch guns. one in each tur-
ret forward and aft. and two 11-inch guns.
one each in turrets at the side But our
battleships carry four 12 or l3-inch guns
and eight s-inch guns
1t requires considerable time TO load
and fire one of these big guns IL care be
taken to aim properly so as to strike the
target-probably one round in three min
utes Is as fast as the gun can be suffi-
GENTLY handled. The great guns of bat
tleships are great in every sense Of the
word; for instance. the new guns in our
Navy are forty calibers long-that Is. for
ty times the diameter of the bore of the
gun will give the length of the gun: a l2-
inch gun is forty feet long. Some of our
l3-inch pieces are only thirty-five cali !
bers long-about thirty-eight feet. The |
weight of the 1-inch gun alone Is forty |
five tons. that of the 13-inch sixty tons:
the Pelayo's 125-inch gun weights forty |
eight tons. the 11-inch thirty-three tons l
An extremely important point in con- |
necton with all large caliber guns is that |
which relates to the life of the gun. Aft |
er certain number of rounds are fired |
from the gun the piece begins to lose |
It's accuracy. owing to defects in the bore
due to what Is called erosion, which is
the wear and tear of the rifling. 1t has
been intinated that 13-inch gun: can be
nred only about 800 times before the bore
VIII begin to show signs of wearing out:
| Pinch gun can be fred about 400 times