The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-26
COAST DEFENSE PROBLEMS.

Extensive preparations for coast de-
tense are being made. Having entered
the lists, Uncle Sam is bound to hold.
his own. As the anti-expansionists have
it, he is trying to hold more than his
own. Be that as it may, the time has
come when our long stretch of coast
line cannot be left unprotected, when
our coast cities can no longer remain
an easy mark for a hostile fleet.
The defense armament most desired
can best be obtained, it is declared, by
having recourse to a Gruson turret
These are manufactured by the
Krupps, who are willing. with fair in
ducements, to locate a plant in this
country, in conjunction with some Am
erican manufacturer, but they refuse
to disclose the secret process, which
they control, for making chilled cast
iron armor
To protect the modern coast defense,
rapid-fire guns, which are to be
strung along our shores, at irregular
intervals, it is deemed advisable to get
the best known armor of defense.
According to a statement given out
by the war department, the Germans
employ coast-turrets at the mouth of
the Elbe, and the Itali"ns possess one
of the Krupp turrets mounted on the
island of Palmyra, near Spezzia. The
plates of these turrets have a thick
ness of thirty-six inches. The cost of
the Italian turret was 81, 200 900, indie
pendently of the guns inside. The
chilled cast-iron plates of a Gruson
turret are practically indestructible. In
experimental tests these turrets have
been attacked by the heaviest calibred
guns, but without doing much damage
to the system. The turrets are dome
shape, and lie very close to the ground,
the only weak part of the arrangement
being the exposed gun barrels. The
turrets can defend the breech sections
Of the contained heavy rifles, but that
is all. The plates of the Gruson turrets
are mortised before they are erected
into place. No bolts are employed, and
the interstices between the sections are
filled in with molten white metal
which, on cooling, unites the entire
mass.
But they are expensive A Gruson
turret, with its emplacement one large
enough to successfully defend the lower
New York harbor under ordinary cir
cumstances, will cost in the neighbor-
hood of 100000.
Besides the Gruson turrets, the en-
gineers and experts favor overhead
shields for the more advanced guns
now mounted on disappearing car
riages. Recent experiments abroad
have demonstrated that at ranges of
1000 to 5000 yards a gun-pit can be eff
fectively cleared by the shrapneI fire
from a ship.
German authorities say that a six
inch quick-fring naval gun, at these
ranges, can keep down the fire of any
open pit in existence. The English are
using overhead shields in their coast
defense system, and are thoroughly
welded to the practice, while the pres
ent American gun positions are open in
the rear and unprotected overhead.
Although it may be necessary to So
licit outside aid in the manufacture of
turrets, owing to a closely guarded Sc
cret in the possession of the Krupps.
the best guns as well as the best ships
in the world are being made in the
United States.
The new sixteen-inch gun now at the
Watervliet arsenal is almost finished.
1t viii be the crowning triumph of gun
manufacture. 1t will be the most
powerful piece of ordnance in the
world. It's length will exceed by nearly
five feet the monster gun which the
Krupps exhibited at the Worlds fair
in 1898, and which is now employed for
experimental purposes on the Meppen
range in Germany.
The projectile for this American gun
Will weigh, approximately, one ton.
The ordnance experts have calculated
that if velocity of 1850 feet can be
obtained, the new gun, when given an
angle of elevation of forty-four degrees.
will have a range of sixteen miles. And
the possibilities of the new smokeless
powder are very great.
After all, if worst comes to worst.
Yankee ingenuity and American cour-
age and industry are always to be de-
pended upon. All they need IS abso-
lutte freedom from departmental Job
berry and those millions for defense
that have been always ready for any
emergency.
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