Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1899-08-28
WORK OF 5-INCH HOWITZERS.
Havoc Wrought 10y Them to Mahdi'S
Tomb at Omdurman.

The last issue of the Proceedings of
the Royal Artillery Institution" con-
tains some very interesting particulars
as to the performances of the 5-inch
Howitzers which wrecked the mahdi's
tomb at Omdurman, this being the first
occasion on which high explosives
have been fired inactual warfare. These
weapons fire a she'll weighing fifty
pounds, and in those used at Omdur-
man the bursting charge was four
pounds fourteen ounces of lyddite.
The new shell now supplied. however,
contains nine pounds fifteen ounces of
this explosive, and has been proved to
still more effectual than it's predeces-
sor. The latter is 80 caEbers long,
while the new shell is 3.65 caliEbers in
length. In Egypt the gun was
'Thorsed" by eight mules, the weight
hauled being forty-fve hundredweight,
inclusive of two rounds of case over
and above the proper equipment OF the
gun. These mules were fitted with
pack saddles, SO that once the guns
were in position the team could be used
for bringing up the ammunition, one
mule being able to carry four shells,
or two boxes of cartridges. With this
arrangement for transport a good fire
could, it is stated, be maintained, even
when the ammunition base was as
much as two miles from the gun. The
cartridge used is loaded with cordite,
and the charge can be varied with
great ease. This is often necessary,
though it was not done at Omdu1rnan,
owing tn the fact that the direct-action
fuse with which the shell is fitted will
not act with certainty unless fired at
an angle of 10 degrees, the range with
the full charge being then 1000 yards.
At Omdurman the ranges varied from
5000 yards down to 1850 yards, the
former requiring an elevation of Is de-
grees and the latter one of 6 degrees.
at the shorter range there we're some
blinds, the shell failing to explode. The
new shells are, it was announced, to be
fitted with fuse which bursts on
Craze The difficulty in arranging
this lies in the safety of the gun at
tachment in case of premature" in
the gun. This difficulty has now, it
seems, been surmounted, and the shells
will burst on striking horizontal
ground after being fired from an eleva-
ton of 2 degrees only.
The fuse actually used at Omdurman,
though failing in the respect named,
proved in other respects very satisfac-
tory, and the detachment were able to
stand UP to the gun with as much conf
dence as if firing common shell. The
hole blown in the dome of the mahdi's
tomb by the shells measured twenty
feet in height by twelve feet in width,
the walls being two and one-half feet
thick. Single shells again blew holes
through the citadel walls, which were
twelve feet to twenty feet high, six feet
thick at the bottom and four and one
half feet at the top. The gun-boats
were able to fire down the main street
through one of the holes thus made.
In some cases, with walls only one foot
thick, the shells got through before
bursting. The moral effect then seems
to have been very great. The space
covered 10y the fragments of shell in
bursting is very large, and General
Brackenbury stated that with an s.
inch Howitzer at Okehampton a frag-
ment of shell, which had burst 1000
yards away, came back among the gun
detachment. AT an experimental firing
at Cairo a range party stationed 1000
yards from the target had to move,
being still within the danger zone.
The head and base of the shell each
break up, it is stated, into four or five
fairly large pieces, while the walls fly
into much smaller fragments. Against
unsheltered men battery of fifteen
pound field guns firing shrapnel is, it
is stated, more effective than a Battery
of these HowitZers, but the latter are
much superior when the men are be-
hind cover, which shrapnel is unable
to search out. Lyddite has now been
fired from guns of as much as ten
inches in diameter, and the fuse
adopted is SO safe that even with black
powder as the propellant therehas never
been a premature. Engineering.