The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-12-29

| anu Is the great defensive weapon of ar
| IileIy' Inc case or canister very soon
- ee tus TO pieces after leaving the muzzle
| u the gun, scattering the bullets il con-
taihs IN great cone of dispersion. 1t is
mus only effective for short ranges against
| pouleS OF cavalry or infantry actually
ctoslhg on the guns TO attack them: but at
tneSe close ranges it literally sweeps over
| an the ground in front of the guns, and
| Il appalling in its destructive power The
| snrapnel required much more careful
adaptation to the rifed-gun she'll To the
pest OF my knowledge and belief the man
| from Whom all nations have borrowed the
invention of the rified shrapnel is Col
| rope V. c. He, wishing that England
| should have the exclusive use of his in
| Vehtlon, did not patent it, hut sent it to
one who had the power to introduce it in
| 10 the English service. The recipient did
| so introduce it, and the rifled shrapnel so
| introduced remains the great projectile of
our horse and field artillery For the ex-
| perlence of the war between France and
Germany led to the conclusion that pro-
| Jectile which dealt out destruction among
men was more effective for general pur-
| poses than one which only smashed mate
rial things. Hence, both the Germans
ana we at the end OF the campaign gave
! up the use of the common shelf' and now
fill our wagons and lmbers with shrapnel.
While for defensive purposes We keep a
few rounds of case.
Nevertheless we have recently adopted
an exceedingly powerful weapon tina.
more than replaces the common she'll
During the Peninsular War the guns thar
were then used chiefly employed for the
snort ranges al which they were fired,
solid shot which did not break up like a
shell; but we had also another form of
weapon the "howitzer," which was only
hred with she'll much larger than the solid
shot OF the gun. In order to reduce the
weight OF the piece. and to enable it TO
ne driven easily by horses or mules in the
held, 1t was made very much shorter
than the gun, and as this would have
caused a great recof from the reaction
when the shot was discharged the howit-
ger, instead of being laid, like the gun APP
proximately horizontal was only fired at
nigh angles so that its shells Travelled in
very high curves, coming down on the
enemy from above, while the recoil was
largely downward and was received on a
bed prepared for the purpose. When shell
came TO be so uniformly employed by the
ordinary field guns, howitzers gradually
dropped out of USE and ceased to be any
part OF the ordinary equipment of field
batteries. Circumstances have. however
restored them to favor All nations have
for great many years been trying wheth-
err they could not introduce a more power
| ful explosive than gunpowder as a means
of bursting their shells. 1t happens that
there is very powerful agent long known
to chemists which, if it only could be
made practically available, seemed 70
promise to give very decisive results. This
was picric acid. Its compounds were very
powerful and effective as long as they
were quite fresh, but so tickle was the
t creature that the compounds rap
idly changed their character, de-
teriorated' and became dangerous.
Nevertheless both Germany and
France set to work TO create a compound
of which a picrate should be the basis
such as could be safely used in the field
France uses composition of picric acid
= know as melnite. do not know whether
{ 1t is the case now or not, but few years
| ago France met the difficulty of its rapid
deterioration by making up fresh melinite
and reilng the shells with it every year.
| For us, more especially for our ships la
bic always to be recalled from distant sta
tons to form fleets at home, it was exceD-
/ tionaly important to get over this diff
| Guilty of rapid deterioration involving dan
ger in storage. After long experiments
a form of pcrate was devised which we
| call '1yddite," because the experiments
were carried out at Lydd, one of our great
practice grounds. From trial in various
climates and for long periods it was found
| that, on the one hand, it was possible with
this material to secure adequate perma-
= nence, and. on the other that it was not
! | safe to make it up for small shells. Yet il
was necessary, if possible. to have weap-
ons employing these shells with us in the
{ feld-that is to say, light enough to be
: drawn by horses, so that they could be
: moved about to a reasonable extent with
) | other troops. It was for this purpose
that recourse was again had to the old
! method of the howitzer. A battery" is
six of these howitzers, short pieces firing
? at high angles of elevation, each drawn
, | by six horses, and able to move along
, roads and on good ground at a trot but
usually obliged on difficult ground 10
move up into position at a walk. We
, have now three of these batteries, egh
; teen howitzers in all, on their way to the
, Cape Meantime, by the ingenuity of
naval officer Capt Scott, a substitute for
+ them has appeared at Ladysmth. The
! navy have on board ship a number of
guns which are not placed on carriages
! for moving about with horses and being
, fired from the carriages on which they
thus move. Though not broadSide or
turret guns they are intended to be fired
from fixed platforms. They, though some-
what heavier than the field howitzers, fire
a shell of about the same size. These are
the 47-inch guns the arrival of which at
: Ladysmith made at one time so great
difference in the situation.
We call these guns 4.7-inch because the
= measurement of the diameter or length
= taken across the mouth of the gun is
four inches and seven-tenths of an inch
1t is evident that for projectile of given
length this diameter represents the weight
of the shell which the gun can throw as
well as if we said, what is the fact, that
? the weight of the shell Is fifty pounds
) There is a possibility that yet more pow
erful naval guns. are being used namely
6-inch They would throw a shell of over
100 pounds weight We are told that the
t heavy Boer gun called Long Tom" Is
= a "gi-pounder" That would mean that
60 DO IN
weight. 1t is of much the same character
as the 6-inch, not easily movable. The
3 shells are made to burst by means of two
; kinds of fuses" A fuse is an independ-
r ent body put into the shell and travelling
with IT through the air One kind the
, ..nercussion fuse" is filled with a compo-
) sition and mechanical arrangement such
that when the shell strikes any object suf-
: fcieut to bring it 10 a stop, theN shell is
exploded by the fact OF impact The other
l. ....l,