The age-herald., 1900-08-10
GREAT WASTE
 OF LEAD IN WAR

Bureau is credited with some calculations and statistics the quantity of powder and lead required to kill man in battle that are more interesting than accurate. It is probable that Major Heath has been msquoted for it is not credible that an ordnance officer could be so absurdly ig- norant of the composition of the cartridges that he handles Possibly the statement that it takes 2o.oO0 rounds of ammunition to kill man is approximately correct, be- ing based upon comparison of the num- Der of rounds issued to an army with the casualties reported by the opposing army but 1t is safe to assume that 1t is nowhere near correct with respect to the ammuni- tion used by the Boers. Accepting 1t, how ever as generally about right, let us take up the rest of the calculation.
 In the statistics, which somebody appears to have obtained from the ordnance office and then mixed up in a hat before using, occurs this statement:
 '"rhe average service rifle in use by the worlds armies shoots a bullet about three inches in length and weighing forty grains the propelling force of which is 1So grains of powder. The 2O.OOO of these which are necessary to kill one man, according to the
 
 166 pounds of lead and 5000 pounds of pow der"
 A cartridge loaded as described would be one of the deadliest inventions of the age, and it would not take 2O,OOO such to kill man. Every one would kill soldier, but the victim would be the man behind the gun. The average service rifle would not withstand the strain of the explosion of 1S0 grains of high pressure smokeless powder in its breeech; half that quantity would burst it; third probably would split it open, and certainly would kick the jaw off. the man holding the piece.
 The three-inch forty-grain bullet must be the latest invention of small-calibre crank gone altogether daft, for it would be of about the diameter of knitting needle, and the rife adapted to it would be a needle gum for sure.
 The modern military rifle carries a bullet about an inch and a quarter in length, three-tenths of an inch in diameter and weighing 1S0 grains. The propellng force is forty grains of smokeless powder. There fore 10000 bullets weigh 514 avoirdupois, or 625 Troy pounds instead of 166 pounds, and the powder IA pounds avoirdupois, or 13S Troy, instead of 5000. The imposing stack of powder barrels placed beside the soldier to illustrate the waste of villainous salt petre in battle will have to be reduced to one barrel, and the man in the scales with the lethal lead on the other side will have to be shown kicking the beam very high.
 On the whole, we are inclined to reject the 2O,0OO to theory as being considerably wilder and more fantastic than MT. Bryan's financial formula, for it leads to absurdi- ties. For instance, in some of the battles of the civil war, 5000 men or more were killed off the Federal side. The bullet used then was much heavier than the modern bullet, and we find by calculation that the Confederates must have fired in of those battles more than 4,000,000 pounds, more than 1000 tons, of lead at the Union troops. It follows also that 10000 men in line of battle would have to fire two vol leys to kill one of the enemy; that 100 men on the skirmish line would use up their forty rounds each and kill only one-fifth of man in a whole days fighting; that the Boers have expended about 2A00OO,00O rounds, or an average of 12,OOO rounds per Boer, to kill and wound Englishmen in South Africa; that it costs $500 in ammuni- tion alone to assimilate Filipino; that
 
 should be the richest and most easily worked lead mines in the world; that the soldier of today is the greatest fool in the world for using gun when he could do so much more execution with fence rail or brickbats. .
 In preparing for war in China, the United States has placed an order for 1000 cart ridges According to the statistics this ,2Fl -.l nyt1Hr out of the fight; a frightful waste of am- munition. The New York police could make a better showing with their clubs against an army of Boxers. /
 The alleged statistics are mere idle and silly guess work, but 1t Is doubtless ESe that vast amount of powder and lead is thrown away in battle by excited and un- trained shooters. The Boers say that some of the Lee-Metford rifles picked up by them within fifty yards of their trenches have their sights raised to the 800 and the 100- yard notches, showing that the British Tommy often forgets to adjust his sights when advancing, and consequently at the short ranges shoots far above the heads of the enemy That explains much of the waste of ammunition and gives clue to many other methods of throwing away cartridges adopted by the untrained rifle man.
 But the Boers have not burned up pow der at any such rate however. The forty men who stormed Spion Kop and killed many times their own number did not start up that mountain with ton of cartridges in each pocket. It is the machine-drilled soldier, the automation who loads aims and fires at the word of command, who sows lead all over the landscape and costs his government fortune in wasted ann munition. The man who knows his rifle as a cowboy knows his horse and his rope. and uses his personal judgment and the skill of a hunter in firing 1t, needs no ann munition wagon at his heels when he goes to the firing line. A hundred skilled hun ters of big game are worth more in the trenches than thousand men whose train- ing with the rifle consists of firing twenty rounds once year at target on meas- ured range. All of which leads to the con- clusion that the way to make troops ef- ficient is to teach them how to shoot and waste less time in teaching them to keep step and hold their guns at precise angle over their shoulders.
 THE ICE WATER 100000