Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-03-24

thinking people that the seacoast cities
of the United States are not we'll de-
tended. A flood Of new light will be
let into such gloomy minds by the ord
nance exhibit of the Wa Department
at the Pan-American Exposition. When
the exposition opens for its six
months season at Buffalo on May l of
this year, the early visitor will find the
largest and most powerful guardians
of our seacoasts ever exhibited by the
United States government. Even the
smaller of the two great new guns in
the government exhibit at the EXPOSE
ton will be larger than n ever be-
fore displayed by our Uncle Samuel.
Captain Peter G.. Harris, who repre-
sents the War Department, in charge
of the entire wal exhibit, has been en-
gagged actively for months upon his
great work of collecting the newest
display of the kind ever made in this
country. 1t was an absurd question.
perhaps, that I asked when I inquired
if his exhibit would be ready on May
j, as though there were any other al
tentative for a soldier. The captain
looked %reprovingly at me.
But the guns-great guns, indeed;
big around as a locomotive boiler, thir-
ty odd feet long, with a more savage
muzzle than ever coughed destruction
upon any hostile fleet; built with the
accuracy of a watch; so delicate in
adjustment that a little finger may
traverse the gun, thus moving a weight
of nearly half a million pounds. yet a
machine to spout a volcanic blast and
to create an earquake at the will of
man!
The big gun of which ! speak is a
United States Army twelve-inch breech-
loading rife, model of 1895, mounted
upon a disappearing carriage. It's
weight, stripped of everything, even
the breech block, is 115 900 pounds. It's
total length is 36 $500 feet. The max
imum diameter at the breech is AS
inches. 1t throws an armor piercing
shot weighing 1000 pounds, four feet
long, carrying a bursting charge of
1914 pounds of gun cotton. The charge
of powder is 240 pounds Of smokeless
or 400 pounds Of brown prismatic pow
der. The muZzle velocity of the pro-
~jectiles under the above conditions is
$500 feet per second, with a maximum
pressure pei square inch of 81, 1000
pounds. The muzzle energy is 1851
in steel at the muzzle is 800 inches,
at 1000 yards 2S.5 inches, at $500 yards
25.5 inches and at $500 yards at 23.5
Inches. The total weight of the gun
and carriage is AT $50 pounds. The
carriage is twenty-five feet in dame
ter at the base, and the gun when in
firing position is seventeen feet above
the base of the carriage. When the
shot is fired, the reeoil causes the
mechanism to lower the gun seven and
one-half feet, behind the parapet. The
gun has an accuracy of aim for about
eight miles, andg the extreme range is
about double that distance.
AS / have said, guns of this type
have never before been exhibited by
the United States Government, and
they are designed for use in secret
Notifications, to which no visitors are
admitted under any circumstances. The
gun was manufactured at Watervelt
Arsenal. neal Troy, N. Y. The carriage
was made at the Watertown Arsenal,
near Boston. The disappearing car
riage was designed several years ago
by Captain Burlington, now Brigadier
General and Chief of Ordnance, and
improved and adapted to modern steel
rifles by Captain William Crozier, Ord
nance Corps, United States Army. 1t
lis known as the Bufington-Crozier
carriage. The mounting of these NAM
moth pieces of ordnance has been in
the immediate charge of Lieutenant
r. H. C.. Kelton and a small detail Of
artillerymen.
To enable the observer readily to
make an intelligent comparison of the
mounts of our seacoast guns Captain
Harris has caused to be placed by the
SIDE of the great twelve-inch gun a
ten-inch rifle on a barbette carriage. In
a ~barbette carriage the rife is at all
times exposed above the parapet. The
reader may remember the discussion
on the subject between General Miles
and the Ordnance Board, the general
not favoring the disappearing device,
chiefly on account of its complicated
mechanism and its liability to get out
of order. Each carriage appears to
have its particular use. On elevated
sites the parapet furnishes all the pro-
lection required. but on a fiat coast the
disappearing carriages would seem to
possess very great advantage. 1t is
thought that on low sites the rifle must
be mounted either on a disappearing
carriage or a turret. The expense
of a turreJ is estimated at about four