The suburban citizen., 1902-01-04
TRIALS FOR FIELD-GUNS
RIGOROUS TEST THEY UNDERGO
BEFORE ACCEPTANCE.

Fifty shots to Test the Gums Accuracy.
The ingenuity inventors have dis
played in simplifying and perfecting
the fieldpiece, the long, slender weapon
Of that dashing service, light, flying
! artillery, has remarkable parallel in
the methods devised by ordnance ex-
perts to detect the slightest fault of
design or construction In these pieces.
If the inventor has lain awake o.
nights over his gun, so, apparently,
has the ordnance expert 1t is skill
against skill; not that the designer
or builder has the remotest idea Of inn
posing an inferior weapon upon the
inventor (he could not do that If he
tried, because the gun is of Uncle
Sans own make The aim of the
expert Is to aid in improving the
weapon, destructive as his method
may seem to be. He feels it Is his
duty to submit the gun to a series
service conditions-that is, upon the
haps and mishaps it would encounter
in the field-are of magnifed severity.
This means that when the fieldpece
shall have withstood the trial it may
rest assured in its own inner conscious
ness that 1t is a very fine gun indeed,
and that 1t is extremely unlikely, even
in the trying time of warfare, to have
to bear up under such burdens.
These elaborate and exhaustive tests
are now being made at the Govern
ment proving ground at Sandy
Hook Experiments-this would seem
to be a better word than "tests'-are
being tried with field pieces of four
models, two of them Of foreign de-
sign, the others American, one being
the Government piece
The ability to fling its small, swift
missile at an enemy is only part OF
what is demanded Of the light artil-
lery weapon. Warfare imposes real
hardships upon it from the moment it
is ordered to the front 1t must with
stand the stress of weather, the jolt
ing and jarrlng Of rough roads; it must
stand a wetting, even be effective when
unavoidable rust has occurred: it must
be able to do its duty with defective
ammunition, although this is primarily
test of ammunition itself, and do its
work willingly, cheerfully, If you will,
as II it had been reared under a glass
case.
For such a demonstration of service
ability the War Department, through
its Ordnance Bureau lays down rigid
rules covering a wide range. They
| begin with the requirement that the
: gun shall fire at least two rounds with
excessive powder charge TO develop
the enormous chamber pressure of A.
coo pounds-twenty-tw tOns-to the
square inch, and end with a practice
march of $50 miles over country roads.
Even then the Board of Ordance and
Fertilization may not be satisfied, so
it leaves the door open by saying that
any other tests seeming necessary will
be conducted.
While the fieldpiece is a comparative
ly small weapon, ii weighs, behind
horses, in the neighborhoOd of 1000
pounds. The shell used in it weighs
fifteen pounds, and it leaves the piece
at muzzle velocity Of 100 foot-sec-
onds.
| When the tieldpiece is ready for test,
the experts devote themselves first to
its mechanism, scrutinizing it as the
horse in the show ring is scrutinlzed
with critical eye to its simplicity of
action, its certainty, and how readily
| injured parts may be removed and new
parts substituted. Then it must under
20 the dust trial, in which sand and
dust are blown into the gun, into all
parts Of the mechanism, and the rust
test to determine whether it is ef-
fectiye when water has been allowed
to cover the piece.
Fifty shots are fred to test the ac-
curacy of the gun, the target being
$500 yards distant. When it comes
to rapldlty, the piece is fred ten times
without aim from a loan platform
then ten shell and ten shrapnel are
fired for both rapidlty and accuracy,
from clay platform. TO determine
the maintained rapidity forty-6ve shots
are fired. The behavior of the gun, the
recOil and the jump, which is the de-
parture from the line Of fire, are care
fully noted. In one test the trail of
the gun, that part which rests upon
the ground in the rear of the piece,
Is braced against stake. The gun Is
elevated and depressed to its extremes
and then fred, and it Is even wheeled
upon rocks and discharged, and then
moved to plowed ground and dis.
charged again, in order that service
conditions may be counterfeited.
The ammunition is dealt with quite
as severely. Metallic ammunition il
immersed for five minutes in water
and then made to stand for twenty
four hours before being fired. The
humidity test is at 100 degrees f., witt
humidity Of ninety-hye degrees This
is maintained for thirty days, and after
that the ammunition is expected tC
be unharmed.
From the gun ana The ammunition
the experts turn to the Timber anG
/ 81, 1.