El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-12-05
Ordnance Bureau of the United states

Ordnance Bureau Of the United States
navy.
There is, of course, the question of
the powder charge TO be considered
mat is 10 say the charge tnat fires the
aerlaI torpedo from the gun. It is
oesII& ~ Ior the sake of greater saftey
ana TO avoid danger of breaking the
proJectlle, to use a low initial pressure,
and to obtain this a. slow burning DOW
der. should be employed. There are
various means whereby a gunpOwder
may be made to burn slowly, one of
them being to coat the grains with a
substance that retards combustion.
The torpedo gun of 24-inch caliber
VIII require the same powder charge
as an ordinary 12-inchr rife. 1t will
De longer than the latter by seven and
a MALT feet. But it will be of only
-DcG1 me same weight, and it will cost
p" bUild. When il is con-
sidered that the torpedo cruiser will
carry only one such weapon, the saving
as compared with the battleship
equipped with twelve great guns-is
obvious. AS for the two mortars,
their cost will be only a fraction Of
tnat Of the secondary qpick-fire bat
terry of a dreadnaught which Is not
meant for use in battle, but merely
Tor defence against torpedo craft.
VIII Not Penetrate ArmOr.
''The object of the aerial torpedo Is
! not to penetrate armor. There is no
| need Hence there is no necessity for
a nat trajectory. Or to put the mat
ter IN other words, the high velocity
for the projectile is not required; all
| that is wanted is that it shall get
| there. The modern development Of
mortars has proved that high angle
| fire may be quite as accurate as that
which is directed straight at the target,
SO that this point would not seem to be
| OF any Importance. weapons of this
/ kind, hidden behind the rim of an ex-
vol nr17 II In
/ in Hawaii, and discharging explosive
/ shells toward the sky at an angle of
1 40 degrees, can throw them with such
/ accuracy as to drop them with fair GER
! tainty upon the deck of an enemy S
warship six miles away.
| The nearest approach to my idea
1 of the torpedo cruiser and its weapon
/ of offense is offered by the already
/ tried and rejected method of throwing
| high explosives by compressed air.
/ allude, of course, to the Zalinski gun
| invented by an ot1icer OF the United
States navy and utilized Con board OF
the cruiser Vesuvious) in the Spanish
war.
zone manifest objection TO such
| pneumatic guns is the shortness OF
their range. Another is found in the
cost and convenience of the huge
plant of engines, boilers, and air COM
pressors they require.
The Sandy Hook Experiement.
than a dozen years ago, guns Of this
type, of 15-inch caliber, were installed
experimentally at Sandy Hook, near
New York, They threw shells contain
ing 500 pounds Of high explosive dis
lance of mile and a quarter. Shells
containing 200 pounds of guncotton
carried twice that far. This was a
maximum range.
TT is obvious that a practical sys-
tenn of throwing aerial tOrpedoes must
have a range to that of the high-power
guns of the adversary.
with the advent of a method OF
throwing high explosives in sufficient
" large masses to render ship armoT
| useless, the navies of the world will
| discard armOr, and everything will be
made subservient to speed and mobility.
Necessarily this will work revolution
in the construction of ordnance and
ships of war. Guns will be Of much
greater caliber, without increasing
their weight. Projectiles will be thin
shells merely carriers, with walls
thick enough to transport the mass OF
guncotton Cor other contained expo
sive) in its flight from the gun. And
the explosive itself will be delivered
! upon the target in quantity suticien'