The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1916-05-19
SECRETS OF A Gun
The Famous French Is and Its
Wonderful Mechanism.
1T HAS TWO HIDDEN DEVICES.
These Are the Fuse Setter and the Re-
coil Absorber, and They Make This
Monster Weapon Most Fearful En-
gine of Death and Destruction.

Monster Weapon Most Fearful En-
gine of Death and Destruction.
What is 70? By this is conversa-
tionally understood a French field gun,
the caliber, or interior diameter Of the
bore, of which is seventy-five MILNE
ters. incidentally it is the finest man
killing machine the world has vet
known.
In 1898 France surprised the armies
of the world by the introduction of an
artillery weapon which till then had
only existed in the dreams of experts.
Till this period the slowness of artil-
| lery fire was due to the fact that after
the gun was laid and fired the shock
of discharge so upset the aim that the
gun had to be relaid for a second shot
The rapidity of fire thereupon became
matter of how quickly and accurate
| ly gun could be laid by the personal
skill of the layer The French. seek
ing artillery progress and confronted
with the inexorable shortness of their
conscripts' period of training, sought to
improve in mechanism what they could
not improve in personal skill.
Briefly, the new French field gun of
| 1893 ceased to be attached to its axle
tree, but was attached instead to a
| buffer in a cradle, which not only abb
| sorbed the shock of recoil but ran back
the gun SO exactly into its former po-
| sition that no second laying was neces-
| sary.
The primary trouble OF laying having
| been got over, rapidity of fire appeared
to have been attained. Experiments
then proved that. though rapid rate
Of fire was possible, this rate was only
| as fast as that at which the gunners
could adjust the fuses OF the shells.
How now improve the rate of fuse
! setting? This task was and is a mat
| ter of meticulous accuracy, needing
| careful training to be done correctly
Moreover, ii could not be hurried, since
a shell badly fused by ever so little
was not only innocuous to the enemy
| but was a danger to ones own side
| Once more the French put aside any
idea of brisking up the personnel and
| invented machine to set the fuse
| The details Of this fuse setter are still
a secret. Let it suffice that it is sim
! pie, accurate and very rapid in its
work Thanks to it and to the steadf-
ness of the gun after each discharge,
the French field gun is easily capable
of twenty-five aimed rounds a minute.
One more word about the recoil alb
sorber and the secret thereof. The
recoil is taken up by a cylinder be-
meath the gun, which contains a COM
bination of glycerin, compressed air
and springs. 1t is this combination
and the exact proportions thereof
which make the secret of the gun 1t
! is not even aScertainable from a cap
tured gun, since If you take a cold
chisel to it and try to examine the
works by opening the buffer the COM
pressed air escapes, and the secret
which lies in its density evaporates
with 1t.
Having solved the question of the
rate of fire you would have thought
that the French would have been con-
tent. Not they! Range and accuracy
We're successfully taken in hand. Muz-
zle velocity, which, after all, means
range was increased not by increasing
the charge and with it the thickness
of the gun that withstood it, but by
lengthening the gun to a hitherto un-
| heard of extent and giving 1t a slow
burning propellant.
The temptation to put in a lighter
shell and so get it farther on the same
bang was successfully resisted. The
designers never lost sight OF the fact
that the primary object of the gun
was to deliver death to It's enemies al
the greatest speed, range and effective
ness possible SO they concentrated
| their energies on man killing shrap
mel which in the end weighed sixteen
pounds and left the gun on its long
journey at the unprecedented pace OF
/, 1,739 foot-seconds.
And there you have the present
shrapnel.
Tactics here began to get mixed uI
with mechanics and ballistics. 1t was
pointed out that troops would not al
ways remain in the open to be whitfield
out of existence by shrapnel. Rather
would they get under cover at what
speed they might So shell to dea
with entertainments, buildings and for
tifcations was indicated. Here agar
careful thought showed the need OF
accurate gunnery and stlll higher We
Iocity in the shell which, being more
local in its effects, could not be allowef
the same latitude in its action as itS
shrapnel confrere.
SO a high explosive shell weighing
only 11.68 pounds was introduced
Thanks to the chemists this time, IL
contents were of such startling na
ture that its weight became d second
ary consideration 1t raced away OF
its mission at velocity at that time
unequaled even by the latest smal
bore rife and when it exploded itS
melinite charge blew great holes in tn
scanerU - pOuSsa (yaillouXs In BLACK