The bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-07-21
Big coast As; GUNS
MAkENEW RECORD
Sandy Hook ArtilIerymen Beat
the World In Big-Gun Fire.
SIX HITS IN Seven SHOTS
Scored on Moving Target Six Miles
Out ut Sea-AIl Seven Shots Fired
In Four Minutes and Twenty
one Seconds.

HOOK tne OCner Jay, reuSSuFluS LUZ uhy
people of this city who may be dis
turbed from time to time by the peri
odic outbursts of the army critics who
think that the Coast artillery doesn't
know how to shoot. On the contrary
they shoot so we'll that on the day in
question they broke the worlds record
for big-gun fire on range Of over ten
thousand yards. Seven shots We're
fred and six hits scored with a 12-inch
gun playing on moving target some
think over six miles away, 11,12O yards
to be exact.
The target was floating pyramid,
- feet square at the base and Is feet
high, a mere dot on the surface of the
sea to the gunners at Fort Hancock.
And vet 50 accurately did they locate
the dot and gauge the motion through
the water that had the fiimsy pyramid
target been battleship, six of those.
7,OOO-pound projectiles would have
torn through her engine room. There
were not only six hits, but they were
punched hits. And all seven shots
were fred III minutes and 80 seconds.
Furthermore, the target was two or
three miles farther away than a ship
would be before she could get into the
channel that would enable her to come
up within hitting distance Of the city.
Tho Men Who Did Il.
The artillerymeA who made this rec
ord were the members Of the Forty
eighth company, Lieut.. Marcellus II.
Thompson commanding. OF course.
shooting Pinch guns 80 they will hit
something Is their regular job, but that
particular days work did attract some
attention. Zone hit in seven at 10000
yards or over is considered good shoot
ing.) Thompson says his men did it,
and the men say Thompson did it. The
silence Of a 12-inch gun Immediately
before and after is as impressive as Its
roar.
But the supreme instant of it's 81
lence is when It gets up to speak. 1t
has been so we'll fed-1,048 pounds of
steel and 288 pounds of nitrocellulose
this chief speaker at party that
Is sort of international entertain
ment for visiting feet. Lieutenant
Thompson, toastmaster, In a word Of
army lingo and a gesture, makes the
introduction. Somebody releases a,
metal tooth that had locked and held
another metal tooth, and the 81 tons
Of gun gets up above the parapet, rises
20 feet into the air without a sound as
its lead counterweight sinks as silently
20 feet down into the emplacement.
Then, the speech to the audience on
the horizon!
Lieutenant Thompson lodges CON-
pliments and congratulations by ex-
planning how the record shooting of his
company never would have been pos
sible but for the long years Of hard
work and training of the Coast artil-
lery corps as whole under the direc-
ton Of General Murray and General
Weaver.
Fuss About Missed Shots.
The men Of TIE Firty-eighth COM
pany fuss more about the one shot that
missed than the six that hit. They ex-
plain alphabetically that at the instant
the range for the fifth shot (the one
that missed) came over the wire from
the plotting room the gun was fred
and the man at the time-range board
did not hear accurately. He got the
second or third figure beyond the deci-
NAL point wrong, and that made the
next shot fall trife short. But the
very next shot not only came within
the limits of battleship's vitals but
demolished the pyramid target itself.
Before thinking that they must have
been very careless on that lost shot,
try to visualize and "audibilize" what
goes on in the emplacement and the
range-flnding station when they are
firing big guns. Remember that they
fire every half-minute, that thousand
and one things must be done to the
gun between shots, and that with a
moving target each firing involves
brand-new problem Involving a mass
of hifalutin higher mathematics. Also
that you have to know the answer to
each of these problems in 80 seconds.
For each gun there are Is men in
the range section or position finding
service, and they must all agree on the
result, and what they do must be sup
plemented by the ~ men who serve
the gun itself. There Gun be no hitch.
A blunder of one sort will lose q shot.
A blunder Of another sort will destroy
a gun and scatter the fragments of
half a hundred human bodies up and
down the beach.
Again, only 80 seconds in which to
do oil those tremendous things accu-
rately! Teamwork, If ever there was
such thing! You can't say that the
brains of the thing are here or there.
They are everywhere, one great COM
posite brain. ~
How They Do It.
The beginning Of each operation is
in the base-line observation stations,
two observatories 1900 yards apart
on the beach. In each of them man
is observing the moving battleship
through powerful glass; the intersec-
ton Of the crossed hairs in the glass
CATCHES "A STRANGE FISH