New Britain herald., 1917-05-24

out of the gun. Miles away the pro-
 jectfle struck the target.
 Guess that's bad.'' said an old
 man-o'-war's-man looking on admir-
 ingly at the third shot, as the guns crew got the range and the pillar of white water leaped into the air.
 How would that do for Fritzy: Suppose that had been submarine and-''
 The buzzer. the rPar of the gun and the hiss of air interrupted him.
 Another hit! Gee whiskers that's shooting"
 On tho after deck latest arrivals aboard the ship were set to work that day, and every other day, in fact. up- on the loading machines. They con- sist principally of a breach and block and a slide that carries away dummy projectiles and powder bags.
 Officers with stop watches in their hands set one crew after another to work; the dea being to develop ex- treme loading speed by competition. The newest members of the ships companies work for days at these loading machines. The next step in their training carries them to the guns. But they are not yet ready to fire. the regular charges. One pound CTS. that go off with sharp crack. are lashed on top of the big guns and the crews so through all the motions of firing. but instead of a big shell, a little one weighing pound speeds for the target when the buzzer sounds or when the turret captains in charge of the bigger rifles yell 'Fire!"
 Rapid Fire Loading.
 After period of firing with the arrangement the crews get down to real battle practice. There are few buster places than a turret In action. Concave steel walls are all around, and a steel roof is just above CTS sit far forward. underneath the of the guns. Little seats like those on a motorcycle are there for them and on every side are instru- ments. Az the turret begins to ire, , lift, bearing the huge projecticle. bangs up from below. great bags of powder slide from the magazines into ! long brass trough. Husky blue- Jackets toss the powder into another brass trough that is slipped into po- sition at the gigantic breach. Tho almost as large as . man. hes been rolled into the | rough, long automatic rammer has l jumped from the rear and showed 1t nto the barrel. The powder bags are | lriven home. a man at tho breach | wings .. lever, . ton of steel swings ID withra hiss of compressed air. Tho ,reach block turns and locks. a buzz CT sounds, the charge Is ignited and with rush of. air the guns recou bout a yard and then jump back into | position. There is a loud "swish-,l ;wish' as the guns come back and hen go forward. Inside the turret | not much more than that is heard.
 Outside, 1t is much different. There | is flash. a roar, a ring of smoke and he loud whistle of the projecticle rushing through the air. So great is the concussion that every man out tide has cotton or some other sub- stance in his ears to save his ear drums from being broken.
 Fifteen seconds from Commence aring'' to Fire is considered pretty good time for the big guns in the navy. They have new guns crews in training now who never saw salt l water until three weeks ago who are ioinx the thing easily in sixteen sec- onds.
 Some nights the ships of the fleet cruise in waters nearby for night battle practice. Other nights they are anchored in the base waters. where crews are drilled at torpedo defense. The guns are manned and dummy torpedoes and submarines are picked l np by the searchlights and theoretic- ally destroyed.
 The fleet has gained efhciency in torpedo defense. They ten story l in the ward rooms of an American submarine which decided to change It's anchorage without giving notice. The aeet is dark after a certain hour at | night. Not light shows. but the watch is intensely alert.
 One of the deck officers taw tho submarine outline itself and a gun quickly was trained. The submarine was hailed, but the men on 1t failed to hear. The fact that the submer- yible was running behind the patrols l was the only thing that saved It. A gun probably would have blown it to pieces if the maneuver had taken place on the other side of