The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-03-30

1--WE Explosions at Intervals necessary
TO Sustain Driving Power to Mark
Rarifed Air Is an Aid to the Process
of Propulsion.
NEW YORK, March 30.-A plausible
explanation OF the German artillery
achievement of dropping shells into
Paris from distance estimated at
from so to 70 miles was offered yester-
day by a New York engineer. He be
Hevcs he knows the German engineer,
for years an officer in the kaiser s
navy, which made the feat possible.
/ The New York scientist who de-
scribed yesterday what he has reason
/ to believe is the method which the
Germans ere employing in their I'M
p9ceedented accomplishment in gunnerv
/ is John uckley of l57 Richmond
street, Cypress Hills. an engineer OF
experience throughout the country,
who has made n special study of in
terror and exterior ballistics for sever
al years
During 4 hunting trip in Colorado in
/ 1910 the German naval oberlieutenant,
whose name is Ernest Eggers, and Is
described by Mr. Buckley as a man
now middle aged, of great ability, I'M
folded i'm a burst of campfire conf
deuces the idea which the German ma
val engineer had submitted to his gov
H., I,,.ly Law i
confident is responsible for the shells
which officially are reported to he drop
ping in Paris at long intervals. The
present state Of world affairs, Mr.
Buckley believes, releases him from
any feeling he might have had hereto
lore that the German inventor would
: mot want even 4 general description Of
, his idea made public here.
The idea of firing shell over st
, great n range did not include anything
suggesting an extraordinary gun fo'
the initial discharge OF the proiectil,
3 las Obcriicuterant Eggers outlined tn,
,slan ~ the AmsEieaae 2nGineer. Il
1Gntcchnirai language INC whole ide;
was based upon shells within shells
lamiuatcd, or multi-eharged, proiec
tile. with an outer casting of stee
which would Toe fired from a long bar
relied gun.
As the initial Click sent the lamin
atel proiectile high in air the quite
casing i'm turn would form "a gun
containing second she'll OF cours
slightly smaller. which would he time
to explode out Of the outermost caStin
lust before the apex of the arc OF tn
initial saot had been reached. With
the second shell would be third, whic
in turn had been timed to cxplod
- from the cncasement of the second prc
y icctilc just before the apex OF high
i Of the second shell was reached. An
So the flight would be increased unit
five explosions in all had been attained
2 counting the initial propulsion froI
k the gun on the ground.
4. Oberlicutenant Eggers, who gave I
Mr.. Buckley the details Of submittin
his idea 10 his government, but woul
u not saF what progress, ii any, had bee
made by the German ordnance autho
- itics III working out the projectil
dweIt upon the fact that each she
would be rifled within to preserve Il
spin and therefore the original d
rcction-ot the succeeding proicctile
The bits of the shells picked up
Paris showed they were rihed. Tt
German had figures to prove, at lea
to his own satisfaction, that before Il
fourth and last shell began to cur,
downward it would reach "a height
q, from 40 to 10 miles above sea level.
~ The rarcfed aerial conditions
Nv which the successive explosions were
ID. take place as the shell climbed high
es. and higher were depended upon by t
We German inventor to compensate large
nt. for the lack of momentum which I
ny explosions themselves naturally won
" cause. Also he had taken into accou
the fact that his subsequent aerial d
charges would not be fired from inert
a but from a fast flying gun alrea
q in a state of high momentum VIII
Sa fired. And he explained that char
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