MODERN ARTILLERY | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 11, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 43.

MODERN ARTILLERY.

THE following from St. Nicholas is of interest inasmuch as it gives some idea of the immense destructive power of modern engines of war:—

So great and marvelous are the powers and the effects of gunpowder and the huge cannon of to-day, that it seems hard to decide which wonder I should first describe. Let us commence with "machine guns," as they are termed. These are guns which, by means of mechanism or machinery, rapidly discharge a great many bullets. The best, as well as the earliest, machine guns are American inventions. The Gatling gun is the invention of Dr. Gatling, a citizen of Hartford, Conn., where also the manufactory is situated. It consists of a number of rifle barrels—generally ten—arranged around a central shaft. At the rear of the barrels is a casing of metal containing the breech mechanism. One man holds a case containing cartridges over an aperture of the casing, and they drop in and fit themselves in the barrels. Another turns a crank which revolves and thereby operates the mechanism inside, so that as each barrel comes underneath, it is discharged, and the empty cartridge shell thrown out. When the man turns the crank twice around he has discharged all the barrels; and as he can turn the crank, if he be adroit, two or three times

a second, it is possible to discharge as many as one thousand shots a minute. Of course no gun can be fired so rapidly very long, for the barrels would get too hot, and all the parts become so fouled with soot and gas as to jam together. A century ago it was thought wonderful that a regiment in the army of Frederick the Great of Prussia could load and fire six times a minute. As there are one thousand men in a regiment, it will be seen that six of these guns, requiring only five men each—thirty, all told—to operate them, could do as much firing as one thousand men one hundred years ago. Indeed, the amount of work accomplished is much greater, since the Gatling gun throws its leaden bullets a thousand yards, and kills at that distance, while the old flint-lock of the Prussians was useless for any range greater than two hundred yards.

The Nordenfeldt and Gardner guns are machine-guns in which the barrels are horizontal and in one plane, instead of mounted together in cylindrical form as in the Gatling. But the most wonderful gun of all is the Maxim gun. This is actually a weapon that loads and shoots by itself. Think of how astonished the ancients would have been if suddenly confronted with one of these machines, a half mile away from them, striking down their men with imperceptible missiles!

It is well known by every boy that when he fires a gun or pistol it gives a backward jump. This is called the "recoil," or, as the boys term it, the "kick;" and it is this force that is made use of in the Maxim gun. The gun consists, unlike the rest, of but a single barrel and a breech mechanism. A long strip holding cartridges is put in position, the hammer released against the first cartridge, and a cartridge is thus fired. The recoil strikes a pin, which puts another cartridge in position, fires it and casts out the old shell, and the next recoil is utilized in the same way. This is repeated until all the cartridges are gone. It is possible to fire as many as 666 cartridges, only the first having to be fired by hand; the gun automatically discharges all the rest.

The famous Mitrailleuse, used by the French in the Franco-Prussian war, fired eighty-five cartridges at once; but they all went nearly to the same mark, and, once discharged, it required some time to load the gun. The new machine guns have a motion from side to side, so that their fire sweeps over a wide stretch of ground and is practically continuous. Going a step further, we have what are called revolving cannon, as the famous Hotchkiss—another American invention. These are cannon similar to huge revolvers, and threw shells from a half pound up to thirty-two pounds in weight, and discharge five to twelve shots a minute.

All cannon are divided into these general classes: 1. Field-guns, or cannon which are light and can be carried about by an army wherever it goes. These rarely throw shells of over eighteen pounds in weight. 2. Siege guns, which are too large to be moved rapidly, but still may be carried from place to place in special wagons, cars, or boats constructed for them, and used in laying siege to places. These throw shot or shell from 18 up to 200 pounds in weight. 3. Sea-coast guns, or permanent guns. These are too large to be moved about, and are mounted on special carriages in sea-coast or other large forts. They throw projectiles of from 100 pounds up to 3,300 pounds, and require the aid of steam and electricity in loading and firing.

As an example of field-guns, a new gun which has just been made for the United States army is, perhaps, the finest in the world. It is made of steel, and weighs less than 800 pounds. It is mounted on a steel carriage and throws a thirteen-pound shell, requiring a charge of three and one-quarter pounds of powder. It will throw this shell, which is a little more than three inches in diameter, over 7,000 yards—that is about four miles—with terrific power and wonderful accuracy.

As yet, in the United States we have no siege or sea-coast guns which will compare favorably with the huge monsters found in European countries. There are a few in the navy, and it will not be long before we shall have in the army many guns which will be quite as good as anything of the kind abroad, and, perhaps, even better.

I said that these huge guns require steam and electricity to operate them. Let us see. Some of these enormous steel shells weigh 3,300 pounds—about equal to the weight of three horses. They are six feet high, and as large around as a man. The gun which fires them is called a 138-ton gun, because it weighs 138 tons. It requires 1,000 pounds of powder to load the guns once. Now, think what a terrific weight 138 tons—276,000 pounds—is to move about. Yet, to aim the gun, it must be moved about. And as it takes some time to load it, all the gunners would be picked off by sharp-shooters if they were not protected. So the gun has to be moved down behind a safe wall or rampart while it is loaded, and then raised up again to be fired. Only steam can do this. Again, such a weight as 3,300 pounds of steel and 1,000 pounds of powder can be lifted and inserted in the gun only by the help of steam. The noise of the discharge and the danger of exploding 1,000 pounds of powder are so great that it is not safe for a man to fire one of these huge guns close by, as he could fire a small one. So electricity is brought into play, and the powder ignited by means of the electric spark.

Now, let us measure the power of these huge machines. A foot-ton is the force with which one ton raised one foot and then let fall, would strike the ground, or the force with which one pound raised two thousand feet from the ground would exert in falling that distance. Now, the force, or energy, exerted by a projectile from one of these huge guns is more than 57,000 foot-tons at a distance of 1,000 yards from the gun. Very few of us can understand what a tremendous power this is; but if we were to take the obelisk in Central Park, and carry it bodily to the very top of the spire on Trinity Church, and then let it fall, it would strike Broadway with far less force; still it would be sufficient to crush any building on which it should happen to fall. These great guns, if they could be given the proper elevation on board ship—that is, if the construction of war-ships allowed the muzzle of the gun to be pointed upward sufficiently—could throw their shells from far outside of Coney Island into the heart of New York City, to crush whatever the missile might strike. Yet this distance is over twelve miles. If one such projectile could retain the velocity with which it leaves the gun—2,000 feet a second—it would reach the moon, 270,000 miles distant, in eight days. Yet, wonderful as are these guns, the limit of their power is not reached; and in a few years more, the present weapons will appear small beside the new ones to be constructed. Before long there will be guns to fire shells charged with dynamite or other high explosives, so that nothing can withstand the bursting shells.

These guns will add to the horrors of war; but some philosophers are of the opinion that it is only by making war so frightful that human beings cannot endure its terrors, that the millennium will be brought about.