THE MITRAILLEUR AT SHOEBURYNESS.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 743, 22 October 1870, Page 3

THE MITRAILLEUR AT SHOEBURYNESS.

[pall mall gazette.] The experiments which were commenced on the 12th August at Shoeburyn ess with the Mitrailleur possess a high interest at the present moment. It is not often that the. quiet, dispassionate enquiries of the practice ground are carried on contemporaneously with the ruder trials of actual warfare. But in this case, while the French are measuring, with less mathematical precision perhaps, but with a rough and ghastly accuracy, the value of this new weapon, we in England are calmly counting hits upon wooden targets, comparing at our leisure round with round, and informing ourselves as to the potentate value of this instrument of war. No one who was present at Shoeburyness yesterday can have failed to have been impressed with the almost painfully sharp contrast between the conditions under which the Mitrailleur was i being tried there, and those under which the trial was proceeding, perhaps at that very hour on the French frontier. The ultimate practical question is, will the two verdicts agree ? As yet the Shoeburyness trials have not proceeded far enough to enable any confident conclusions to be drawn from them, unless it be a confirmation of the opinion more than once expressed in these columns, that for certain positions, and under certain conditions, these weapons would have a high value. A3 to the exact place of the nrit- . railleur in war we have not learnt much, and it is doubtful whether the Shoeburyneaa experiments ,will ever sufficiently inform us on this point. For this information we shall have to turn to the experience of the French and Prussians ; and it is well to recognise that the success or failure of a particular mitrailleur is a question quite independant of that of its actual military value. Before breechloadingsmallarms were introduced into this* country a committee was required to state whether it would be desirable to introduce a breech-loading rifle — abstractly, and without reference to any particular pattern of arm. That committee decided that it would be desirable to adopt this class o! arm in preference to muzzleloaders ; and straightway the mechanical gunmaking ingenuity of England and half of Europe was directed to the production of an efficient breech-loader, and at this moment our difficulty lies rather in the selection of the best arm than in the choice of a good one. We are suffering rather from an embarras de i'ichesses 1 than from a dearth of good arms. So with regard to the mitrailleur ; we have little doubt that if Ihe Montigny mitrailleur be- really the best arm of the class yet invented, it is destined to be greatly improved upon if once the word goes forth that England requires such an instrument of warfare. The weapon itself, which has already been more than once described in these pages, and the ammunition which is used with it, have evidently many defects of constructive detail. Once turn on mechanical ingenuity to the production of a mitrailleur, and you will get in a short time, we doubt not, a weapon superior to the Montigny as is the Martini-Henry rifle to the needle-gun. And this is exactly the point at which the question has now

arrived. Yesterday's experimenis at Shoebmyness clearly showed that if Eugland is to have a mitraillenr at all she cannot adopt the M n'igny as it stands. Already, indeed, several alterations have had to be made in the arm, and the ammunition which wai on) ployed was exceedingly defective. The basis 'of the cartridges became detached in extricating, greatly interfering with the practice ; the mouths of the cartridges became rucked up on entering the chamber, causing a sensible reduction in the rapidity of fire ; the powder had a suspiciously discoloured appearance which did not augiir well for uniformity ; and difficulties of a serious chnracter were experienced with the strikers. One or two bad jams occurred which, in trials for accuracy and rapidity combined, necessarily militated seriously against the weapon. These defects can, we do not doult, be remedied ; it is only fair to strike them as far as we can out of consideration. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, the mitrailleur may be said to have acquitted itself well. The programme consisted of rapid firing with the mitrailleur, the new Indian muzzleloading field-gun tiring shrapnel and segments, and the 12-pounclei % breech -loading Armstrong gnu firing shrapnel segment and case. Each weapon was allowed two minutes at ranges of 800, 600, and 300 yards, the practice being against a line of thirty 9-f t targets, on the face of which were drawn in chalk rude representati> ns of cavalry and infantry soldiers. It is hardly necessary to observe that practice ot such short ranges is all in favor of the mitrailleur and against the guns. What the guns could do with shrapnel and segment at 800 yards they could do quite as well at double the distance. But at 1000 yards the mitrailleur would be probably wholly ineffective. The result, on the whole, was not unfavorable to the mitrailleur. On some occasions it got the better of tho guns— that is to say, it in some cases placed more men hors ck combat in two minutes than the guns. The maximum effects were, however, we believe, obtained with the guns firing shrapnel aud case, the performance of the muzzle-loader being, both as regards rapidity and effect, superior to those of the breech loader. The principal results obtained were as follows : — The highest rate of fire obtained with the Mont 'guy was six discharges of 37 shots each in two minutes, equal to 222 rounds -a rate of fire less than half that with which the piece has been credited, aud from which some further deduction must be made for cartridges which struck or failed to go off. With the guns, as many as eight rounds of shrapnel and ten rounds of case were got off in the allotted time — a rate of fire which, combined with accuracy, leaves little to be desired.