THE NAVAL GUN.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 706, 23 September 1914, Page 2

THE NAVAL GUN.

AN INTERESTING COMPARISON. FROM GREAT HARRY TO DREADNOUGHT. The naval gun has had an interesting history. James' Military Dictionary says that-cannon were used as early as the thirteenth century in a naval engagement between the King of Tunis and the Moorish King jf Seville. The earliest mention in the records of the Royal Navy, however, is in 1358, an "Indenture" now lying in the Public Record Office, "between John Starling, formerly Clerk of the Ships, Barges, Balingers and others the King's Vessels, and Helmyng Leget, Keeper of the same," supplying a number of brass and iron guns to the Christopher, Bernard a:d Mary, "of the Tower," in each case, the suffix having apparently been in general use then to express the meaning of the present-day "H.M.S." Many of the earließt guns in naval use were breech-loarlers, and some were actually rifled —two features generally looked upon as essentially modern inventions. The construction was, of course primitive, the breech arrangement dangerous, and the weight of ths shot thrown, for the most part, insignificant. It v-i nevertheless a matter for some astonishment that there were as early as 1514 guns in existence firing as heavy a shot*as the Victory was able to discharge at Trafalgar, nearly 300 years later. The armament of the Greta Harry, built in 1514, is worth giving in full. It consisted of four "cannon," three "demi-cannbn," four "culverins," two "demi-culverins." four ' safcera," two "cannon perer," "pstro," or "pedro" (firing a stone shot), two "falcons," fourteen "port-pieces," two "demi-elings," eight "fowlers," sixty "bassils," two "top-pieces," forty "hail-shot pieces" and" 100 "hand-guns." In addition, the Btires included 500 yew bows, ten gross of bow strings, 200 morris pikes, 200 bills, and ten dozen lime pots—the latter a weapon whose usefulness was. shown as early as 1217, when an English fleet was enabled to defeat a French flesfc off the South Foreland largely by getting to windward and throwing unslaked lime into the air to be carried into the eyes of their enemies. As for the guns themselves, the heavy pieces, down to and including the "Falcons," weighed from 60001b to 680bl, In the order of guns abovenamed the weighrs of the shots wera: —6olb, 321b, 181b, 81b, 61b, 2Jlb, and 21b. The heaviest gun in existence, ♦he M cannon royal," weighed 70001b, had a calibre or bore of. and firad a 741b shot. It was not until the end of tire 17th century that these names fell into disuse, and from then until the middie of the nineteenth century guns were invariably designated by the weight of the shot they fired. An official list of 1743 shows ten different guns in use, but there were frequently several patterns or lengths of guns havng the same calibre, so that there were altogether twentythree different patterns, grading from the 42 pounder, 10ft long, weighing 65cwt., and having a bore of 7.oß'in, to the §lb "Paterero," 3£ft long, 1.69 bore, and weighing '» '■ A great cfcang9 was effected in i 1779 when the carronade was invented and introduced for naval purposes. A 44-gun frigate, the Rainbow, was converted to carry the new gun, with the result that her increased from 3181b to 12381b. Carronades —so named from Carron, wher3 ihey were first made —were constructed in sizes up to the fiS-pounder. The Victory, carried two such guns at Trafalgar, the rest of her guns being 32, 24 and 12pounders. To-day the latest British Dreadnoughts are being armed with 15in 96-ton guns, firing a projectile weighing nearly 20001b. This gun can throw its shell a distance of over twenty-five miles, and it can pierce 25in of hard steel plate at a range of 3000 yds.