A VISIT TO THE 81-TON GUN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4910, 16 December 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

A VISIT TO THE 81-TON GUN.

(From the Glasgow Herald.)

A correspondent sends us the following : A few days ago I went from London to see the 81-ton gun. It is not long ago since the production of the 38-ton gun excited the wonder of those interested in gunnery, but this has been eclipsed by the success of its greater rival. The 81-ton gun was built at Woolwich Arsenal, on the right bank of the Thames, where experiments were tried by firing it into clay at as great a range as could be there obtained. In order to test it at the distances to which it is expected to carry, it has lately been transported, in a barge built for the purpose at a cost of some thousands of pounds, to Shoeburyness, opposite Gravesend. Passing through the barracks I observed that every window was open, a precaution which the experience of the first day’s shooting had taught, in order to prevent the further breaking of windows resulting from the concussion when firing ; and I also noticed by looking into some of the houses of the soldiers—the married soldiers being the victims—that the plaster of the walls was lying on the floor, as it the walla were under repair or rebuilding at the hands of masons or plasterers. I soon reached a grassy cliff about twenty feet above the shingle, whereon, with its muzzle pointing down channel, was the leviathan of guns. There it had been brought by water, and to have lifted it to the bank on whikh I stood would have been a feat superior only to landing it on the beach where it was. At first view one feels disappointed. Standing looking down upon it, it does not seem so big as it appeared in the Graphic and Illustrated London News ; but when you see the artillerymen—tall, strapping fellows—clambering round it, and when you yourself get down by its side, it grows bigger and bigger, until you feel as if you were standing by a ship which had been thrown on the beach, and left high and dry by a receding tide. A very tall man with his hat on could walk underneath its projecting muzzle as it lies in its carriage. This carriage runs on a railway of the usual gauge about sixty feet long, and in front of it is a smaller truck, with a crane, which runs underneath the muzzle. Up to the bank runs another line of about 18-inoh gauge, which brings down the munitions of war. It is two o’clock, and the tide has left some miles of sand covered with about a foot of water. The officers have come down, and about twenty men are waiting. A munition waggon comes up, drawn by six horses, for it contains a number of the cartridges, each of which contains 3701b5. of powder. Each grain of this powder is I’6 inch cube. The cartridge is about five feet long, and looks like a bolster. If you examine it you find a hole at its end next the breech, hot the bullet end, this being the entrance by which the flash passes up to almost the centre of the cartridge. In reality, it is four-tenths of the cartridge long, and is shaped like a sugar loaf, and consequently small at the point where the ignition touches the powder. This is the system of central front ignition, invented and patented in 1859 by Mr. ff. D. Dougall, sen., gunmaker, and now adopted by the Government as the mode of ignition which produces the wonderful results in these large guns. The charge of powder is very large—beyond all precedent. If it is ignited in the ordinary system— i.e., by the vent-hole running down from the top of the gun, perpendicularly, a large quantity of the powder next the bullet is blown out unburnt.. When the Shah was at Portsmouth a salute fired in his honor sent a large quantity of this large-grained, unburnt powder, like small bullets, against a yacht, much to the danger and injury of those who were standing on its deck, and caused much comment in the Press at the time, proving that a large portion of the powder put in a cannqn was not consumed, and, in fact, its utility lost. But by igniting it in the centre, instead of at the top or at the extreme breech, the powder from the centre to the bullet is burned as much as from the centre to the breech, and consequently the front powder starts the bullet, while the back powder is being burned, and the latter comes up before the bullet gets to the muzzle and gives it a final shove. The result obtained by Mr. Dougall’s central front ignition is reduced recoil and report, and greater range and regularity of range or freedom frem undue deviation. The bullet at the first graze has in recent trials fallen over and over again in the same spot, when repeatedly fired at the same elevation. The London Press says it “shows an accuracy of shooting which is perfectly marvellous, the mean error of range being only 14‘8 yards, and the lateral deviation 1-8 yards. That is to say,- at a range of more than two

<ancl a half miles, the gun being elevated to an angle of seven degrees, all the shots would pass through such a doorway as usually appertains to a first-class hotel”—that is, not striking the ground until two and a half miles—the first graze—at an elevation of seven degrees. But let us load our gun. Six artillerymen —who, by-the-by, are all in workmen’s white suits—carry the bolster of powder with evident great exertion, for it weighs 3701b5., to the edge of the bank, and place it in a long tin case open at both ends, and then drop it into a wooden box which runs on the little railway. They then, with greater exertion, work ene of the bullets—for it weighs three-quarters of a ton, and is about four feet long—over on to the miniature truck, and the whole is let gently down by a rope, like the system of letting the trains down the Queen-street tunnel, until it lies alongside the truck which is below the muzzle of the gun. The cartridge in its tin case is then hoisted up by the crane, and one end placed in the muzzle. You cannot stand and ram it down with the ramrod, but it has a crossbar like the letter T at its end, from which two ropes run back through two wheels, one on each side of ‘the gun, and back again to the front. Each rope is seized by seven men who run forward, and thus the cartridge disappears into the chamber. The tin case is then drawn out, the bullet hoisted up by the crane, placed by two men in the muzzle, and driven home in a similar way. These artillerymen retire, and an officer looks through the instrument at the' side, and by a little lever the huge gun of 81 tons in weight raises and bobs its head until he has fixed on the elevation at which it is to be fired. This, the wondrous ease with which the huge mass was moved, astonished me, perhaps, more than anything. At last aimed, a bugle sounds, every man retires—not a ’ mile off —only a few yards; whilst the ladies, however, more timid, get behind trees, &c. Experience, however, has taught that it is intended to damage the “ enemy,” whoever that may be, not ourselves. The bugle sounds, and a flag runs up the mast in signal to the men on horseback -who are away like specks on the sands, waiting to watch and note where the bullet first grazes, the range being pegged out. I run along, so as to get a sight beyond the smoke, which will be blown by an ungracious wind right in front of the gun. Nobody stops up their ears now, as was done on the first days. We wait almost breathlessly;—it seems never to come ; but suddenly the electric battery is touched—there is a mighty roar—a mighty white cloud of smoke—the gun runs back on the railwav over 40 feet; and, from being in front a little, we soon see three-quarters of a ton emerge out of the smoke away through the air ; Then come the ejaculations. At Similes it strikes the sand, sending up such a splash of dark mud, and making a hole 27 feet long, 12 wide, and 6 deep. “There it ii J” everyone calls at once. Another moment of silence. It has done the 2J miles in 11 secs. “There it is again !” It has jumped a mile or more. “ There it is again !” Another jump of a mile, and it is now in the water, sending it up as it strikes like an immense fountain, for it is that which makes its grazes seen. Twice on the sand and three times in the water, and it has gone over six miles! But there is a steamer outside keeping sentinel, and warning the vessels off that are passing in the distance. Sometimes, from striking a ware at an angle, the bullet deviates, and you see it striking away to the right or to the left almost at right angles. Now, supposing you took a ticket at the Bridge-street station for Paisley, and you started upstairs to the platform, two steps at a time, to catch your train, and at the very moment you started this gun was fired, also for Paisley, the bullet would be in Paisley Town Hall before you got to the carriage door. About 15 to 20 seconds would be quite sufficient for it for that journey. The advantage in such a gun is in being able to fight your enemy with sufficient blows at a distance at which your enemy cannot fight you, unless he has a similar gun. The Devastation, which will have two 81-ten guns, could keep away, if desirable, from another ship at a range of two or three miles, and be out of danger from the other's guns; or drop shells into an enemy’s port while they were quietly having dinner below. You may say that this is not “fair.” “All is fair’in love and war,” as some one said. Drawings are almost completed for a gun of 160-tons, and the authorities of tWoolwich Arsenal see no objections to making one at once of 200 tons, throwing a bullet (all conical) of two tons in weight. On board ship the loading will be worked by steam, and the gun fired by electricity.