THE NEW ARMSTRONG GUN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5530, 17 December 1878, Page 3

THE NEW ARMSTRONG GUN.

(From the European Mail.)

Extraordinary progress has been made of late years in practical artillery by the construction of guns, both muzzle and breachloaders, capable of producing effects equal to those attained by pieces' tf ordnance double the weighs of the new ones. The new Armstrong 6-inch gun, weighing only four tons, is at once the most handy and formidable weapon ever manufactured in this or any other country. Experiments have proved that it will throw a shell of 801bs. weight with a force sufficient to pierce by far the larger number of ironclads now afloat. The hole made in a plate 10 inches thick was 6.01 inches in diameter, and the shell was hardly at all altered in shape. Nothing could be more satisfactory as to the quality of the metal; and another fact of great importance was that the gas check remained firmly attached to the shell. If we carry hack our thoughts a few years and rememb=r that the heaviest gun in the service, the 68-pounder of 5 tons 12 cwt., could make no impression on the 4-5-inch plates of the early ironclads, and that in 1866 tho Austrian ships carried ordnance which were totally ineffective against the Italian vessels, the sides of which were pitted with the marks of shot fired at close range, we shall see how extraordinary has been the development of the-art of destruction. The most interesting comparison that could bo made with ordnance that were actually supported by artillerists in America, and even by some in our own country as late as 1867, would be that of the 15 inch American smooth bore with the new 6*iuch Armstrong. The American gun weighed 19,1 ton«, nearly five times as much as the 6*inch. Its charge was 601 b, or, as an extreme case, 1001 b. With 60lb. the shot (for no round shells could be used against plates) was utterly foiled by the 8-ineh target, and with 1001 b. it succeeded in penetrating it. The little 6-inch of lees than 4 tons would pierce that target with ease, as the D-inch service gun did.