BIG GUNS' SHORT LIFE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 125, 24 December 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

BIG GUNS' SHORT LIFE.

AUDIT A HUNDRED HOUNDS AND THEY ARE DONE.

Our modern naval guns, in spite of all the Germans have said against them, are unsurpassed for accuracy, power, and life. Naturally, we are not, at present permitted to state expert opinion as to the number of shots they can hre without injury, but readers may rest assured that they are at least as good as anything that Krupps can produce.

As it happens, we have 6ome details of tlie life of German guns, details which were procured before the present terrible war broke out.

The best German naval gun is theneleven inch, which, in range and power, is almost the equal of our fifty calibre twelve inch.

From this gun one hundred and eighty-four shots have been fired without any falling off in accuracy. General Holme, in a report on these experiment*, concluded that the gun was capable of firing two liundred and eighty shots without loss of accuracy. BIGGER THE GUN, SHORTER ITS LIFE. The bigger the gun, and the heavier the charge, sp mu:h the shorter iU> life. The famous 17-inch German howitzers, known as "Fat Berthas," are worn out before they have fired a hundred shells. But as each separate shot costs a cool thousand pounds, the howitzer discharges a considerable fortune in the course of its short life. The chief reason why the modern gun lasts so short a time is that modern explosives are so enormously more powerful than the old black powder. Cordite, when fired, turns into gas instontfy, gas at a terrific pressure, and of tremendous neat. Black powder burns more slowly and wiffi ff}r less heat.

The bent of exploding cordite eventually melts the steel and enlarges the

bore of the chamber. Cracks appear at the junction of the chamber with the bore. There is a certain scoring of the whole of the bore caused by the tremendous speed with which the shell —twisted as it goes by the riflingrushes through the bore. Another thing that happens, though the cause is rather obscure, is the enlargement of the muzzle. "SKIPPING SALLY'' USED AT MAFEKINU. How different from the gun of earlier days. At Mafeking, during the Boer war, the defenders raked up an old sixteen-pounder naval gun which was bought from a native chief for twentytwo yoke of oxen. "Skipping Sally," as they called her, was nearly a century old, a muzzle-load-son's ships used at the battle of Trains smooth bore of the type that NeV falgar. In spite of her age she threw a tenpound ball to a 'distance of rather more than two miles, with a charge of three pounds of powder. The lite of the old-fashioned smooth bore had no particular term. Such a gun would tire' thousands of rounds. All that happened was that the powder chamber' became gradually enlarged.