SHELLS AND MORE SHELLS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 276, 18 May 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

SHELLS AND MORE SHELLS.

WONDERS OF MANUFACTURE

COST TO KILL A HI MAN BELNG

Shells, and shells, and still move shells! Night and day, day and night, week in, week out, through sununer and winter, they arc being manufactured in their millions and tens of millions; and yet the insatiable, hungry guns ask for iuore (says the Daily Mail"). Shells and shells, and still more shells! It is the nightmare cry of the nightmare war.

Does it ever strike the average reader, amid the wild welter of it ail, that the increase in the demand for these destructive projectiles moans an increase in the cost, to put it bluntly, of killing a man? Statisticians are mostly agreed that for many years, on an average, the cost of this operation was about £3OOO, and that in South Africa, where the conditions were exceptional, it rose to £BOOO. But French exports give higher figures, pointing out that in tlio Russo-Japanese war, every man killed represented an expenditure of more than £4OOO.

If the cost should prove to he greater in the European war, it will be mainiy due to the prodigality in shells. In Northern France last December the French, thinking that the Germans wero al)out to attack, hurled into their position 40,000 shells in thirty minutes, and in the Yosges they have frequently rained 4000 on a front of only 200 yards. No less "generous" are the Germans, as they showed most conclusively during the battle for Przemysl, when they fired into the Russians 700,000 highexplosive shells in four hours. It may be of interest, m view of these statements, to give one or two details illustrative of the complexity and delicacy of the work required in the manufacture of these murderous things which cost pounds to construct, and last only few seconds. First of all as to the propellant—cordite Some of the final testing in the manufacture of this explosive involves accuracy up to .001 of grain, and for the small ammunition, in gauging the strands —a bunch of eleven of which are used to fill even tho rifle cartridge—a micrometer is employed. Equally minute is the care exercised to detect any chemical changes that tako placo in tho course of manufacture. Witn regard to the shell body, Germany is said to use cast-iron for some of her h'gh explosive shells, but ours are all turned out of forged steel, though in tho caso of shrapnel shells a simpler process can be adoptod. Now, a turret lathe can produce only about twenty shells of Sin. diameter in a working day, and consequently the French blew away in naif an hour projectiles roughly equivalent to the output of 2000 of such lathes for two days! Acres of lathes — not to mention other machinery—are, therefore, required for a comparatively modest production of shells.

Weight is an important factor in> the manufacture of the shrapnel shell also. The bullets tnat are in it are of such a sizo that forty-one weigh lib. and tha allowable variation in that number is only one drachm. Vet there is an American machine which automatically casts rod.s of metal into bullets at the rate of 200,000 per hour. Next, tho fuse. For this the workmanship is even finer than for the other of tho shell. '.Some of the holies aro ground by minute wheels, which revolve at a speed up to no fewer than 40.000 turns a minute, and in tho production of a single complete fuse one hundred different gauges are required. Gauges! In sober truth, they are 'he banc of the shell-superintendent's life. Somo are so extremely delicato that they must bo used quickly, or the heat of the hand will seriously affect them and in many oases tho unavoidable wear consequent on friction in measuretng soon makes one untrue, and, therefore, useless. If we just take into account, finally, the manufacture of the shell case and the filling, we shall have some idea of the processes that go to the manufacture of .1 shell, and it is this masterpe.ice o' ingenuity and skill which is wasted by the hundred thousand in an hour!