THE SHELLS THAT WIN.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 310, 2 October 1915, Page 3

THE SHELLS THAT WIN.

SOME STARTLING FACTS. (Prom a lecutre by VIVIAN LEWES, Former Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Naval College.) Against advancing troops shrapnel is the most effective shell that can be employed. There is no shortage of this type of shell. In all the bases you see slacks of them. The shortage has been in the 'high-explosive shells, the need for which has only risen in this war. The high-explosive shell smashes away all obstructions; Its effects are simply tremendous. It will even kill simply by concussion, merely by the impact of the wave set up in the air. There hav e been cases where men have had their hearts displaced a couple of inches by the concussion power of the air wave set up by these highexplosive shells. Vital parts have been ruptured by this displacement, death following instantaneously. When the war first started we had stories of Germans being found dead in chalets, champagne glasses still held to their lips—a habit the Germans have. We were told of sheep dead in the field, still grazing-—(lau,'g/hter) and it was explained that this was due to the poisonous nature of the shells being used. What had happened was that men and sheep had been killed by the concussion set up by high-explosive shells. The-highest explosive known is tetraaniline, more stable and explosive than nitro-glycerine and sufficiently -inert to be. perfectly safe in use. We shall hear a great deal about this in the future, especially as a splendid method of preparing it has just been discovered.

The '.high-explosive shells used to pierce armour —the shells that smashed though th e steel cupolas of Namur — are made net lof forged steel but of chrome nickel steel, carefully hardened ,and tempered. The secret of their success is that they carry soft steel caps over the points.

It might be imagined that a soft steel spoke would prevent rather than assist the penetration of the shell, but the soft steel buffer gives a most extraordinary result. Fire a shell without this soft cap and it will make an indentation of onl,y two or three inches in the plate but put on the steel nose it will pierce th emost hardened plate that you can obtain.

The discovery of the wonderful effect of the soft cap was .really made by accident. The effect of shells on a steel plate was being tested. Now the front of a plate is hard and the back is soft. The slhells fired at the fuomt did little damage but fired at the back they went right through. That result gave V r ' rise to the idea of using a soft steel Cap. - . : . ...

} A train of gun-cotton that is not I confined will take two seconds to burn six feet. A train of gun-cotton stretching from London to Newcastle pressed closely and confined would, fired by a detonator, the highest form of explosive, takes two minutes —that is to say, it would burn at the rate of 200 miles a minute. * When melinite, made from picric acid and akin to cur own lyddite, was first invented for use in the French army, extravagant claims were made for it. In a couple of* weeks cur secret service discovered all about it. It was the Japanese who in the Russo-Japanese war first demonstrated the practicability of a higher form of detonator witlh pciric acid —the use of which had been looked upon unfavourably because of the risk of damage to the gunners using it. In the siege of Port Arthur these shells did tremendous work though there were thirteen or fourteen cases of premature explo- j sion. The Germans watched what happened nit n the greatest interest, noting the weaknesses of the high-explo-sive lyddite shells being used and determined to improve upon them. The j result was the discovery of T.N.T., 1 : the basis of which is toluene, a coal- j tar derivative. Toluene is also being I . - i. made synthetically, which will greatly increase the yield at our disposal.

Under eighteen tens pressure T.N.T. can he pressed into solid cartridges and copper-plated so as to render the cartridges more permanent and less liable to whittle away at the edges. In itself T.N.T. is very inert. You can fire a bullet at a cask without risk of detonating. You have considerable difficntly in lighting it and once started it burns quickly and with a heavy flame.

Detonated, the effect is extraordinary, and the damage done was farreaching. Clouds of black smoke are thrown off, which have caused the shells to be christened in France by our troops by such endearing titles as Black Marias, Coal Scuttles and Jack Johnsons.

The Austrians, in addition to using T.N.T. use ammonite, which was discovered by them and first employed in the Balkan war. It is toluene mixed with further oxydising material and nitrate of ammonia and is an explosive stronger than T.N.T.

The war has revived the use of grenades popular a hundred years ago. These are small shrapnel shells, the case made of serrated steel —that is, steel cut up nto a number of divisions, There is a cartridge of T.N.T. fired by a detonator. One is designed for use in the service rifle which grips the rod at the end and prevents it falling out when the rifle as incluined.-