WONDERS OF BIG BERTHA.

Taihape Daily Times, 26 August 1919, Page 7

WONDERS OF BIG BERTHA.

Lord Moulton, lecturing at Cambridge, told some interesting facts about Big Bertha, which shelled Paris from over 70 miles away. The whole details of the gun and powder necessary to accomplished this feat were at once worked out, and the gun would have been manufactured if it had possessed ‘suflicient military value to War» rant the Work and expense. In -its flight the projectile from Big Bertha must have reached a height four times as great as Mount Everest (the world’s highest mountain). It owes its long range to the fact that during two—thirds of its flight it Was passing through regions Where the air was so ratified that its resistance was negligible, and finally the distance ‘passed over by the projectile was so great that if the Germans had taken the trouble to aim at any particular building they must have allowed nearly half a. mile for the fact that during the flight the rotation of the earth would to that extent carry the ‘target further towards the east than it would carry the gun.