THE SUPER GUN.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1918, Page 4

THE SUPER GUN.

NO NEW EXPLOSIVE. Australian-N.55. Cable Association. London, March 20. Exports do not Believe that tho shell, in tans were dropped from aeroplanes 'IV that the projectiles.burst after travel ling a certain distance, propelling an in tenia! projectile.

JI is behoved to lie a shell of 380)bs fwith a muzzle velocity of 4000 fool, Viocomls. It is mc.il inaccurate in diree tion, and the gun is very shortlived, ar.c the projectiles are les's harmful thar aeroplane bombs. The gun is intended mainly to secure a moral effect. Artilloryists profess tcTTmdcrstnhd the secret there is no suggestion of a new ex plosive.

''-pi -KT Kw York - March 20. Hie New York Sun interviewed Mr Hudson Maxim, who admitted that it was possible to fire a projectile 60 miles. using a small shell with a large base, tlu latter being automatically detached as the projectile left the gun. A shell that reacl,cd .such an'altitude would traverse a rare field area, tfiua increasing the range. °

Paris, March 20. i-ie vagaries of tho Jules Verne mm continue to excite the public. It is now believed that two guns are used. The sheila reach a height of twenty miles, taking six minutes to reach their destinatiou. The shells are not powerful cnougn to wreck houses.

A REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT. ,i W w C n- tho ' ,nilital T correspondent of «» Wellington Post.—The shelling of ■iHi-ig by the Germans is a surprise. It .demonstrates u remarkable development m practical gunnery, and the Germans have no doubt < lac d it for the sole purpose of causing disquiet, and perhaps inspiring terror of an enemv who ean almost achieve miracles. The gun which has been throwing shells into the city is ". the forest of St. Gobain, sixty miles .nyay. Actually no part of the front in vithiu sixty miles of Paris In thfl forest of Et. Gobain, however, due northeast of the capital, the German positions are just over that distance from the city walls, beyond which the suburbs of the city extend some miles. At first, and before the location of the gun was reported, it appeared to manv people that tne enemy may have brought their new weapon forward beyond the front broken by Ims offensive, near St. Quentin, but the distance puts that out of the que*. ;i°n. The interest of the event consists in the extraordinary feat .of sending sheik sixty miles. At the end of April UU), and at various times since the' Germans fired 5-inch shells into Dunkirk from near the Yser River, a distance of about 21 miles. This, though a very unexpected act, was not really phenomenal shooting. A range of sixty miles is phenomenal, beyond all doubt. That such a range could be fired over has been known for a long" time' the problem is simply one of building a gun to fire the shell at' a. sufficient velocity which requires to ibe about 4000 feet per second, or perhaps a little less if a shell of extremely refined shape is used. Even then the gun has to bo elevated to an angle of between id and 45 degrees; and the shell will rise to a height of about twenty miles above the earth, and will be hetweon two and three minutes in the air. If the air offered no resistance to' the shell, a projectile of anv size, from a tiny pellet up to any' imaginable weight, fired at 4000 feet per second and at an angle of 45 degrees, would travel 04 miles and rise 24 miles; hut m ordinary practice this theoretical range is reduced by at Icut half, even for large projectiles, and fhe smaller the missile the 1,.. s j s the range covered. Jn the regular equipments of the world there are few guns whose muzzle velocities exceed 3000 feet per' seeovd, and these are naval guns of the latest and most highly-developed tvpe. Extreme velocities are attained onlv with the finest design in u,e gun, and very heavv charges of powder, and a t the expense of very severe wear in the gun. The fact of the bombardment, however, is an indication that an exceptional velocity has | been aitamed by the enemy's experts. One reoprt describes the gun as of 240 i millimetre* calibre (0.15 inches), another ns oi 3411 millimetres (I,U inches). With Hie larger size a somewhat lower muzzle velocity is suflieienl—something like .'IBOO or .IfWO feel per second. The highest velocity claimed for any big Krupp mm of the naval type is 30R4 feet per second (a paper claim wh ; ch mav or mav not be verified by test). With such guns of 0.4.-. inches calibre, the maximum range is about 30 miles, firing a shell of over 400 pounds weight; with fhs 13 J-inch sun, Ilrim; a shell of approximately 1200 pounds, the range is about 35 miles. The smaller naval gun would use about 175 pounds of cordis, the bigger one over 500 pounds. Conaidcrin" that 3000 feet nor second has hitherto seemed to be (he practical high-water .mark of velocity, mainly owing to (he liability of guns to early failure und.'r greatly increased charges, every artillerist will be keenly alive to the remarkable feet of adding another thousand. The bomhardment is more than a mere curious no.ck. in war; for it is hunt to sec how such a costly weapon can pay for :'—'" At such ranges accurate, shooting is impossible: the finest calculations cannot make allowances, for instance, for the wjrfds and variations in the air at the great height reached by the shell. In .fact, no target smaller than a town can be aimed at with anv certainty, and such long-range firo fs necessarily loss aceimue than bombdropping from Zeppelins. But it is much safer for the Germans.