Chapter III: Artillery

Definition of the term--Modern field gun--English artillery behind
the march of science--Official obstacles to improvement--Various kinds
of British artillery--Table of measurements, and range of iron
ordnance--Brass guns--Their peculiar property--Firing of brass and
iron guns compared--Range of brass ordnance--Paixhan guns--Traversing
beds for ship guns--Ranges of Paixhan guns and howitzers--Mortars--
Their uses and varieties--Monster mortar at siege of Antwerp--Table of
English mortar practice--Carronades--Table of weights of guns and shot
--Causes of Recoil--Guns of our ancestors--Metal required in rear of
the breech--Results of Hutton’s experiments--Weight in fore-part of
gun injurious--Firm base for a gun essential--Leaden bed for mortars
suggested--New materials desirable for projectiles--Mr. Monk’s gun
unequalled--Principle of its construction--Wilkinson’s opinion--Waste
of explosive force in ordnance--The propellant force should be
accelerative--This attainable by a proper granulation of powder--
Government powder--Gunnery only in its infancy--Compound shot--Lead
better than iron for cannon shot--Expenditure of shot at sieges of
Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos--Hutton’s experiments--The shrapnell
shell--Improvements in gunnery--The Greenerian rifle--Dangerous
inefficiency of English artillery--Best metal for cannon--Increased
range destroys guns--Cause of mortars bursting--The Lancaster gun--
English cast-iron inferior--Mallet’s monster mortar--Wrought-iron
unsuited to large guns--Reason why--Shaft of the _Leviathan_--New
method of welding iron shafts--Railway carriage axles--Nasmyth’s
monster cannon--Light gun-barrels stronger than heavy ones--Brass guns
inferior to cast-iron--Defect of hoop and stave gun--Form and
dimensions of Mallet’s monster mortar (with engraving)--Cause of
deterioration of English cast-iron--Russian cast-iron more durable,
and why--Krupp’s steel gun--Laminated steel gun-barrels--Captain
Dalgren’s improvements in American ordnance--Russian guns--Reinforce
rings and trunnions objectionable, and why--Rifled cannon essential--
Range of steel rifled cannon--Best form of gun--Professor Barlow on
the strength of iron--Our artillery not constructed on scientific
principles--Russian 56-pounder, English 8-inch gun, English carronade,
Monck’s 56-pounder, and 10-inch gun (with cuts)--Land and sea service
mortars (with cuts)--Joseph Manton’s rifle cannon--Projectiles for
rifled cannon--Rifle rockets--Mr. Whitworth’s improvements in rifled
guns--His polygonal projectile--Experiments with Mr. Armstrong’s
field-piece--Increased range and accuracy of rifled cannon with
elongated projectiles--Table of comparative range of smooth-bored and
rifled cannon--Shells for rifled cannon--Spiral motion of projectiles
from smooth-bored guns--Breech-loading cannon useless and unsafe 58