312 Mr, F. J. Bramwell. [Feb. 27, 



the conviction of the Committee. They urged that, for a gun to be 

 inadvertently double-loaded, those who were working the gun must 

 be assumed to be ignorant of whether they had fired it or not, and 

 this they said was on the following grounds an absurdity : that it 

 involved their not knowing whether the gun had recoiled or not, for 

 the recoil would have been evidence that the gun had not missed fire, 

 and the want of the recoil evidence that it had missed fire, and it was 

 impossible there could have been any doubt upon this question of 

 recoil. Further, some of them urged that it must have been known 

 by the noise of the report whether the gun had gone off or not ; and, 

 lastly, they all urged that any body of men must have noticed that the 

 rammer used did not send the second shot to the position that it 

 ought to have occupied if the gun had been empty, hut that it stopped 

 several feet short of this. 



All these were very pertinent observations upon guns fired singly 

 and unprovided with hydraulic running in and out gear, and with 

 hydraulic telescopic loading gear ; but they were inapplicable to, and, 

 in the proper, but not the conventional, sense of the word, were 

 impertinent to, the matter under consideration. 



Let me briefly recapitulate the facts attending upon the loading 

 and firing of the ' Thunderer ' gun. 



Two 38-ton guns in one turret, electrically coupled up to a fii-ing 

 key placed in the conning tower, to which key also the two guns in 

 the after turret were coupled up. On the depression of this key by 

 the officer in the conning tower (without any act on the part of those 

 in the turrets), it was intended that all four guns should be simul- 

 taneously discharged to give a broadside. These electric discharges 

 are by no means certain in their action. At the very broadside under 

 consideration, one of the guns in the after turret was most certainly 

 not fired off, although its electrical fuse was exploded. I say most cer- 

 tainly, because after the steps had been taken that were rendered 

 necessary by the explosion in the fore turret, the charge of this gun 

 in the after turret was extracted. There is therefore no certainty 

 that because the key in the conning tower was depressed, both guns 

 in the fore turret must have been discharged. 



With respect to the men in the turret knowing by the sound, or 

 concussion, that the gun had been discharged, all those who have been 

 present in a turret when a single gun of this size has been fired, and 

 again, when two guns have been fired, will agree in saying, that the 

 effect upon the ear of the firing of one gun is such, that the explosion 

 of the charge of the second gun does not add to it, and that thus it 

 is impossible to tell whether one or two guns have gone off. 



Next as regards the inward run of the gun due to recoil. In a 

 manually worked gun that part of the inward run which is not so 

 made has to be laboriously performed by hand, and it would be soon 

 known whether the gun had not come in some part of its run by recoil ; 

 if it had not, this would at once give evidence that the charge had 

 not exploded. But with hydraulically worked guns, the valve 



