31 
(3) Accuracy owing to the concentric manufacture of the 
shell (now rendered possible). 
(4) Elongated projectiles could be used. These brought 
about increased range owing to the increased 
weight, greater capacity for powder or bullets, a 
simplification of the fuzes, and a reduction in the 
resistance of the air. 
Of the many designs submitted, Sir William (afterwards Lord) 
Armstrong’s were accepted, and he became Superintendent of the 
Royal Gun Factories. His guns—breech-loaders—were built up 
of cylinders made by coiling bars of red hot wrought iron round 
mandrils and then reheating and welding them. The breech was 
closed by a vent piece dropped into a slot and secured by a 
breech screw. ‘The method of construction caused these guns to 
be longitudinally weak owing to imperfect welding, and they 
tended to draw out like a corkscrew, but they were practically 
secure against such explosive bursts cast iron guns were liable to. 
The field guns were excellent and very accurate, and were used in 
the China war (1860), when the Peiho forts were captured ; the 
heavier guns (7 inch), however, were failures. 
The Lecturer then alluded to the battle of guns v. armour 
plates which resulted from the ‘‘ Merrimac” and “ Monitor” 
warships proving themselves almost invulnerable during the 
American civil war of 1861-5, although the armour plates were 
merely iron rails. The French followed with “La Gloire,” and 
the English with the ‘‘ Warrior,” which, the Lecturer stated, he 
saw launched at Blackwall. 
The old smooth-bore 68-pounder with a charge of 16lbs. of 
powder at 1,000 yards with muzzle velocity of 1,700 feet per sec., 
was more destructive to armour plate than the new 110-pounder 
7 inch (which could only be trusted with r14lbs. of powder) with 
a muzzle velocity of 1,100 feet per sec. Hence it was calculated 
—rather rashly—that breech loading guns were a failure, the more 
so as the Royal Navy (owing to the fact that loading had to be 
more rapid so as to seize the right moment as the ship rolled) at 
first condemned them as dangerous, the vent piece flying out 
owing to imperfect fixing and killing men. As a result the 
**Woolwich” gun was devised for field, garrison, and naval 
purposes, constructed on Armstrong’s coiling principle, but with 
more massive forgings and with a solid ended steel tube, but 
“ muzzle loading.” Krupp, taking advantage of the invention of 
the steam hammer by Nasmyth and the improvement in the 
manufacture of steel introduced by Bessemer, and the further 
toughening of steel by annealing in oil, started making guns 
entirely of steel and breech loading, which were longer and had 
much greater muzzle velocities—z2,ooo feet per sec. against our 
1,300 (later 1,500) feet per sec., and in the Belgium competition 
