ORDNANCE. 



103 



1870 the admiralty decided to mount 35-ton guns in 

 turrets. These guns were then the largest in the 

 world. They were made only 16 ft. long and were 

 practically failures. As it became evident that long 

 guns with enlarged powder chambers, firing slow- 

 burning powder, developed greater initial velocity, 

 accuracy, and power, and that long guns gave much 

 trouble in loading from the muzzle, with the applica- 

 tion in France and Germany of two successful methods 

 of closing the breech, the breech-loading system 

 gradually gained in favor again and by 1875 began to 

 supplant muzzle-loading. The development from this 

 time has been most wonderful. On account of a 

 better understanding of the working of steel, a 

 thorough investigation of the action of the powder 

 gases in the gun, and the development of a slow- 

 burning powder, generating a moderate and sustained 

 pressure, instead of the violently explosive quick- 

 burning powder, guns can now be made twice as 

 powerful on the same weight as in 1875. Thirty years 

 ago the largest projectile was 68 Ibs. and the largest 

 charge 16 Ibs. ; to-day the largest projectile is a ton, 

 fired with half a ton of powder. The projectiles of 

 the largest guns weigh more now than the guns with 

 which the battles of the last century were fought. In 

 1874 steel 3-in. boat-guns were designed and ouilt by 

 the navy; four years later a 6-in. all-steel built-up 

 rifle, and by 1882 the navy was practically committed 

 to the steel built-up breech-loading rifle. The army, 

 up to this time, has not been so fortunate, as special 

 legislation has somewhat hampered that branch of the 

 service, they having been forced by Congress to build 

 cast-iron guns as well as other special types that, in 

 the light of the experience of the rest of the world, 

 could hardly be expected to prove successful. Those 

 haying charge of a certain class of work, such as the 

 building of guns, are naturally expected to know all 

 that is done by others and to profit by it, and they 

 should be the judges as to what is best. Inventors 

 have, it is true, been in several cases forced to go to 

 other countries for recognition and aid, but ordnance 

 bureaus cannot carry on experiments without money, 

 and the annoyance caused by the horde of cranks 

 always hanging about the technical bureaus is very 

 great, so that it is not to be wondered at that occasion- 

 ally an invention having merit is passed over. It 

 would seem that the best policy to be pursued by the 

 government in cases where it does conclude to aid an 

 inventor would be to require bonds for the full amount 

 of the outlay, and all expended to be refunded in case 

 the results are not as promised. 



In England the gun now building is the all-steel 

 built-up gun. In France the army and marine artillery 

 are still being supplied with guns of cast-iron lined and 

 hooped with steel tubes ; but the navy has abandoned 

 cast-iron in favor of the all-steel gun. lu Germany 

 the main .supply of artillery is drawn from the works 

 of Krup]) at Essen. The guns are of steel through- 

 out, the gun being built up with hoops and tubes. The 

 Russian guns are all-steel and have a thin lining tube 

 which can be easily replaced, in addition to the usual 

 tube and hoops. 



More than 25 years ago Sir Joseph Whitworth ad- 

 vocated the _ all-steel gun, built-up for large calibres, 

 and all nations are gradually coming around to his 

 views, and it is not likely that the built-up steel gun 

 will be supplanted by any other, its only rival being 

 the wire-wound gun. The wire-wound gun was in- 

 vented by Dr. Woodbridge as early as 1850. A 2j-in. 

 gun was built at the Washington Navy-Yard in 1865 

 and tried _by the army ; 1327 rounds were fired from it 

 with no injury to the gun, though the trunnion band 

 broke loose. A 10-in. gun was built in 1872-6. When 

 the difficulties attending a new system of construction 

 as this are taken into account, this gun gave most 

 promising results, though the gun parted longitudinally 

 after 103 rounds, the charge increasing from 40 to 90 

 Ibs. and the projectile from 343 to 395 Ibs. Both the 



army and navy have wire-wound guns in hand. These 

 L'uns me coin i .used principally of steel wire wound in 

 successive layers upon a steel tube, introducing longi- 

 tudinal bars between some of the layers. In a 10-in. 

 gun building for the army the tube is cast-iron. The 

 steel 10-in. gun for the army weighs 22 tons and 

 has 30 calibres length of bore. The wire-winding ex- 

 tends from the breech to the muzzle. The steel tube 

 extends entirely through the gun and the breech 

 screws into it. Longitudinal bars form a cylinder 

 about the tube extending about one-half the length 

 from the breech. 



Guns for the army and navy are under the charge of 

 the ordnance department of the army and the bureau 

 of ordnance, navy department. 



The Chief of Ordnance of the Army is a life-posi- 

 tion and is at present held by Brig. Gen. S. V. BenSt. 

 The Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance of the 

 Navy is appointed by the President and confirmed 

 by the Senate for a term of four years. He 

 must be a line officer of the navy of a rank not lower 

 than that of commander, and while acting has the 

 relative rank of a commodore, if a captain or com- 

 mander. The present Chief of Bureau of Ordnance 

 is Capt. Montgomery Sicard, U. S. N. 



For many years previous to the civil war the guns of 

 the army and navy were supplied by private firms, the 

 principal being the West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, 

 N. Y. ; the South Boston Iron-Works, Boston, Mass.; 

 the Fort Pitt Foundry, Pittsburg, Pa. ; and the 

 Tredegar Iron-Works, Richmond, Va. They were 

 kept up by regular annual appropriations made for 

 guns. The ordnance manufactured at these places 

 was under the inspection of army and navy officers 

 and compared more than favorably with that of the 

 rest of the world. Upon the breaking out of the war 

 the Tredegar works were seized by the Confederates, 

 while other establishments than the above undertook 

 the manufacture of guns, among them being the Read- 

 ing Iron- Works, Reading, Pa.; the Builders' Iron- 

 Foundry, Providence, R. I. ; the Phoanix Iron Co., 

 Phcenixville, Pa. ; and the Ames Manufacturing Co., 

 Chicopee, Mass. 



Since the war the Fort Pitt Foundry has closed and 

 the only private firms building guns are the West 

 Point Foundry and the South Boston Iron- Works. At 

 the former works a number of cast-iron smooth-bore 

 guns were converted into rifles by inserting wrought- 

 iron tubes, and several breech-loading rifle built-up 

 steel guns have been assembled for the army and navy. 

 At the South Boston Iron- Works several large cast- 

 iron rifles and rifled mortars have been manufactured, 

 a number of guns converted from smooth-bores to 

 rifles, and two 8-in. and six 6-in. built-up steel rifles 

 assembled for the navy. 



The Confederate States in 1861, with the exception 

 of the Tredegar Works, were almost destitute of ap- 

 pliances in the way of tools and machinery for the 

 fabrication of ordnance ; but during the war extensive 

 works were built up, which, before the end of the war, 

 supplied the navy and land batteries with all descrip- 

 tions of ordnance. The ordnance works at Richmond 

 supplied the armaments for the vessels in the James 

 River, at Wilmington, and other places, as well as the 

 carriages for the heavy navy-guns mounted in shore 

 batteries, sending to New Orleans, alone, 22 heavy 

 guns from May, 1861, to May, 1862. The only estab- 

 ushment where very heavy forging could be done was 

 at Charlotte, N. C. , and there shafts for steamers and 

 wrought-iron projectiles were forged and finished and 

 gun-carriages and other equipments built. At Selma 

 there was a foundry where guns were specially manu- 

 factured for service against ironclads, supplying 47 

 guns for the defences of Mobile and 12 for the batteries 

 at Charleston and Wilmington. The principal powder- 

 mills were at Columbia, where excellent powder was 

 made, and at New Orleans large quantities of ordnance 

 stores, fuses, powder, and guns were manufactured. 



