734 



ORDNANCE. 



For siege purposes, for attacks on fortifica- 

 tions by vessels of the Monitor type, and for 

 naval conflicts requiring great weight of metal, 

 the Government have adopted the Rodman 

 guns of 8, 10, 13, 15 and 20-inch caliber, and 

 the Dahlgren of 9, 10 and 11-inch caliber, the 

 latter exclusively for the navy. Both these 

 guns are smooth bores, though a very few of 

 the Dahlgrens have been rifled. The Rodman 

 gun, named after Major Rodman of the reg- 

 ular army, who is the inventor and superintend- 

 ent of its manufacture, is of iron, cast hollow, 

 and the core is kept cool during the casting 

 by a constant stream of cold water passing 

 through it. 



The following table shows the weight of 

 each size, the service charge, and the weight 

 of the solid shot thrown by each : 



Of the 9, 10 and 11-inch Dahlgren guns, 804 

 had been made since the war commenced, to 

 Nov. 1st, 1863, and about 200 more were to be 

 furnished by the close of the year. Of the 

 Rodman guns, the number has been over 2,000. 

 The first of the 20-inch guns was cast in Pitts- 

 burg, on the llth of February, 1864, after 

 many months of preparation for its casting and 

 finishing. The Rodman and Dahlgren guns 

 are all cast at Pittsburg, and the Parrotts at 

 West Point. 



For field service the ten and twenty-pound 

 Parrott, the brass twelve-pounders (Napoleons, 

 as they are generally called), and for light 

 artillery the steel cannon manufactured by 

 Krupp, of Prussia, and the Wiard guns, are all 

 in use, though the preference is given to the 

 first three. The Wiard gun is a breech loader, 

 with a long and slender barrel, except at the 

 breech, which is very bulky, and composed of 

 successive layers of hard and soft metals. 



Mortars of larger size than had ever before 

 been used for siege purposes on this continent, 

 have been tried during the existing war, and 

 from floating carriages mortar schooners. 

 They lack precision when thus employed, and 

 though they accomplished some good purposes 

 in the various instances in which they were 

 employed on the Mississippi river, they effect 

 so much less than the cannon of the same 

 caliber, that they are not likely to be very gen- 

 erally employed in the future. Two sizes were 

 adopted, 10-inch and 18-inch, requiring service 

 charges of 10 and 20 pounds of powder, and 

 throwing a projectile weighing 100 and 200 

 Ibs. respectively. The 1 0-inch mortars weighed 

 9,500 Ibs., and the 18-inch 17,000 Ibs. Of the 

 latter 200 had been cast previous to Novem- 

 ber 1st, 1863. 



The Confederates have introduced a new 

 rifled gun into their service, invented by Capt. 



Brooke, one of their artillery officers. It seems 

 to bear a strong resemblance to the Blakely 

 (English) and Treadwell guns, and is hooped 

 with iron or steel bands closely adherent to 

 the cannon, not merely at the seat of the 

 charge, but along its whole length. Dr. Girard, 

 a French writer formerly resident in this coun- 

 try, and who has, since the war, visited Charles- 

 ton, describes it as follows: "An attentive 

 observer would not fail to remark the circular 

 bands closely united to the piece, and which 

 are destined to give a better resisting force. 

 With regard to its rifling it is on the system 

 of inclined planes instead of grooves. The 

 projectiles are of forged (wrought) iron. Those 

 I had an opportunity of examining were adapt- 

 ed to 7-inch guns. Their form is elongated, 

 cylindrical nearly their entire length, with the 

 exception of the front part, which is slightly 

 conical and rounded off at its periphery. The 

 two extremities are vertical. The hinder part 

 which presents itself to the breech of the piece 

 bears on its circumference a bell-rnouthed 

 groove, and receives a copper ring whose ends 

 nearly meet at the end of the projectile. The 

 projectile has bands of copper running round it, 

 one about four inches from the front, and the 

 other close to the hinder part. These bands 

 alone are destined to take the rifling of the 

 piece. The mean length of these projectiles is 

 12 inches, their posterior diameter 6 T 9 /oj their 

 anterior diameter 6-$^, and their weight from 

 116 to 120 Ibs. At a distance of 260 yards, 

 and with a charge of 12 Ibs. of powder, they 

 penetrated four iron plates of two inches each, 

 backed with 18 inches of oak, the whole fixed 

 against a clayey cliff." 



The form and material of the projectiles for 

 rifled ordnance have been a matter of profound 

 study and research with numerous inventors. 

 The Government, after a great number of care- 

 ful and thorough trials, has given the prefer- 

 ence to the inventions of four manufacturers, 

 viz. : the Parrott, Shenkl, Hotchkiss and Saw- 

 yer projectiles, while a fifth, the Roberts shot, 

 shell, and musket cartridge, is receiving ex- 

 amination with a fair prospect of being intro- 

 duced into the service. The Parrott projectile, 

 whether shell or shot, is long, pointed at the 

 anterior extremity, and of smaller circumfer- 

 ence in the centre than at either extremity. 

 The base alone fits closely to the bore of the 

 cannon, and has a ring of soft brass or a cup 

 of the same metal, which by the expansive 

 force of the gas of the projecting charge, is 

 driven into the grooves to an extent sufficient 

 to give it the rotary motion, and the extensive 

 range of the rifle. The Hotchkiss and Sawyer 

 projectiles use a metallic alloy of lead and an- 

 timony as a jacket to be forced into the grooves 

 of the rifled ordnance, and the Shenkl missile 

 applies papier mache to the same purpose. In 

 all three, the softer material is driven upon the 

 tapering spindle of the iron which forms the 

 body of the projectile, from its posterior por- 

 tion, by the force of the expansion produced 





