624 



ORDNANCE. 



objection to this rifle is that it is too light and 

 delicate for ordinary service, and that the load- 

 ing mechanism cannot be taken apart and put 

 together again without much difficulty. The 

 breech action is on the bolt system. Picked 

 troops of cavalry in the guard also used the 

 same gun as a carbine or Cossack rifle. The 

 infantry of the Russian army in Asia carried 

 for the most part the Carle musket. This is 

 a questionable improvement on the Dreyse 

 needle-gun system. Paper cartridges are used 

 in this gun, which has a large calibre. 



The Soper rifle, which excels the Martini in 

 rapidity of firing and safety in handling, has a 

 breech-block somewhat similar to that of the 

 Snider rifle, which locks by a bolt passing 

 through its centre. The lock and breech ac- 

 tion is so arranged that the rifle cannot be fired 

 unless the breech is closed and the bolt fast- 

 ened. The escape of any gas from a faulty 

 cartridge backward toward the firer's face is 

 impossible, as the pressure of the discharge 

 forces the breech-block against the breech- 

 shoe ; the breech-block thus operates as a self- 

 acting valve. The lock is like that of the Sni- 

 der rifle, except that it is mounted in the cen- 

 tre of the rifle and hits the striker in a direct 



SNIDER BREECH-ACTION RIFLE. 



line with the axis of the barrel. The extract- 

 ing slide acts with such force as to throw out 

 the cartridge-case toward th e rear. The breech- 

 block, lock, and extracting actions are all op- 

 erated by a single lever on the right side of 

 the rifle, whose handle is just between the 

 thumb and forefinger when the gun is in posi- 

 tion for firing with the firer's middle finger on 

 the trigger. An important advantage in this 

 position of the lever is that a marksman, when 

 lying down or resting his piece on earthworks, 

 need not lose his aim in retiring, but can reload 

 any number of times without disturbing the 

 direction of the barrel, and can continue firing 

 effectively after the object of his fire is hidden 

 by clouds of smoke from his sight. 



In heavy artillery, experiments have lately 

 been made with a gun weighing 81 tons in Eng- 

 land and with one of 100 tons weight in Italy. 

 These monsters have shown themselves supe- 

 rior to the thickest iron ship-armor, and a plate 

 which can withstand the projectiles of a ton's 

 weight cast by the 100-ton guns has yet to be 

 found ; steel-plates will repel them, but only 

 by being shattered in the effort, and probably 



the question of defensive armor against the 

 heaviest projectiles is to be solved in a com- 

 bination of outside steel plates with soft iron, 

 by which the cracked and broken steel shield 

 will adhere to the iron upon which it is bedded. 

 The results of the trials of the 100-ton gun 

 at Spezia showed that steel was the only ma- 

 terial for armor plates of sufficient strength and 

 lightness to withstand such heavy shots. But 

 the old objection to steel armor, which brought 

 it into disrepute in former years, still held 

 good, namely, that it split on the impact of shot, 

 and could be broken up and rendered useless 

 by the continued firing of comparatively light 

 guns. The Spezia experiments proved that 

 steel plates, though cracking, still effectively 

 stopped the huge projectiles, which would 

 have passed through iron plates of the same 

 thickness. A compound plate, designed by 

 the English engineer Alexander Wilson, con- 

 sisting of wrought-iron and steel combined to- 

 gether by fusion, was tested at Shoeburyness. 

 A plate 9 inches thick, with the facing of 

 steel 5 inches deep and the back of wrought- 

 iron 4 inches thick, broke up a shot of 115 Ibs. 

 weight, with a striking velocity of 1,456 feet 

 per second, into minute fragments ; the shot's 

 point penetrated to the depth of 3 J- inches, the 

 steel portion of the plate splitting in 5 long 

 radial cracks, while the iron part remained 

 uninjured, a slight bulge, about -J- of an inch, 

 being noticed in the back. As long as the 

 fusion of the steel and iron is perfect, the star- 

 ring of the steel face does not impair the effi- 

 ciency of the armor ; but if the steel and iron 

 should separate the armor would be worthless. 

 Experiments with Mr. Wilson's plates showed 

 that the junction was not the part where the 

 plate cleaved apart most easily. Another kind 

 of steel-plate armor, designed by Sir Joseph 

 Whitworth, consists of a solid shield of soft 

 steel, in which holes are drilled at intervals of 

 a few inches, for the reception of plugs of hard 

 steel of high quality, which are screwed into 

 the holes in such close proximity that a shot 

 cannot strike the plate without coming in con- 

 tact with some of them. The hard steel plugs 

 or pins are intended to break the shots, while 

 the holes prevent the spread of star cracks. 

 Other methods of combining iron and steel 

 have been proposed, as a steel face fused in 

 furrows on an iron back, so as to prevent cleav- 

 age, and an armor composed of alternate hori- 

 zontal layers of each metal, to localize the 

 cracks. Experiments were made more recently 

 on the British ship Nettle at Portsmouth, OD 

 two compound plates of 9 inches thickness, 

 composed of soft iron backs 44 inches thick 

 and faces of equal thickness, one of low and 

 one of harder steel. Three 250 Ib. balls were 

 sent against each plate with 50-lb. charges of 

 powder. None of the shots penetrated, but 

 both plates were badly cracked up. The fu- 

 sion of the metals was found to be perfect. In 

 the Spezia trials the targets, solid or variously 

 compounded of chilled and wrought iron and 



