Popular Science Monthly 



Vol. 88 

 No. 3 



239 Fourth Ave., New York 



March, 1916 



$1.50 

 Annually 



Railroad Forts That Go Where 

 They Are Needed 



A New Idea in Preparedness 



WE have large cities, long coast 

 lines and borders, also extensive 

 areas that must be protected. It 

 would be impracticable to fortify most 

 of them by expensive fixed fortifications 

 even though such fortifications were con- 

 sidered efficient. 



The conditions of our roads, bridges 

 and general topography of the country 

 make it impracticable to move very heavy 

 artillery rapidly, and we must look to the 

 railroads both to transport heavy guns 

 and to provide suitable bases from which 

 to fire them rapidly and accurately. 



The vastness of our areas, coasts and 

 borders, demands that we have an ex- 

 tremely flexible as well as powerful land 

 armament which can be operated by com- 

 paratively few men and used anywhere. 



Railroads can mount twelve, fourteen 

 and sixteen-inch guns for defense 

 through a new inxention patented by L. 

 W. Luellen of New York, which makes 

 it possil:)le to protect with heavy mor- 

 tars and guns our inland cities and five 

 thousand miles of coast line, instead of 

 the three hundred miles now protected 

 by fixed fortifications. 



Heavy guns are permanently mounted 

 on especially constructed railway cars, 

 which are to be quickly locked on solid 

 concrete foundations for instant use, to 

 secure accuracy and rapidity of fire con- 

 trol. These mobile armament cars are 

 designed to utilize the present coast and 

 inland railways to protect our seaboard, 

 thus increasing the flexibility and stra- 

 tegic value of high-])ower guns such as 

 are now mounted on fixed foundations. 



Mr. Luellen would install at fixcfl 



points along existing railroads or at de- 

 sirable strategic points, suitable concrete 

 foundations, from which the highest 

 powered guns may be fired. A specially- 

 designed car will permanently mount high 

 powered guns which may thus be swiftly 

 transported to the point of attack, lo- 

 cated on the foundations and brought 

 into action. 



These concrete foundations may be sit- 

 uated, at a very nominal cost, on main 

 lines, spurs, or side-tracks, either singly 

 or in groups, behind hills, in railway 

 cuts and in secluded spots along the re- 

 gion it is desired to protect, as compared 

 with the cost of placing fortifications at 

 such points. 



Should the enemy locate and obtain 

 the range of one of the mobile batteries, 

 the car can be quickly unlocked and 

 moved to another location. 



Present railroad facilities along the 

 coasts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 

 Connecticut, New York, — including Long 

 Island — and New Jersey, are so located 

 that ample giui foundations coidd be 

 ])laced on spurs or side tracks so that an\' 

 boat attempting to land must come within 

 range of any desired number of guns. 

 \\\ properly grouping the concrete l)ases 

 and placing one hundreil and forty of 

 them on the coast line mentioned, no 

 landing party could reach the shores 

 without coming within the deadly nine- 

 mile range of six mortars. 



These concrete bases would cost ap- 

 proximately three thousand to four thou- 

 sand dollars each — total cost of one hun- 

 dred and forty bases, inchuling labor, 

 about five hundred thousand tloUars. 



.S2.'? 



