NATURE 



437 



THURSDAY, MARCH II, 1880 



THE RECENT GUNNERY EXPERIMENTS 



WE have hitherto refrained from referring to the 

 experiments carried out in December and January 

 last on the 38-ton gun, which was removed from the 

 Thunderer, in the hope that the Heavy Gun Committee 

 would have ere now published their report. The report, 

 however, has not appeared, but in the mean time many 

 most illogical and probably erroneous conclusions have 

 been drawn from the results of the experiments, and 

 circulated amongst the public, apparently with the object 

 of reviving confidence in a system of gun construction, to 

 which, unfortunately, the nation is very deeply committed. 

 These conclusions have latterly been called in question 

 by several competent authorities, notably by Mr. C. W. 

 Merrifield, F.R.S , in an able letter which appeared in the 

 Times of the 8th inst. We consider it, consequently, to 

 be an opportune moment to draw the attention of our 

 readers to the extremely unscientific manner in which the 

 experiments were carried out, and to the grave danger 

 which may result to the country, from accepting too 

 hastily, the conclusions which have been circulated by 

 those interested in defending the existing system. 



As is well known, the trials were instituted in the first 

 instance with the object of testing the verdict of the 

 Committee of Inquiry which was sent to Malta last 

 spring, in order to investigate the cause of the original 

 explosion. It will be remembered that the Committee, 

 in direct opposition to the almost unanimous evidence of 

 the officers and crew of the Thunderer, reported that the 

 explosion was due to double loading. A verdict more 

 extraordinary in the face of the evidence heard was never 

 published, and it naturally met with a perfect storm of 

 criticism. Many independent theories were put forward 

 by outsiders to account for the explosion, so much so, that 

 it was deemed advisable by the War Office authorities to 

 test these theories, and also the verdict of the committee 

 by a series of experiments on the sister gun. 



The proper and scientific manner in which to carry o.;t 

 these trials, would have been to have tested each theory 

 separately in an exhaustive manner. Had it been found 

 impossible to burst the gun. in this way, there would then 

 no doubt have been a strong probability in favour of the 

 double-load rag theory. Instead of this, what was actually 

 done was, fir=t to fire a series of rounds with air spaces 

 between the cartridge and the projectile, which were sup- 

 posed to have an analogy, but really had none, with the 

 well-known experiment of bursting a fowling-piece by 

 plugging its muzzle with snow or mud. The result of 

 these rounds was well known beforehand to every well- 

 informed artillerist. Next, two rounds were fired with a 

 papier-mache 1 wad placed in a slanting position in the 

 bore, some five feet in front of the projectile. This was 

 done with the object of testing Sir William Palliser's 

 theory, that the shot jammed on a partially withdrawn 

 wad, and split open the steel barrel of the gun, in such a 

 manner that the powder gases on reaching the split, blew 

 the gun violently to pieces. It was found in each of these 

 rounds that the wad was blown out of the gun before the 

 shot came near it ; and immediately it was proclaimed that 

 Vol. xxi. — No. 541 



the jamming theory had broken down. The true conclu- 

 sion to have drawn from these two rounds was, that when 

 wads are placed in the bore of a 38-ton gun in the manner 

 indicated, that they will be blown out of the gun before 

 the projectile reaches them ; but of what the result would 

 have been, if the wads had been so placed that the pro- 

 jectiles would have jammed on them, these rounds tell us 

 absolutely nothing. 



No experiments were made with the object of testing 

 the effect of an accidental crack in the steel barrel, and 

 we all know, that in spite of the utmost care bestowed on 

 the selection of the material, steel gun tubes will crack in 

 the most unexpected manner. Of this we have only this 

 week had a proof in the case of the bursting of a 100-ton 

 gun made for the Italian Government, when the weapon 

 was being fired with the mildest description of powder 

 known to artillerists. In this case the steel tube cracked 

 at the fore shoulder of the chamber, and the gun, in- 

 credible though it may sound, being dependent entirely 

 on this tube for its longitudinal strength, parted into two 

 pieces. What the result would have been had British 

 pebble powder been used, which registers 50 per cent, 

 more pressure than the Italian powder which was actually 

 fired, it is easy to see. 



Neither was any attempt made to cause the studded 

 projectile to override the rifling, and to ascertain what 

 would have been the result ; but it was resolved forthwith 

 to test the effect of double loading. The result was that 

 the gun burst, as most people familiar with its construc- 

 tion supposed it would do. It was immediately loudly 

 proclaimed that the verdict of the committee was correct, 

 and that the Woolwich system was triumphantly vindi- 

 cated, except for the case — only too likely to occur in 

 action — of the gun being double loaded. Under the 

 circumstance the only proper conclusion to have drawn 

 from this result was, that Woolwich 38-ton guns will 

 burst when double loaded. But when it is further stated 

 that the two guns burst in totally different manners, it 

 will be at once conceded how utterly groundless such a 

 conclusion was. That the two bursts were totally different 

 ought to have been apparent to the most casual spectator ; 

 for, whereas the first gun was quite uninjured as far as the 

 forward end of the outer breech coil, the second was split 

 from end to end. Moreover the directions of the principal 

 lines of fracture, and the character of the broken fragments 

 were quite different in the two cases. The second was in 

 fact a far more violent explosion than the first one. 



One useful lesson might have been learned from the 

 experiment with double-loading, viz., what change this 

 circumstance caused in the powder pressures. But even 

 this chance of obtaining information was missed ; for the 

 pressure-gauges were carefully crushed up before the 

 experiment took place, to 36 tons on the square inch, and 

 they failed to record any higher pressure. The fact that 

 the gauges were thus treated, so as to prevent their 

 giving any information as to the pressure required to 

 bur=t a Woolwich gun, is a most suspicious circumstance, 

 and one which ought to be thoroughly investigated. 



Such were the facts, and the only conclusion that 

 can legitimately be drawn from them is, that Wool- 

 wich guns are not strong enough to withstand one 

 of the ordinary chances of service. Under these 

 circumstances, it seems to us to be imperatively necessary 



