1871J Modern British Ordnance and Ammunition, 



523 



By this means it has been ascertained by practice, that a 

 g-inch M. L. rifled gun of 12-tons, mounted on a wrought- 

 iron carriage, with casemate slide, and traversed by means 

 of tackle, can be worked by a detachment of thirteen men 

 under a N. C. officer, loaded by a 30-pound cartridge and 

 250-pound plugged shell, laid on a target (5 feet square 



Fig. 15. 



Loaded ready for Firing 



and moving at the rate of 8 miles an hour), at a thousand 

 yards range, and five rounds fired in three minutes and 

 twenty-two seconds. The moving target being hit at least 

 once in the five rounds ; whilst every shell will be thrown 

 so near the target that it would hit a mark as large as a 

 man-of-war launch. 



So also at a standing target, the 23-ton gun, 12-inch, or 

 600-pounder, has been fired a series of rounds through 



Fig. 16. 



After Discharge, showing recoil of Breech-piece, 



a port with an average rate of one minute and thirty 

 seconds for each round. In the instance quoted the above- 

 named gun was manned by a detachment of seventeen 

 men ; it was mounted on a turntable, which had to be 

 traversed round each time to bring the muzzle under the 

 cheeks of a 16-foot gyn, rigged as shears, in order to enable 



VOL. VIII. (O.S.) — VOL. I. (N.S.) 3 Y 



