Q.F. GUNS FOE FIELD ABTILLEEY. 
453 
Speaking therefore as a manufacturer, the all important factor of the 
quick firing gun, as applied to the field, is that you should be able to 
obtain a really quick rate of fire, without the sights being thrown out 
of the alignment, and yet be able to alter the training within a mod¬ 
erate arc of fire without unduly fatiguing the detachment. 
Now many systems have been devised, which Sir George Clarke 
has already alluded to, and I may tell you that already one firm in 
France, viz., Compagnie des Hauts Fourneaux et acieries de la marine 
et des chemins de fer de St. Chamond, have designed a carriage, the 
patents of which my firm control, and therefore I must not lay too 
much .stress upon it, giving, I believe, the greatest rates of fire ever 
obtained at present in Europe. At the same time I should like to 
deal with that particular mounting more than any other, because I am 
more familiar with that system, although I have read of, and have 
had on the best authority a good many descriptions of other types of 
mountings at present in use in Europe, but I know my own best. 
We have obtained with this mounting a rate of fire of fourteen aimed 
rounds per minute, the fuzes having previously been set for the range, 
when using shrapnel, or when using case shot. But perhaps a more 
practical illustration of actual rapidity of fire was obtained from the 
gun under the following conditions. The gun was trained five 
degrees off the target and not loaded, being in such a position as you 
would reasonably expect when coming into action. Time was taken 
under these conditions, and the fuzes were set deliberately before each 
round, the setting being checked by an independent number and 
every round was carefully aimed on a target. Ten rounds under these 
conditions were easily fired with the usual gun detachment in one 
minute. 
Of course the question of the supply of the ammunition and the 
setting of the fuzes is very important, but I think you will agree with 
me that it is of the first importance to have a mounting from which 
you can get a very rapid rate of fire, and facilities for overcoming 
other difficulties will very soon follow. 
I may say that the Compagnie des Hauts Fourneaux et acieries de 
la marine et des chemins de fer have even gone further than we have in 
regard to the rate of fire; they have obtained a rate of twenty-five rounds 
per minute from this mounting. This rate of fire appears almost ex¬ 
orbitant, but they have obtained this extraordinary rate of fire, this 
very great speed, by the addition of a very few parts to the equipment, 
in fact the increase of weight is something like only 70 lbs. I do not 
put that forward as a proof that other people should obtain the same 
rate of fire, but it is interesting to know that they have done so, and I 
am persuaded that they can obtain a rate of even thirty rounds per 
minute from their system, with certain other small modifications. 
Sir George Clarke alluded to the system of the gun and carriage 
recoiling over the spade and being run forward into position by means 
of a spring. The great advantage of that system I think is that the 
actual strains on the mounting are very low; a large mass recoils 
through a somewhat longdistance and therefore you are able to make the 
structural parts of the mountings perhaps lighter than would be the 
