104 
ARMOUR AND ITS ATTACK BY ORDNANCE. 
to about i inch in small mountings. On firing, the hood is forced 
against the edge of the glacis ring, but there is little apparent violence 
or bad effect either on mounting or on the accuracy of the shooting. 
The 12 cm mounting was erected very easily, and certainly might be 
despatched and put up at night under favourable conditions at any 
desired spot previously prepared for it. Where any kind of rails 
existed, the operation would be specially simple. The element of 
resistance of the cupola roofs was not tried here, but it has been tested 
at Bucharest and elsewhere. Smokeless powder is held by some to 
have rendered it so easy to conceal the position of a gun, and to have 
detracted so far from the value of protection, as to make it question¬ 
able if the money needed for the latter is a good investment. This in 
a measure is true, but it is suggested that it does not apply to the case 
of systematic attack such as is employed in sieges, when all positions 
become known and attacked almost as accurately as if seen. The 
partial destruction of the sluice completely concealed in the ditch in 
Strasburg, by curved fire in 1870, may be taken as an instance of this 
occurring in actual war. Here, then, it is suggested that protection is 
of even more importance than concealment, and the cupolas and 
mountings exhibited at Tangerhiitte certainly afford very complete 
protection, as well as being difficult to see, and it would take so enor¬ 
mous an expenditure of fire to destroy them, that probably they 
would remain serviceable until they should be captured. It has been 
objected that the man directing the fire in the shielded emplacements 
is boxed up too closely, and that in some of these a small u Admirable 
Crichton” would be needed to work with success, and that it is a 
mistake to endeavour to afford absolute security to any one. This 
objection is reasonable, but it would be perfectly easy to give the 
smaller hoods man-holes in the roof, so that if needed the man could 
raise his head and look out for an instant. They existed in the 
Bucharest cupola, and there is one in the turret for the pair of 15 cm 
guns. It has also been objected that nuts and bolts exist, which 
might be dislodged and form dangerous langridge. This applies 
chiefly to portable steel constructions, but the impression that this is 
characteristic of Gruson’s designs appears to be a mistake. Even in 
the 12 cm shielded hood, which is made in two thicknesses, screwed 
together for the sake of portability, the bolts could not fly into the 
interior, seeing that they end in a decreased screw which hardly 
reaches to the interior surface of the inner cupola. Of course, this 
objection cannot be urged against chilled-iron shields whose special 
characteristic is the total absence of langridge. Details, such as 
position of bolts, ventilating holes and the like, might be varied at 
any time. It may be noticed that the report of discharge of the gun 
is surprisingly little heard inside a shielded mounting. In the practice 
made at targets at Tangerhiitte, there was, in the judgment of some of 
those best qualified to speak, great room for improvement, and the 
same is true of some of the operations, such as getting a portable 
shielded mounting out of its counter-sunk position. No one, however, 
would go all the way to Magdeburg merely to see accurate target 
practice, which is only material so far as concerns the efficiency of the 
