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SILVER MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1893 . 
carried out from H.M.S. Hercules, off Shoeburyness, in August 1886; 
was inconclusive. The fact nevertheless remains, that though the 
ship anchored in smooth water, such an excellent gun as the 8-inch 70 
cwt. howitzer, was unable to plant a shell within 20 yards of a con- . 
spicuous target flag at only 1500 yards, and that two rounds fired with 
the same elevation and charge, on the same day, gave a difference in 
range of 370 yards;” And again, “ The original experiments made 
with a 9-inch polygrooved gun were remarkably successful, and proved 
that, thanks to the position-finder, it would be impossible for a ship to 
anchor at 8000 yards from such guns without receiving frequent deck 
hits of a dangerous nature.” 
It is true, if a large number of specially armed ships can be placed 
in perfectly smooth water, sheltered from the fire of the works attacked, 
and the latter are cramped and weakly constructed, the effect of 
vertical fire from the ships may be considerable. With these condi¬ 
tions 20 mortar schooners shelled Fort Jackson, below New Orleans, 
in 1862, and Colonel Higgins who commanded the fort has left on 
record : l “ On the first night of the attack the citadel and all the build¬ 
ings in rear of the fort were fired by bursting shell, and also the sand¬ 
bag walls that had been thrown around the magazine doors.” “ I was 
obliged to confine my men to the casemates, or we should have lost 
the best part of the garrison.” But this fire decidedly did not render 
the armament unserviceable, and the vessels owed their successful 
passage on the 24th April, to the crushing effect of their broadsides. 
It is particularly worthy of note that the same mortar boats at a fair 
range effected nothing against the weak but dispersed Confederate 
batteries at Vicksburg, when Farragut passed them on the 28th June, 
1862. They do not appear to have been of any use on the Atlantic coast, 
and Farragnt had none with him at Mobile, though Fort Morgan would 
have been an ideal target. 
Ships always have auxiliary armaments, forts frequently are without 
them. When this is so the ships will have a decided advantage, pro¬ 
vided they can engage at sufficiently short ranges. The experience 
gained by the Inchkeith experiments, and at Alexandria, justify the 
following table of ranges as the greatest for effect: 
Bifle Calibre Machine guns 1000 yards 
1-inch „ „ „ 1800 „ 
6-pr. Quick-firing guns ... 2500 ,, 
4*7-inch „ „ ... not much more. 
If the forts have auxiliary armaments the advantage must rest with 
them because tbeir guns will be better protected and better ranged, 
while the searching power of this class of guns, at the ranges admitting 
of correct observation of fire, is very small. 
Such, broadly speaking, are the conditions of the combat to-day, but 
in the near future they will, in all probability, be modified in detail by 
“high explosives” carried in “ armour-piercing” common shell, and 
by “ Harvey ” armour. 
The effect of the introduction of the general use of shells, in the time 
1 Ships versus Fortsj Jackson, E.E, Occasional Papers, 1889, 
