MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
upon which indeed he insists, 1 2 but on account of which he makes no 
allowance for the English gun. 3 Here, once again, we find ourselves 
face to face with the convenient fallacy upon which we have before 
remarked, that the English gun could not fire prismatic powder, and 
therefore could not improve its accuracy by this means. 
But, independently of this, attention must be called to this attempt to 
solve the question of accuracy by such a limited trial—a trial which, when 
compared with the vastly more extensive experiments which have taken 
place in England on this particular point, is ridiculously insignificant. From 
these very limited Tegel trials, we appeal confidently to the accumulated 
results of an extended series of carefully conducted and scrupulously 
scientific experiments in this country, in proof of the fact that the English 
guns, when skilfully handled, are capable of an accuracy of fire which leaves 
nothing to be desired. The following table gives, in a concise form, the 
results of practice with 7", 8", and 9" Woolwich guns by the late Ordnance 
Select Committee, who reported, when presenting these tables in 1867, that 
“the practice of these guns is quite unexampled. It has never, within the 
Committee's experience, been exceeded by that of guns on any other system 
of rifling whatever." 3 
This practice therefore surpassed in accuracy not merely all known practice 
at that date (1867) with muzzle-loading guns, but it also surpassed all 
practice with breech-loading guns, field and heavy, “on any system of 
rifling whatever." 
Calibre 
of gun. 
Nature of projectile. 
Mean 
range. 
Mean 
difference 
of range. 
Mean 
reduced 
deflection. 
Remarks. 
yds. 
yds. 
yds. 
7-inch . 
Common shell 
766 
13-5 
0-3 
II 
n 
3880 
31-4 
2-2 
II 
Palliser shell 
1129 
12-0 
0-3 
II 
8-inch . 
n 
n 
II 
Common shell 
II 
2240 
751 
1123 
2258 
12-2 
11*3 
10-7 
25-7 
0-8 
0-4 
0-5 
0-6 
In each case the figures 
are the means of ten 
rounds with R.L.G. pow¬ 
der. 
n 
II 
3716 
25*8 
2-0 
9-inch . 
II 
731 
14*7 
0-3 
n 
II 
4056 
31-1 
2-1 
n 
Palliser shot 
1110 
11*0 
0-3 
n 
II 
2326 
10-1 
0*8 
With regard to the broad question of the “ incontestable " superiority of 
breech-loading to muzzle-loading guns, it is difficult to know how within 
the limits of courteous discussion to reply to an artillerist who gravely 
1 Doppelmair, pp. 22, 23. 
2 See text above, where it is stated that the want of accuracy of the Krupp gun was attributed 
by the Prussian Committee to the inferiority of the powder. If the use of a superior powder made 
the Krupp gun shoot better, it is reasonable to assume that the English gun would have been 
benefited to the same extent if it had enjoyed the same advantage. 
3 “Report of Ordnance Select Committee,” No. 4443, January 9, 1867. See Parliamentary 
Papers, “ Army Whitworth Guns,” June 6, 1867. It may be noticed, in passing, that the Com¬ 
mittee show that these results were vastly superior to those obtained with the Whitworth guns, 
about the accuracy of which much has been said. 
