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MINUTES OF PEOCEEDINGS OF 
hardly fail to have hampered the officers who were called upon to report 
upon the merits of this class of ordnance. Supposing the guns to fail in 
the experiments, what was to be done with all these costly steel blocks? 
The order had been given—an order, like everything else Russian, on a 
large scale. As a matter of fact the guns did fail, and this is what the 
Committee did:—When they found that the steel ingots would not stand 
as rifled guns with heavy charges, they tried them as rifled guns with light 
charges; and when they failed under these conditions, they tried them as 
smooth-bores; and when in their smooth-bore state they stood a test, which 
certainly did not err on the side of severity, the Committee gravely reported 
“ that Krupp's cast-steel cannon are of very great resistance." 1 As, how¬ 
ever, they declare in the same breath that “ rifled guns possess very 
important' advantages over smooth-bored guns ... as regards their 
effect upon armour-plates," 2 and as the Cronstadt armament was expressly 
required “ to oppose the attack of an armour-plated squadron," this was 
not a conclusion which could be accepted as final or satisfactory. Even 
as a piece justicatif, the report was incomplete. So further trials were 
made, and at last one breech-loading 8k-inch Krupp gun fired 400 rounds 
of 27J lbs. of prismatic powder and 2001b. shot, and 25 rounds of 22 lb. 
charges of “ common" powder; upon which the Committee reported that 
the 84-inch breech-loader gun was “ perfectly suitable for the armament of 
coast batteries." 3 In this way the great order to Krupp was sanctioned. 
To anticipate a possible objection that this account of the proceedings of 
the Russian Committee is deficient in detailed-information, it may be well 
to state somewhat more precisely what occurred, observing that the weights 
given are in Russian pounds, which are 10 per cent, less than ours, and 
that the charges were of comparatively mild Russian powder. 
The Committee selected from the steel gun-blocks ordered to be supplied 
by Mr. Krupp, eight, with which to experiment. The first block was tried 
as a 94-inch muzzle-loading rifled gun. It was fired with 45 lbs. of 
prismatic powder and 2691b. shot. It burst badly at the 66th round. 
No. 2 block was bored out to 84 ins., and fired with 33 lbs. of powder and 
2201b. shot. This gun burst at the 109th round. That these bursts, 
notwithstanding the Committee's suggestion that they were perhaps due to 
the jamming of the projectiles in the bore, were really in the Committee's 
opinion attributable to the simple fact that the guns were unequal to the 
strain imposed by these charges, 4 seems to be proved by the circumstance 
that the next step w^as to effect a further reduction in the charge and weight 
of shot. 
Nos. 3 and 4 blocks were bored out to 84 ins., and fired with 2741b. 
charges 5 and 200 lb. shot. After 169 rounds with No. 3, and 240 rounds 
1 “ Proceedings of tlie Eoyal Artillery Institution,” Yol. Y. p. 68. 
2 Ibid. Vol. Y. p. 68. 3 Ibid. Vol. Y. p. 72. 
4 “The reasons assigned for the bursting of the guns, seem prompted by a needless desire to save 
the reputation of Krupp’s steel. They evidently burst from over-work, and the misgivings of those 
unnamed persons who conceived thereupon doubts as to the resistance of large steel guns, cannot 
be regarded as altogether unreasonable.”'—Proceedings of the Eoyal Artillery Institution, Vol. V. 
p. 60. 
5 One of these guns fired 46 rounds with 33 lb. charges. 
