MEPPEN EXPERIMENTS, 
273 
difficulty experienced in the ignition of the charge and in remedying 
miss-fires. The vent was in the axis of the piece, and a disc of calico 
was torn off the bottom of the cartridge last entered, to expose the 
powder to the flash of the tube. The latter was of a bad pattern, short 
and weak, bio stress is to be laid on this, as the remedy is obvious. A 
primer or a stronger tube would rectify this fault. A rather more 
serious difficulty was apparent when a miss-fire had occurred. The 
position of the vent was such that it was unusually dangerous to 
approach it while there remained any likelihood of the gun firing. A 
gunner may insert a tube in a vent in the top surface of a gun with 
comparative safety, but to thrust his hand into the cavity in the breech, 
and in such a position tamper with a doubtful tube and charge, would 
indeed be dangerous. On active service the risk, no doubt, would be 
run, and it is possible, if the man stood on the step of the carriage and 
reached round so that the gun m any unexpected recoil should carry 
him with it rather than run over him, that he might escape without 
injury. Nevertheless, while this modifies the objection, it remains 
sufficient to make it imperative to construct some implement to enable 
a tube to be removed and another entered with safety, even should a 
miss-fire be a much rarer occurrence than it was at Meppen last 
summer. The flash from the vent has been spoken of. This is an 
objection which belongs to all axial-vented guns. In Krupp's guns, 
there was but little flash at Meppen, owing to an arrangement by 
which a loose platinum ball in the vent is driven up out of the way by 
the flash of the tube, but pressed back so as to close the vent by the 
rush of gas from the charge. An Italian officer stated that this ball 
is not serviceable, but becomes worn and of little use after a time. 
Under any circumstances this difficulty is one connected with axial 
vents rather than breech-loading. 
A more important question is the shooting of the gun as regards 
power and accuracy. The chilled projectiles had 0*078 in windage, 
which is about the same as that in Woolwich projectiles, namely, 0‘08-in. 
over a copper rim. The common shell subsequently fired, however, 
had the unpractical windage of about 0'01-in. over an iron body. 
The diagrams, Nos. 1 and 2, show a remarkable degree of accuracy, 
chiefly in the vertical direction, which argues well for the regularity of 
DIAGRAM l. 
Group of hits on target made by 71-ton gun at 2,734 yds. range. 
