414 
ACCIDENT ON BOARD RUSSIAN BATTLE-SHIP. 
municate through the wrecked floor with the powder and shell 
magazines; the flames were extinguished, however, in less than two 
minutes. 
On examination the turret was found to be completely wrecked, it 
had become uncentred and sagged down so that it was impossible to 
move it. It was found that the accident had occurred to the left gun, 
whose breech-block had been blown out straight to the rear and had 
made an indent three inches deep in the turret armour. The block 
itself had rebounded intact from the armour and the gun was found to 
be practically uninjured. 
The right gun fired correctly, but its hand-loading mechanism is said 
to have suffered very considerable damage from the force of the ex¬ 
plosion. 
The hydraulic gear in the turret was broken and twisted into all 
manner of shapes. 
As regards the number of persons killed or wounded by the ex¬ 
plosion, the various accounts which have appeared vary considerably. 
It would seem, however, that there were in the turret at the time the 
gunnery lieutenant, an engineer officer with the relative rank of 
lieutenant, and at least eight men. 
Strange to say, notwithstanding the tremendous heat and blast to 
which they must have been exposed, all except the gunnery lieutenant, 
who was in the sighting position, were able to crawl out or to be helped 
out of the turret alive, but the engineer officer and most, if not all, 
of the men are believed to have since died. 
A considerable number of the ship’s complement were evidently on 
deck watching the practice, and the half of the turret which fell on the 
deck is said to have killed instantaneously at least 15 men. Alto¬ 
gether, 26 officers and men are said to have been killed or to have 
since died of their wounds, and 15 others to have been wounded, mak¬ 
ing a total of 41 casualties. 
The casualties caused by the bursting of the 12-inch 38-ton M.L. 
gun on board H.M.S. Thunderer on the 2nd January, 1879 were as 
follows :—The officer of the turret and 8 out of the 9 men who were in 
it were killed, the one survivor being very much injured. One officer 
and one man on the battery deck were killed and 34 other men were' 
more or less injured, i.e ., 11 killed and 35 wounded, making a total of 
46. 
And now to come to the cause of the explosion. The threads on the 
outside of the breech-block having been found to be uninjured, as well 
as the threads on the inside of the gun, and also the breech-block hav¬ 
ing struck the interior of the turret armour immediately in rear of the 
left gun, all point to the conclusion that when the guns were fired the 
breech-block of the left gun had been pushed home, but not given 
the sixth of a turn necessary to finally secure it. 
It seems almost incredible in these advanced days of perfection in 
automatic mechanism of all kinds that a gun should be mounted on 
board any vessel and not fitted with an automatic safety arrangement 
to prevent the gun being fired before the breech was properly secured. 
