DISCUSSION ON ARTILLERY. 
81 
satisfied with. it. But I want you to understand that with this fuze 
the one thing we were aiming at was safety,—safety for the men who 
have to work the guns. We reported, 1 may say, before Colonel 
Elmslie’s battery went out to Egypt that we considered that the 5-in. 
howitzer and the smaller nature of guns might be fired without 
precautions. I may go on to tell you that we have since had most 
exhaustive experiments with Lyddite shells from large natures of 
guns. We have fired them from 10-in. and 9-in. muzzle loading 
guns, with charges of quick burning powder that gave a great shock 
to projectiles, under pressures that the shells were not intended to 
stand, such pressures that the shells have set up under them, and yet 
in no single instance has there been a premature explosion, and we 
are now of opinion in the Ordnance Committee that these forged steel 
Lyddite shells which have been recognized with the fuzes which have 
also been recognized may safely be fired without precautions from the 
larger natures of guns (applause). I think that will interest you, 
although not directly concerned with the subject of our discussion to¬ 
day. Then as regards what Colonel Elmslie said about incendiary 
shells, that incendiary shells would be useful:—well, that must be a 
matter of opinion whether it would be worth while to substitute for 
some of these powerful explosive Lyddite shells, incendiary shells. 
For myself I should rather doubt it. We have nob been altogether 
very successful with incendiary shells; they do not always set things 
alight. Captain May was telling me lately, that on board ship powder 
shells do not seem always to set things on fire, and I doubt whether it 
would be worth while to take away any Lyddite shells to put 
incendiary shells in their place. It seems to me that it does not 
matter much whether you set a building on fire or not so long as you 
make it absolutely untenable by men, and that your Lyddite shells 
undoubtedly do, though they do not set it on fire. 
With regard to the radius of explosion about which a question was 
asked by Major May, I do not remember whether it was a 5-in. shell 
or a 6-in. shell ; but there was an instance in which firing at 2,000 
yards range at Lydd a piece of the shell came back among the gun 
detachment. I am told that it was an 8-in. howitzer. So the radius 
is pretty considerable. There is this peculiarity about these shells, 
that the angle of explosion of the shell is very much greater than that 
of powder shells. We do not consider the detonation is really 
satisfactory with these Lyddite shells unless the angle of explosion of 
the fragments of shell is at least 180 degrees. You never get any¬ 
thing approaching that of course with powder shells. 
As regards the question of the noise of continuous firing which Lieut. 
Smith spoke of, I would suggest a very simple expedient which I often 
adopt myself when attending these experiments, and which they are 
not above adopting on board Her Majesty’s ships, as you will learn if 
you stand on the bridge of one during practice, and that is a little 
cotton wool in the ears, which has a wonderful effect. 
Lieut. Smith : —The difficulty, Sir, was that the men could not hear 
the word, of command to fire. 
