428 
THE BATTLE OF THE VELOCITIES. 
1500 f.s. gun would be severely handicapped if equipped with ammuni¬ 
tion of the present pattern. The Elswick shrapnel, with head burster, 
has now no excuse for further existence. It was designed before the 
theory of the “ angle of opening ” was understood, and under the 
impression that its good qualities, when burst on graze, would atone for 
its bad performance when put to its legitimate use. Now, however, 
Colonel Nicholson has exposed the unsoundness of its principle, and 
Okehampton experience has shown us that percussion shell can never 
hope to compete with time shrapnel. 
Much might be written about the present fuzes and common shell— 
much again about a 20-pr. field gun with a low — which would 
keep up its velocity better than the 12-pr.—but this paper is already 
a long one, and I will say no more. 
Teimulgheert, 
19th March , 1892, 
