ELECTRIC QUICKFIRER.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 230, 22 June 1908, Page 7

ELECTRIC QUICKFIRER.

, FRENCH INVENTION. BT TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION— COPIBIQin (Hoc. Juno 21, 4.40 p.m.) Paris, Juno 20. Tho French Government is having te3tß made of an electric quickiirer, the invention of an engineer of Dijon named Putease. It is claimed that the gun is capable of discharging 1200 projectiles a iniuute without the aid of explosives.

ELECTRIC ORDNANCE. Great things are claimed nowadays for electric guns. Writing of the Simpson gun in the " Contemporary," ■ Colonel F. N. Maude, late of the Koyal Engineers, declares that, if the rule with velocities up to 2500 ft. a secondvis., that the resistance increases as tho square of the velocity—Holds good at higher rates, "then practically thera is nothing to prevent these weapons—one can hardly call them 'guns'—from throwing shells from London to. Paris, or vice versa, at tho rate of a -few thousand a day." In a second article in the Contemporary"—the title is " Tho New Eloctric Ordnance "—Colonel Maude- writes: "The immediate and practical value of the new weapon lies_ far less in tho possibilities of extreme velocities' and ranges revealed in my previous article than in its extraordinary adaptability to all the circumstances of war, whether on sea or land, as they may arise. Unlike tho ordinary _ high velocity ffrai of the present day, the trajectory of which can only bo'modified by alterations in tho weight of the charge-not usually undertaken in the field, the control of the new. weapon is so complete that it can deliver its projectiles at any required velocity from,. say, 100 f.s. up to its extreme power, which; as I have said, may reach 30.000deg.; nor is, it confined to tho use of projectiles of fixed weight for each type of gun; but it can throw shells at any weight most convenient for tho purpose of the moment, and can be made so light in proportion to its power that it may be looked upon as capable of fulfilling in on 6 single form all tho functions of mountain artillery, howitzers, and field artillery, whilst the.source of tho power necessary for its use can bo. packed like an ordinary ammunition waggon, and the powor. itself can be transmitted through field cables to any reasonable, distances."