75’s.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 10330, 27 March 1916, Page 7

75’s.

FRENCH FIELD GUNS. “FINEST MAN-KILLING MACHINES IN THE WORLD.” j M. Pousse Cailloux contributes to Black wood s for January an informativi article on the French field guns, with whid such deadly effects have been produced. “What is a 75? By this is conversation filly understood a French field gun, tin calibre—or interior diameter of the bore—o which is 75 millimetres. Incidentally it i the finest man-killing machine the world ha , yet known. “In 1898 Franco surprised the armies o the world by tbc introduction of an artillen weapon which, till then, had only existed ii ; the dreams of experts. The secret was wcl | kept; the weapon, as it saw the light, wa; ' characterised by a boldness of conceptioi ; and a carefulness in detail which spoke o j much anxious thought. There was nc searching after inspiration or any adaptatioi of existing methods; the finished article was finished indeed, and had all the air ol finality. ; _ “Till this period the slowness of artillery ' lire was due to the fact that after the gur was laid and fired, the shock of the discharge | so upset. the aim that the gm hod to be relaid for a second shot. The rapidity of (ire, therefore, became a matter of how quickly and accurately a gun could be layed by the personal skill of the layer. The French, seeking artillery progress, and confronted with the inexorable shortage of thou conscripts’ period of training, sought to improve in mechanism what they could not improve in personal skill. The best brains in the country got to work; high technical training, much patience, long experience of practical warfare—all these would have boon of no avail without the happy gift of imagination and the boldness of conception which gave concrete shape to the gunners’ dreams. “Briefly, the new French field gun of 1393 ceased to he attached to its axle tree, but was attached, instead, to a buffer iu acradle, which not only absorbed thy shock of recoil, but ran back the gun so exactly into its former position that no second laying was noeessarv, RATE OE FUSE SETTING. “Having got over the primary trouble of laying, rapidity of fire appeared to have been attained. Experiments then proved that though a rapid rate of lire was possible, this rate was only us fast as that at which the gunners could, adjust the fuses of the shells. “How, now, to improve the rate of fuse sotting? This task was and is a matter of meticulous accuracy, needing careful training to be done correctly; moreover, it could not be hurried, since a shell badly fused by ever so little was not only ,innocuous to the enemy but was a danger to one's own side. Once more the French put aside any idea of brisking up the personnel, and invented a machine to set the fuse. The details of this fuse-setter are still a secret. Lot it suffice that it is simpler, accurate, and very rapid in its work. Pass behind an English and a French battery in action. The British gunner appears to bo laboriously eviscerating bis shell with a tin opener; the Frenchman, on the other hand, you would describe as using a beer engine, with one clean crisp stroke for each shell. Thanks to it, and to the steadiness of the gun after each discharge, the French field gun is easily capable of 25 aimed rounds a minute. One more word about the recoil absorber, and the secret thereof. The recoil is taken up by a cylinder beneath the gun, which contains a combination of glycerine, compressed air and springs. It I is this combination, and the exact proportions thereof, which makes the secret of the gun. It is not even known to ourselves or to other allied nations, nor, in view of the extraordinary usefulness of the gun, can wo grumble at the secret not being in more hands than it is. It is not even ascertainable from a captured gun, since, if you take a cold chisel to it and try to examine the works by opening the buffer, the compressed air escapes, and the secret which lies in its density evaporates with it. MUZZLE VELOCITY. “Having solved the questions of the rate of fire, won would have thought that the French would have been content. Not they. A gun so good could not bo allowed to stop short of perfection. The mechanics of the thing could not be improved, but the ballistics could. Here the inventors were on simpler ground. Range and accuracy wore successively taken in hand. Muzzle velocity—which, after all, means range — was increased; not by increasing the charge, and, with it. the thickness cf the gun that withstood it. but by lengthening thi' gnu to a hitherto unheard of extent and giving it a slow burning propellant; much us our naval guns got their immense range, velocity and penetrative power by apparently tapering away into the Ewigkeit. “The unusual length of the gun mattered not at all; even though i" reached 36 calibres, all but nine feet , an unheard of length in any modern field gun. It only involve! the lengthening of the recoil chamber,and a small adjustment in the rale of the. recoil. tho whole process’ being so Quick as not to make tho difference of a round a minute in the rate of (ire. “The. temptation to put in a lighter shell, and so get it further, on the same bang, was successfully resisted. Excellence of steel in the gun and the adoption of _ an improved breech even allowed of a slight increase in the weight of tho shell and in its consequent remaining momentum at the end of its flight. The designers never lost sight of the fact that the primary object of the gun was to deliver death to its enemies at the greatest speed, range and effectiveness possible; so they concentrated their energies on a man-killing shrapnel which, in the end, weighed 161b. and left lh' 4 gun on Its long journey at the unprecedented pace of 1739 foot-seconds. “And there you have, the present shrapnel. HIGH EXPLOSIVE SHELL. “Tactics hero began to get mixed up with mechanics and ballistics. It was pointed out that troops would not always remain out in the open to be whiffed out of existence by shrapnel. Rather would they get under cover at what speed they might. So a shell to deal with entrenchments, buildings and fortifications was indicated. Here, again, careful thought showed the need of accurate gunnery and

a still higher velocity in the shell, which, being more local in its effects, could not bo allowed the same latitude in its action as its shrapnel confrere. So a high-explo-sive shell weighing only 11.681b was introduced. Thanks to the chemists this time, its contents wore of such a startling natcrc that its weight became a secondary consul- . oration. lr. raced away on its mission at . 2050 foot-seconds, a velocity at that time i unequalled even by tho latest small-bore rifle, and when it exploded, its melinite - charge blow great, holes in the scenery. . “This immense velocity, giving exact acf curacy, allowed the field gun to be used , with all a rifleman’s marksmanship, and 5 F rcnch gunners came to view direct hits on objects aimed at as not merely forint' itous, but as things to be normally cx- ■ needed. i “Well, hero wore the best gunners in the | world with the best gun in the world, j They did not run about putting on© ani other’s backs and then patting the breech ' of the gun; they kept on thinking. Imag- , ination having ceased inspiring with the i creation of the weapon of their dreams’, ( the French thinkers let tho logical issue ' have full play; they saw at once that the novelty in tho powers of the weapon had • revolutionised fire tactics and the methods of dealing with targets, animate and inan- , imate. The long spouts of their nine feet guns, the heavy bullet in their shrapnel, the pace, accuracy and shattering power of the lI.IC. shell—all this gave them to think. How was the supply of ammunition to be kept up in a six-gun battery? What was the best way of using the spraying effect of multitudinous shrapnel. What effect would a tornado of his own lire have on the vivacious temperament of the French gunner? QUESTION OF SUPPLIES. “These and many other problems engaged their attention. Nothing was leffc to chance. “For the first time in history tho weapon produced tactics; hitherto the tactical needs had produced the desired weapon. It was found that the consistency with which this gun would place round after round on the same spot without relaying gave too close a pattern on the target, and means had to be devised to spread the effect about a little. In the old gun travessing right and left was obtained by shifting the trail; in the now it was found possible to consider as fixed points the wheels and the spado on the end of the trail, and so make the whole gun and cradle traverse along the axle-tree a small number of degrees right and left, without upsetting the stability of the triangle on which the gun rested. In other words, it was found"" that the battery commander had no need to abandon the advantage of Ills j high rate of fire in order to spray Ins shrapnel right and left. A simple worm and wheel gear, with a handle working ou a circle, divided into ares, gave a constant, amount of traverse; so that the gunner, in turning his wheel a certain number of times knew exactly how much right or left of his target fils shell would burst. This power of traversing, within certain limits, combined with an extensive power of elevating and depressing, turned the gun into a veritable hose. Forthwith, the new tactics were born. The French introduced new names —the ‘tir fauehant,’ or moving fire (taueher, to mow; Lat. falx: Eng]., falchion). The ‘tir progreesif,’ which would follow men as they ran forward or away from you. Finally, the combination of the two, the ‘tir progress!! et fauehant,’ whereby the captain commanding the battery is able to sow with shrapnel any piece of ground containing a target so effectually, and at, such short notice, that if the target is flesh and blood, and is not buried over head and cars in a trench, it stands no chance whatever of surviving. THE “RAFALE.” “This is the storm, the dreaded ‘rafale.’ “At the expense of tediousness, lot us examine its details. Th© cone of dispersion—the pattern, in fact —which a bursting French shrapnel makes on the ground at, say, 3000 metres, is a diagram 30 metres 1 long by 14 metres broad. Owing to the high remaining velocity of the bullets, and its comparative great weight—3B to the pound —this area, is beaten by 250 effective bullets, each having sufficient momentum in it, not only to kill a man. but also a jierforatc any practicable form of portable protection with which he may be provided. “Now, the constant shooting of the French field gun renders it possible to imprint on ‘ the surface of any given piece of ground ; a succession of such patterns, side by side, and touching one another, and all by giving a stated number of turns to the wheel on ■ j the carriage, which deflects the muzzle right ; j and left. By shortening tho range _ 300 i i metres on the elevating gear, done in a j j moment, a second succession of patterns , ; may bb placed below the first lot, much in | ! (ho same way as a type-writer shifts at tho l end of a line, and commences to write the 1 second. There is no reason, in effect why a ; t third and fourth, and any oilier number of i lines of pat terns should not, l>c splashed on to the ground, the process being only limit- \ eel by the amount of ammunition available. In practice, the amount is, as a rule, limited ! to eight rounds per gun. “Th© buttery commander rattles off a [ string of words, containing object, range, fuse and angle of deflection; while no is yet speaking, the layers arc on the, mark, the fuse-setters are punching the shell noses, ! the breech swings open, (he traversing num- j her of grasps the worm and wheel gear, i And as the captain finishes on a sharp word of command, each gun, being laid on an j axis parallel to its fellow, whizzes off with- j out further command a string off eight j shells in two groups of four, and ceases fire. As the last shell leaves (he gun the loading number swings open tho breech and stands easy —the whole process has taken exactly 20 seconds; and, somewhere about two miles off, there is a patch of mother earth the size of Trafalgar Square, every scrap of which has been so beaten by shrapnel bullets that within its area, it is mathematically accurate to say there- is no unprotected living thing. “Wore four battalions, massed in a brigade formation, unlucky enough to find themselves within 6000 metres of a battery of French 75’s, at a previously ascertained distance, it is theoretically correct to say that in under half a minute they would be beaten flat to the earth, not a single man surviving untouched, “One last word on the supply of ammunition. Tlie French did not hesitate to incur expenditure of ammunition on_ a far more lavish scale than any other nation had contemplated. and they provided their batteries with twice the number of shells carried by other armies. The number of waggons in a German six-gun battery is six; that in a French four-gun battery twelve —three times as many in proportion. When the hist French field artillery manual

was brought out, caeli 75 had to its credit in tho field 1500 shells, carried in the various columns and reserves. It is believed that since tho war commenced, this number has boon increased by 500. “Need we wonder that, as the French President told us recently, the reserve stocks of 75 shell had reached almost an incredible figure ? “Need wc, moreover, wonder at the affection in which the guns arc held by tho whole French people? the high opinion in which they have always held their gun and gunners lias been fully borne out in the present war.”