WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 195, 19 July 1939, Page 11

WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

MODERN PROJECTILES. It i.s better not to have much to say about the weapons ol war men have iurged for themselves in these modern days, tor they are so terrible that the size and power ol them frightens many ol us. But there is no denying the fact that we have achieved marvellous results—even though we have not the sense to see the stupidity of it all. tiome marvellous developments in the manufacture of projectiles, lor instance, have in the last lew years proved that our inventors are as ingenious as ever.

For the lust 150 years Great Britain lias led the way in all such inventions, and one of the most important of tiiesc litis been ill alloy steels.

The strength and hardness of steel have long been the chief factor in the age-long rivalry between weapon and armour. The weapon lias again attained ascendancy, and our biggest guns can lire a shell capable of destroying an enemy ship at a distance of 15,000 yards instead of the 12,000 yards of an ordinary shell. So a battleship armed with this new type ol slid 1 could destroy its enemy before that enemy could get near enough to use its guns.

Sir Robert Hndficld a little while ago gave a description of wiiat these new projectiles can do. A 15-inch shell, weighing nearly a ton, was fired at modern armour-plate over a loot thick. It perforated this plate in a 300th of a second, removing over six hundredweight of its highly-tempered steel, and then travelled on for nine miles.

In an even severer test in which tho shell met a plate not quite so thick at an angle of 30 degrees the projectile travelled on for 11 miles. These wonderful achievements are due to the work of the scientists in creating new steels bv combining this metal with others. —(L).