THE NEEDLE-GUN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 894, 25 September 1866, Page 5

THE NEEDLE-GUN.

Tni: nltcnlioß of till the greats military powers' l has boon tlrtuvii to this efleelive arm. ;;Louis Napoleon has ordered one -million pieces tto be. manufactuj-ed, Kngland a. tenth of that number.'The frrcat advantage, however, of the gun; as used by the Prussian.';, is said to consist of a ■ particular 'kind of explosive material attached to the butt-end of tlio bullet, which-' is acted upon by the needle, and the nature of this coro> position is Maintained a profound . secret.■>;, Its two inventors, though, provided with every, thing they ask for, except liberty, have been kept, under close surveillance for years. .. v, _. . We take the following extracts from English journals upon this much talked of weapon -.— ' We find' thftt tho attention of all tho military authoriiies, both here and on tho Continent, is at length fixed upon the Prussian " neodle-Kun." Its manifest superiority in tho conquest of tho Duchies excited a. passing interest which, soon subsided, but its adoption on a larger scalo in the present war has now rive.ttcd. the attention of ail tho great military monarchies in Europe. The French, who are foremost in the invention Or adoption of ingenious contrivances, especially in the tactics of war, havo already given orders for a million of Jhefte deadly weapons to tho manufacturers of ljeige and pise whore ; and one-fourth of tlio whole contract, or 250,000, aro to . bo delivered,-, wo are told, by tho Ist of .Septeinbor—an ominous day both for partridge and men. Sir Lucius G'Trigger boasted of his prowess- in " killing a jiian a week," but a soldier armed, with this implement may kill his five men a minuto. Our own War-offico ofliciils aro, wo aro glad to find, also on tho alert. General Peel, tho now Minister: for War, stated at Huntingdon, a day or two ago, that arrangements have bfion made for converting 100,000 Enfield riilos into breech loaders. From another souroo we learn that the new weapon is constructed oh tho principle suggested by Mr. Snider, an American, and will prove a most effective arm. The breech is opened and shut in two motions, instead of five, as requited by the Prussian needle-gun, and it will discharge eleven rounds por minuto instead of five. In one cxponnient, indeed, twenty shots per minuto aro said to have been accomplished. The conversion of the. Enlields will cost only 10$. each, and the alterationcan be made with extraordinary rapidity. This important f.ubjfct wns brought before the House of Lords on the 18th by Earl do Grey, who asked what course tho Government intended to pursue with regard to Mie arming of our troop?with breeeh-loadera, and whether they intended to pursue the plan undertaken by the late Govorttinonv, ot converting the Knfields, at present in use, into breech-loaders, -the Earl of Longford replied that the Government had decided upon: fco.iverting tho Enfield rifles, already existing, into breech-loaders, and that at.the end ot themifitaryycar,;.! March, instead of having only 40-000 Enfield riilos converted into breechloaders, as had been intended by the late Government, the present Government had made arrangements which would -result "in the conversion of 150,000 rifles by that Hme.-rSuropcnn Time?. . ~.... The Snider Snider principle admits, of canning being dono away with, and the converted Enfieldswill be loaded with self-igniting cartridges fired by a pin, which having, struck the cartridge is returned, by a spring to its. positi.n, Ono ot these guns; fixod at Woolwich last week from a hx-d. rest, at 300 yards' range, in two minutes lodged. 30 shota upon the target within a space of 2 inches diameter. I Acoireesßondent o£ th 9 'Ximis calla attention to the

ill. misapprehension existing upon the subject, of mililarv e, breech-loading arras, and upon the steps taken by txpycrnment for their adoption into the service. He r, says:—" It can be* unhesitatingly affirmed that Mr. •e : binder's converted Enfield is the beat breech-loading d rifle for military purposes that the world has yet seen. I allude to the complete arm with the smalt im-. i, prOverhe.nts so recentlv added t.> it in the Hoyal Axx senal at Woolwich j and supplied; with the" Boxer cartridge. This last,indcod,..has greatly contiibufed to t the tucqessof the..riile.. We have been unable to procure 0 any brcech-ciosing arrangements which shall be quite • #;* s "t'i'(J nit > indeed, it seems almost a practical impos--3 sibility that an apparatus which; has; to be opened and shut so many times a minute could bo gas-ti»ht. f Hence wo must look to the cartridge to effect this i, end, which is in the present instance perfectly secured - by the simple plan patented by Colonel Boxer. The ■3 cost of converting tho Enfield rifle is estimated at 3 about 12s. per arm, and the cost of the ammunition 5 will bo one-third greater than with the muzzlo- ■ loader; Qn the other hand, the shooting of tnocoac verted rifle is. at least one-third bettor than before— ■ [j ue . -p.er.hapß, in part to a Slight alteration Mr. . hinder has made in tho existing Enfield bullet. With 1 the original JKnfield muzzle-loader tlto mean radial ; deviation at 600-yardj range- was 18-8 inches ; fit the i same rungo the deviation with the Snider Enfield was 12 inches. During the recent experiments cari ried on at Woolwich, it was found that a well-trained ■ map taking accurate aim, fired with tho Enfield • muzzlc4oader ten rounds in 4 minutes 4G seconds • - with the Snuler-Enfielci, ten rounds in 1 minuto 44 , seconds. Without taking aim, but simplv raising the piece to the shoulder, ho fired with ease 15 roundt , per minuto. Wo may compare this result with the six rounds per minura said to have been fired under similar conditions by the needle-rifle.— lbid. . TirB'NBKDLE G-tJ-v.—Ea-h successive communioa- , tion that now comes to hand has a 'endehev to dimmish tho amount of alarm which the first successes ot the needle gun have mad.! so jronrral. The correspondent Of the Tall Mull Gazette, writing from \ leiuia, says :- " .Many of the beds wcro empt-v, for tho needle gun bullet inflicts light Wounds,- which, heal pretty quickly. Tho wounded return to duty quickly; many lire shot through tho legs and foot, and in the right hand, which gets hit as thoy raise and turn tho ramrod. At one cud <if the building lies a powerful Ecrgeant-major iri the regiment of Count, ilenadorff, with eight needlo rifle bullets in his body. Ho is shot through both hands, through the left shoulder and the right elbow, through the left thigh, and in threa places in tho. right leg. This was at Koniggratz, and ho still Hyps.— Army and Ntioy Gazelle. Kotwitstanding some little exaggeration in the comments Upon the Prussian week of victories, and even perhaps in the narrative from tho seat of war, it is impossible to resist the evidence that the needlegun has provod itself a now powor on the field of battle. Soma allowance may have to be made for the irrepressible desire that wo all feel to find somo short aild easy explanation of great and unexpected, events. Tho prevailing belief in England, and probably throughout tho Continent, was that an army under Benedek was more than a match for the whole strength of Prussia. On tho first trial it has been crumpled up and defeated with a ruin only just short pf actual rout. Every one asks why, and the answer is, " The rteedhvguri." Some day, perhaps, there.may ho a reaction from, this popular belief; aild as we thoroughly believe in the superiority of a breech loading arm, and the absolute necessity of hastening its introduction into our service, we are the more anxious not to bo guilty of any exaggeration the mattor. 11 is very hard to got accurate accounts p,': l !>o details of hard fighting. The men who aro ■-■; ifit have something else to do besides enlightening the British public, and tho men at tho top of towers must perforce get most of their information second-hand. Enough, however, of reliable fact seems to have' come to the surfaco to settle finally tho strangelycontested question whether it is or is not an advan* : . tago to a soldier to be able to shoot three, four, or five enemies in the same time in which a single shot can bo directed against himself. It is a fact at any rale, and one well worth considering, that the great preponderance of military opinion in overy European country except Prussia has been stubbDrnly adverse t to the breech-loafc. Volunteers and othof civilians Uvho dared to reason on tho subject were crushed (with the authority of llvo generals and fightiog icolonels who had seen powder burned in earnest; ? and tho constant stream of modest outside opinion \wliieh h ;l3 been flowing for years in one direction has jbooii effectually dauimed by the obstruction of highly -'expevieuced field-marshals and generals, who ought, to know moro about tho soldier's arm than all tho target-hitting tribe who swarm at Wimbledon. Nor has tlus prejudice been, peculiar to our own Country, If our great militarj authorities have denounced a scheme for enabling tho rank and filo to throyv away their ammunition, the enlightened rulers of the French army have also 1 had their theory that French soldiers fire too fast, Every army in Europe, with one exception, has until last week moro or lews confidently hugged tho belief that a good bayonet on a slow-shooting rifle was better than all the needle-guns in tho world. And .this has gone on for something like twenty years after tho nation that Frederick the Groat made had fairly opened its oyes to tho fact that three or four bullets would do more execution than Ono. The i needlo-gun proved its qualities in 1819, in the little campaign in Baden, and distinguished itself more conspicuously in the Prussian raid upon Denmark j but nothing loss than a series of battles in which half a million of men Were engaged could suffice to teach a vory simple scientific iosson to a serv.ieo : which ought to bo, above all Others, alive to the | niportanCa of mechanical Review..