A GUN WHICH WILL CARRY NINETY MILES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12654, 7 September 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

A GUN WHICH WILL CARRY NINETY MILES.

Trere is just now Hearing completion in the workshops of the Scott Iron? Company, Beading, U.S.A., a wire-tube gun which is guaranteed to be the most powerful in range ever constructed. To a Tit Bits contribute* the inventor, Mr. John Hamilton Brown, recently gave some particulars which cannot but be of interest .•■ to all English readers.

This remarkable piece of ordnance is known as a 6in Brown wire gun r . and it is calculated that the projectile will issue from its ngoutb at the record velocity of 3500 ft per second, and at the conclusion of- a 30mile trip will be able with ease to make its Way through a 6in steel plate, lii its course the 1001b shit will rise to a height of ten miles, or more than four miles higher than the loftiest peak of the Himalayas. »This fearful instrument of; war* which has been some twelve months in building, is scheduled to be ready for , testing some time this month, and is the forerunner of twenty-five similar guns which have been ordered by the United States Government. > In connection with this hearty completed piece of drdnatice, Colonel James M. Ingalls, the greatest ballistic authority in America, has made some interesting calculations. "A lOin Brown wire gun, he recently wrote to the inventor, "built on the proportions of your fein would have & range of more than fifty-niue miles, while its maximum ordinate (highest point.of flight) would exceed seventeen miles. Following these calculations still further, a 16ih gun Would be capable of hurling . a projectile ninety . miles, thus rendering it possible for the French to shell London without leaving their own territory." The inventor has for a great number of years been deeply interested in the building of ordnance, and his ambition has always been to construct a gun which would negative all possibility of explosion. This he declares he has accomplished in the new wire gun, which, while being subjected to a pressure of less than 60,0001b to the square inch, .will be able to withstand 80,0CClb. The great strength and range of the gun lie in the employment of steel sheets forming the central tube, round which are wound manjr miles of steel wire. These plated, 308 iii long, ?oih' wide, and oneseventh of an inch thick, are cut into what are itechnically known as "trapezoids" that iis to say, strips measuring 26in wide at one end and 4£in at the other, the length remaining the same, 3CBin. These trapezoids are slighti'y curved and then placed together, one overlapping the other in such a Way thai, while there are only seven layers at the muzzle, there are twenty-one at the breech. Ar soon as the trapezoids ha\'i been placed in position and clamped together the lining tube, made of I forged steel, i» forced in place under enormous hydraulic pressure.

Then Oornee the Work of Wrapping the gun in its miles upon milee of wire, every inch of which has previously been tested. This wire is not round, ac readers might perhaps suppose, but square, and one-seventh of an inch thick. The procear of winding is performed by means of v special machine, of whiol- . Mr. Brown is also the inventor, and which subjects the wire tc a pull of 25001b. The tension strength on a square inch of this wire wrapping is equal to 2liS,ooolb, so that it is calculated no known explosive Would be capable of destroying the gun. When the wiring has been completed a jacket ot steel is shrunken over the gun and the whole _ braced together in such a way that it is impossible to force the gun apart,. _ ' ::./',: ■ .::;;,,■;■. The , weight of the gun is equally distributed, one-third being wire, one-third steel plates, and one-third steel forgings, etc. Besides being the strongest , .gun. evej* built Mr. Brown also claims that it is the cheapest, costing at the rate of less than lid per pound. The gun as it lif»s in its cradle at the Scott foundry is 313 in long, weighs 20,0001b, and is wrapped in coils of Wife measuring between twenty-one and twentytwo miles in length.