COAST FORTIFICATIONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 662, 31 October 1884, Page 6

COAST FORTIFICATIONS.

Broad Arrow. So long as the Royal Navy remains at its present numerical strength it will be most unwise to depend upon it to any considerable extent for the defences of our shores. Under any circumstances, even with a fleet such as the country should possess, it would be necessary to supplement our floating defences with fortifications, at important parts of the coasts - of the United Kingdom, It is an advantage with land fortifications that they can always be depended upon to be present when wanted, which is more than can be said of ships, especially -when the latter are few in number for the extent of coast to be defended. But this element of fixedness is at times a disadvantage when the armament of the fort cannot be brought to bear directly upon the attacking force. Floating defences are in most cases undoubtedly the best when they are suffiei-

ently numerous to be depended upon ; bethey ean be moved about as- may be required to meet the circumstances of the attack or the defence. There are, however, conditions under which a land fortification is indispensable to the proper defense of a port or harbor. When the'only navigable channel way is commanded by a promontory or island, it is quite clear that a fort or battery thereon is the simplest and surest defence of the harbor to which the channel leads. It is satisfactory to find that the policy of laissez faire, of which it has been our painful duty to complain so much of late years, is gradually being superseded by one of action, and action, too, in the right direction. After a considerable amount of talk and then of inquiry respecting the subject of coast defence, the Government have now progressed so far as to be able to make trials of the efficiency of the work they have done. In the Firth of Forth, on the island of Inchkeith, a fort has been constructed of late years, armed with IS-ton guns, and so "with a view to test the power of machineguns and shell fire to damage the fort and kill its defenders, as well as the capabilities of the fort for resisting such an attack, the ironclad Sultan opened fire upon it on three separate occasions a fortnight ago. Dummies were placed in the fort to represent the defenders, and every-precaution was taken to make the experiments as instructive as possible. Blank cartridges were fired at intervals from one of the Sultan’s heavy guns

in'order to envelop her in smoke, such as would be the case during an actual bombardment, when both heavy and machine guns would be directed upon the fortification. It will be sufficient to say that, so far as the efficiency of the fort is concerned, both as regards its construction and arrangements, the results were most satisfactory. Only a few—about six in number—of the dummies were placed hors de combat, while the fort itself was practically uninjured, notwithstanding that the rain of machine-guns and shrapnel bullets was almost continuous for several hours. It should be stated that the IS-ton guns of the Inchkeith fortifications are mounted en barbette, and one of the chief objects of these experiments was to compare the. effects of machine-guns and shrapnel shell upon such open barbette defences. But, now that such a formidable fort is placed in the Firth of Forth, it is fully time that something was done for the still more important Firth of Clyde, which at present is absolutely undefended except by the presence of one ironclad—the Shannon. The Mersey, too, and the Severn, the Tyne and the Solway—to say nothing of the Humber, Tees, and Wear—require similar attention. Few can be;aware of the dangers to which our wealth, and indeed our daily bread, is jeopardised by the de renceless state of our shores. It has been shown to what extent the torpedo lends itself to the purpose we have in view, and in what way gunboats on the sea and fortifications on the shore may co-operate with the torpedo and sunken mine in making any part and every part of our shores impregnable. The Gosport experiments taught their lesson, and it was an instructive one. They showed us how simply and cheaply an enemy may be kept from landing on British soil when we are determined to keep him away. The Inchkeith experiments show show little we have to fear, even with an open barbette armament, from the machine-guns and shrapnel fire of an enemy’s ship.