A WONDER GUN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18760, 17 July 1935, Page 12

A WONDER GUN

IN USE IN NAVY

DETAILS REVEALED

LONDON", dune 12.

A multiple machine-gun of heavy •calibre, firing high explosive shells at . an almost fabulous rate, is the navy's newest weapon against attack from the. air, says the Daily Telegraph's correspondent.

The details and even the existence of the gun, with which eventually all major vessels of the navy will bo equipped, have hitherto been an official secret. Now the ban has foeen lifted. Already, during the last two years, ninny battleships and. cruisers have mounted the new weapon. While, for obvious reasons, exact particulars must still be withheld, it is permissible to state, that the new.weapon has revolutionised the navy's methods of dealing With low-flying'bombing aircraft ami torpedo planes. Having watched the gun in action a' sea, I share the opinion of most naval officers that if is the most effective re ply to low altitude air attack which ha vet been devised.

Its range far exceeds that at whicl a torpedo piano could hope to launch ■. successful attack. The stream of shell .;-, inrr the water and detonating cither by time or percussion fuse—

•he latter so sensitive as to cause a burst if an aeroplane wire is touched—sets up a barrage through which no machine could pass. In the House of Commons yesterday, Mr Churchill compared the usual form of anti-aircraft gunnery to a pearifle firing at a flying duck. But the navy's new. gun has altered all that. The'rifle has, as it were, been superseded foy an automatic shot-gun firing heavy explosive shot at the rate of;hnndreds to the minute, and-the "ducks" themselves are now hopelessly'!'outranged.