SHOOTING UP TO 95 MILES

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1930, Page 11

SHOOTING UP TO 95 MILES

FRANCE’S “BIGGER BERTHAS” The French Navy is now in possession of. several guns capable of firing Op to a range of ninety-five miles, thus beating the German weapons which bombarded Paris in 1918 from distances of seventy-five to eighty miles. This . information, given in the French Senate, is of interest, but it is not news so far as the British naval and military authorities are concerned. As long ago as June, 1919, France completed a gun which could shoot up to ninety miles. It was, like the German “Big Bertha”—a popular misnomer, by the way —a heavy naval piece bored out to receive a smaller inner tube, the actual diameter of the bore being about 19cm (7.6 in. A smooth-bore extension, screwed on to the chase, brought the total length up to 100 calibres. The shells were of special design, very long, and tapering gently towards the nose. They were fitted with double fuses to ensure a burst, even if they tumbled in flight. One of these French guns was certainly mounted on the coast of Carteret, hear Cherbourg, in 1926. It is believed to have been fired experimentally on several occasions. A few years ago Lieutenant-Colonel Maze, of the French army, prepared designs for a gun with a range of 200 miles, and his plans were passed as practicable by a board of ordnance experts. It m understood, however, that this gun has yet to be built. It is not generally known that at the date of the Armistice there was under construction in England a gun which would have exceeded in range the German piece that shelled Paris. The idea, apparently, was to bring under fire important centres, railway junctions, etc., far behind the German u...es and, as our armies advanced; German cities themselves. The war ended before this super-gun was completed, and it is understood that it was scrapped when still in an v unfinished state.