TWO TONS OF SHELL A MINUTE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13808, 20 January 1909, Page 7

TWO TONS OF SHELL A MINUTE.

The American Navy, says an American writer in an American magazine, now leads the world in accuracy anu

rapidity of shooting; six years ago it was behind the navy of every first-class Power. Six years ago the' standard for tiring heavy turret guns —which are now a'.battleship's?sole weapon of consequence in battle —was once in five minutes; the average of hits on the target now in use would not have been once an hour. At present these guns fire an average of one and a half shots a minute; and hit the target once a minute. Six years ago the standard rate of fire for six-inch guns was less than two shots a minute; as shown by the tests of 1902, less than one shot in six! liit the target. ■'. To-day these guns frequently make as many as twelve hits a, minute, and the average of the wh.oie navv is six hits a minute. These are the* records at the 1600-yard range. At the, last long range target, practice in Massachusetts Bay the battleships of the North Atlantic fleet, filing at a target from three to live miles away, averaged nearly 30 per cent, of hits. ■ With a target one third the size, of the ships at Santiago, at distances from two to three tiinW as great, our Heet made more than fifteen times tlie percentage of hits. Translated into terms of war, these changes mean this: Six years ago an American battleship wnuhi ■ not hit an. enemy's yessel at a battle range of three miles or more oftener ■ than twice an hour. To-day every ship ot an enemv's Heet steaming iiito range would lie", struck by two tons of steel shell every minute by every American ship firing'at, her. Solid metal spatters like mud when these great projectiles strike it; when charged with their high explosives these snells are swept through the ship in fragments of from two hundred pounds in weig.it down to the iinesf steel dust. In all human probability no ship in the world could stand such a fire fifteen minutes.