FIRING A CANNON UNDER WATER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5733, 28 November 1896, Page 7

FIRING A CANNON UNDER WATER.

(English Paper.)

The most curious experiment ever made •with a piece of ordnance was at Portsmouth. A stage was erected in the harbour within the tide mark ; on this an Armstrong gun of the 1 10-pound pattern was mounted. The gun was then loaded and carefully aimed at a target, — all this, of course, during the time of low tide. A few hours later, when the gun and the target were both covered with water to a depth of six feet, the gun was fired by means of eleetrioity. We said "aimed at a target," but the facts are that there were two targets, but only one was erected for this special experiment, tlie other being the hull of an old vessel, the Griper, which lay directly behind the target and iv range of the ball. The target itself was placed only twentyfive feet from the muzzle of the gun. It was composed of oak beams and planks, and was twenty-one ruches thick. In order to make the old Griper invulnerable, a sheet of boiler plate three inches thick was riveted to the water-logged hull in direct range with the course the ball was expected to take if not deflected by the water. On all these — the oaken target, the boiler plate, and the old vessel hull — the effect of tlie shot from the submerged gun was really startling. The wooden target was pierced through and through, the boiler target was broken into pieces and driven into its " backing," the ball passing right on through both sides of the vessel, making a huge hole, through which the water poured in torreuts. Taken altogether, the experiment was an entire success, demonstrating, as it did, tlie feasibility of placing submerged guns in harbours in time of war and doing great damage to the vessels which an enemy might dispatch to such points for the purpose of shelling cities.