THE ARMSTRONG GUN.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVI, Issue 1507, 22 March 1861, Page 4

THE ARMSTRONG GUN.

A battery of these far-famed guns having arrived in New Zealand to be employed at Taranaki, the following description of them, taken from a late number of the Times, will be read with interest : —

The arlicle which appeared in our columns of Tuesday last merely described the routine of processes followed in perfecting the manufacture of this remarkable engine of modern warfare. But the public, in order to appreciate the value of the invention fully, have yet to learn somewhat of its relative weight, cost, range, accuracy, and the rate at whioh it can be produced compared with the oldfashioned smooth-bored artillery — in short, all its essential qualities as a working guv. These qualities of courseware tbe main faots of importance connected with ordnance of every kind ; information therefore, oonceruing them may not be

without interest at a time when the indefatigable activity of tbe War-Office in bringing about a scientific revolution even in our old muzzle-loading artillery. Now, as to the rate at which the Armstrong guns can be produced, it has been already stated that the Government, ten months ago pledged itself that the united exertions of the factories at Elswick and Woolwich should enable them to eompleto 100 guns within the last year. Be- [ fore the close of 1859 upwards of 100 guns had been completed in Woolwich alone, where the work has been so constantly and so successfully urged forward that the xate of manufacture has risen trom sto 23 guns per week. Up to the present time 113 12-pounder field guns are already furnished there, and iv all 220 are more or less advanced towards completion. All these are 12 pounders, but as between Elswick aud Woolwich, a sufficient number of guns of this calibre has either been already manufactured or is nearly finished to re-arm the whole of our field batteries, no more of this size are to be made, aud both factories will in future concentrate their efforts on heavy, or at least much heavier ordnance. Supposing Woolwich to be able to continue at its present rate of 23 a week, we ought j to have from this source alone upwards of J 1100 of the new guns before the close of the present year. Allowing for the dolay consequent upon the heavy forgingof the 25, 40, 70 and 100-pounder guns, such as are now soon to begun, still Woolwich ought, arid we have not. the least doubt will, complete its 1,000 guns before next Christmas. From Sir William Armstrong's own works at Elswick, iv addition to a few heavy guns, two complete 12-pounder field batteries have been sent to China, with 21 12 pounder guns for boat service, for which from their extreme lightness they are most admirably su'tad. In addition to this 40 12-pounder guns for the field batteries are ready and only waiting to be forwarded to Woolwich for mounting. Two 40-pounder guns are being made per day j while the manufacture of the heavy ordnauoe has commenced with a 100-pounder, 10 feet 6 inches, gun, which is expected to obtain a range of 6£ miles. Like Woolwich, the Elswick works have risen also in their rate of production, from about three per week to 14, and there is no doubt that at a pinch, even with their preseut staffs, Elswick and Woolwich could easily turn out 40 completed guns each week.

To double or even to quadruple this weekly number, the War-office would simply have to increase the maohinery employed in every stage ofthe manufacture, which might so be extended to an almost unlimited amount. The rate of production at Woolwich is. one gun for every three and a-ha\f working hours, and one for each four and a-half hours at Elswibk. At both "plaoes, however, a single gun, from the time the rolling of the No. 1 coils oommenoes till the finished piece is proved and passed examination, requires from six to seven weeks of constant and skiltul labor. A I great deal has been both said and written as to the expense of the Armstrong gun, which, it has beeu urged, is so excessive as almost to preolude its general ! adoption throughout the services. Suoh j reports are quite unfounded. It is, and j always will be, an expensive prooess to I supersede an immense amount of comparatively new artillery merely to substitute in its plaoe a more efficient weapon;but this is a tax always entailed oh progress in any branch of manufacture, i Guns of all kinds, no matter whether cast iron, au Armstrong, or a Withworth, are manufactured solely to attain certain essential results, and the pieoe which at- 1 tains these in the greatest proportion | must of neoessity always prove the most economical in the end. But, setting aside this obvious truism, the Armstrong gun is in everyjpoint of view, except, perhaps that of mere first cost, the cheapest weapon tbat has yet been produced. Thus an ordinary 12-pounder field battery gun costs, in metal and labor, about £200. Its utmost really accurate range is 1,400 yards; its weight is 19 owt., requiring six horses to draw it in the field. It is capable of firiug 800 rouuds of shot undor favourable circumstances, alter whioh number, if it survives so long, it is always condemued and broken up, realising about half its cost as gun metal. The Armstrong 12-pounder gun costs about £250; its aim is accurate at much more than 5,000 yards; its weight is only 8 owt., and it therefore only requires four horses to move it with the utmost rapidity. Some of those already have actually fired upwards of 3,500 rounds of shot and shell, and are still new guns. For the number of shots iv proportion to the cost of tho gun, the old muzzleloader post ss. for every discharge, the Armstrong only ls. 3d., though the former is ineffectual at three-quarters of a mile, and the latter unerring at two. The chief and most important saving, however, is in the smaller number of men it requires to work it, and, above all, in the saving of horse labor. Only those who have seen the difficulty with which artillery is transported with an array can properly appreciate the importance of reducing this the most formidable of all its many impedimenta. Whiie still retaining the same strength the Armstrong gun could easily bo reduced to almost half the weight ot whioh it is now manufactured, but that there are limits to the amount of lightness whioh is desirable in these guns. The backward recoil ofthe gun is in exact proportion to .the velocity and force with which the shot leaves the breeoh, and even the 8 owt. 12-pounder "kioks" to an extent that may render it neoessary to strengthen

considerably the present form of carriages for field artillery. It may soUnd strange to our readers, though, it is nevertheless strictly true, that tip to the present time, Sir VV. Arm* strong has not manufactured any gun wilh a view of attaining a long range. Tho range of all the guns on this principle is of course immense, but Sir William's main and almost only object has been to secure perfect accuracy of aim. That this is attained, to an extent almost incredible to those who have not seen the practice with it, is now admitted even by old artillery officers— -the very last and most reluctant to confess that the gun was worth anything at all, or tbat a ' civilian could know much more than the difference between the breeoh and the muzzle of a cannon.

Yet, iv spite of this unfavourable opinion, so loudly pronounced at one time, the gunners who are used to the Armstrong declare that with it they would undertake never, once to miss a man at a mile ! At one of the factories a strip of board is shewn, 22 inch, long by 9 inch, broad, which, when the gunners were practicing, was whitened over and put up as a target at a distance of three quarters of a mile. Though only just visible at this great range, it was hit tbree times in four shots. At the Elswick works at Newcastle, a 100-pounder, about 11 feet in length, is beingmanufaotured with almost the express view of attaining a long rang. This piece, it is anticipated, will have an effective range oyer six miles arid a half. All these tremenduous results, it must be remembered, too, are accomplished witb little more than one-half the charge of powder used with the present muzzleloading cannon. This is due not only to the size of the shot itself, which allows no windage, and so receives the whole explosive force of the powder, but to the peculiar mode and pitch of the rifling. The Armstrong shot is of course conical, ' and about 2_- diametres in length. At the shoulder of the cone is a ring of lead dovetailed into the iron, and a similar one at the base. These are both made about one-sixteenth of an inch larger than the diameter of the bore ofthe gun, so that the finest lines of the rifling are filled up, arid no windage whatever takes place. With an ordinary muzzle-loading 32-pounder, weighing 56 cwt., it requires 101 b. of powder to hit, at 3000 yards distance. An Armstrong 32-pounder, weighing 20 owt., only takes slb. of powder to send a ball nearly 10,000 yards.

About this time twelvemonths the Government had a very large faotory at Woolwich for the purpose of casting the ordinary iron guns, which had previously been most obtained from private firms, more particularly from the Low Moor and Gospel Oak Works, the guns from whioh were always considered the best. Misled by false eoonomy, the Government in an evil hour undertook to compete with the private trade, and, of course/ they did so with preoisely the same result that has always attended suoh competition in this country, from 'the time of Elizabeth's monopolies down to the present day. £90,000 was spent in erecting a faotory at Woolwioh, which was opened amidst a tremendous flourish of trumpets as to what it would accomplish. But at the very outset the Government faotory found, to its dismay, that it was uot in the seoret of mixing iron used by the Lower Moor people in making their guns, and in consequence of this trifling defioency the guns so made at Woolwioh mostly burst in proving. Low Moor was courteously invited to impart its seoret, whioh Low Moor wfth the utmost sagaoity and prudence, as courteously declined to do. So the Government set to work to aualyze ores, &c, with a view to discover a secret of manfacturing skill, and much of whioh also was mainly due to the peculiar coal used at Low Moor works, which made their castings almost equal to the best charcoal iron. It is needless to say how utterly the attempt to pierce this secret by merely analyzing the iron failed, and, the faotory being at last discovered to be nothing more than a most costly and unproductive experiment, the Government very wisely determined to put an end to it at once. The gun foundry accordingly disappeared from among the large items in our army estimates, and the whole plaoe was given over to Sir William Armstrung.

Under his care, and baoked by the zealous support of the permanent heads ofthe War-office, the whole of the immense plant and maohinery, steam ham mers, turning lathes and boring machines were at once converted at small expense to assist in the various processes by which the Armstrong gun is brought to perfection. So carefully and economically has this been done that every single portion ofthe machinery is now converted to its new purpose at a cost of only a few thousand pounds. Thus, then, as we have said, with this old plant renewed, Woolwioh ought this year to turn out at the least 1,000 heavy Armstrong guns and Elswick 650 — an immense addition (when the range an aoouraoy of this formidable artillery are considered) to the defences of the country, ln the meantime the War-offioe is turning its attention towards devising some method by whioh the immense stores of old iron orduauoe moy be utilized to a certain extent by rifling them after the manner of the Frenoh. How the Frenoh have manag"M to sucoeed in this process it is diffioult to say, inasmuch as all the guns that have been rifled in England (and they have been rifled .after every known conceivable plan) have all, without a single exception, burst before their experimental trials were conducted. These repeated mishaps turned the attention of

inventors iv another direotion, and it was sought to devise some method Jo strengthen ,Uie k castfii&s. Imu^s-lMdlrtg .0 guns now lying in ...thousands in all our arsenSfsJso taslto c^nable them to bear rifling, and the t immense .additional sjjipok; created by thY increaseef / reßistahipe"',t6j the projection of the " corneal shot ' ' To' this end a number pr cast 7 i ron guns, of. : 'ordinary size have be&i' hooped round vi with rings of wrought-iron, sjhrunkon. while ' red hoi. The effect of these twd; } inohes . of wrought-iron outside the cast has been literally to increase the strength of the gun more than fourfold. , Thus*: a.9s owt.*,| $ : 68-p.ounder from Loisy : 'MpO ppt'y&hf|e-S||i ; •quently breaks at jthe proof charge ' r of-- v 281 b. of powder and one shot. A gun of exactly the same size and weight, only partly constructed with hoops of wrought iron, bears a 28ib. charge ot powder, arid blows out a long iron roller weighing no less than five owt. without byrltirig, and when they have burst Under thte trdmeh^ dous test it has always been exactly^ at ' the spot where au opening or fissure was h* left between, the wrought-iron hoops in rolling them iri : . ;jTbese experiments, have led the Goyernment to require cer- '< tain resuls from? all inventions for rifling our common iron ordnance, sucli as strength, comparative lightness, accuracy in aim, and length of range, ;y latter is very wisely placed far, subordin;,, . ate in importance to, accuracy; i; .'l?her*e;s. are now six new inventions f un^ ,y sideratiou of the WaKoffic.e, jWbiph .all, - profess lo attain,. and which',all s do^more;; , or less attain, these essential cpnditip.ns j .:. — viz., a gun of Sir William Armstrong,;: one by Commander Scott, R.N., one by Mr. Whitworth, one by Mr. Lancaster, one by Mr. Bashley Brittain, andbne fciy. Mr. Jeffries. Which will be the inyeri^. ...'. tion eventually chosen we, of course, >; - cannot pretend to say, though it is generally understood that the struggle rests : between Mr: Whitworth .arid *; Sir ; !Wil-. , Ham. The former gentiemanV|h>i:KiPrit self invented a breech -loading- cannon, • whioh for strength, simplicity, range, and aocuracy is said to surpass even the Arm* strong. ' , •

But, whatever plan is adopted for the :. conversion of the iron ordnarice.into rifled cannon, it is known that jt must be.based 3 upon the principle of hooping it -With--' wrought iron. The War-office, therefore; is taking time by the forelock, iand, $endr: ing the deoision as to which of the many plans is best, is erecting a splendid .range of foundries at Woolwich, for the purpose , of working in the wrought iron bands, while a large number of lathes have been constructed to be ready to proceed at once in turning the shot or shell, which, of course, will be of wrought iron, and made with math ematioal accuraoy as to "size. .'. All these efforts. are very.praise worthy pn ;; , the' score of economy, and also as intend- yed rapidly to plaoe at the disposal of the-' ' oountry a large store of the most formidable kind of guns. Bufc'it'isa more thaii; doubtful question how far these oast-iron^, guns are capable of being rifled at all, and it is well known thac. even with tne v ' addition of strengthening hoops only the;. . solid 68's and long 32-pounders can be so treated. There should be. no mistake . on this' head— that we, for the sake bf a;' little economy in working up these old guns, should produoe , an inferior J article at a very superior prioe. The gun must be above those suspicions of bursting' 1 , whioh so pleasantly attach to all cast-iron guns which have, hitherto been thus tinkered, else our soldiers and sailors will ba more afraid of their own 5 rirdnanoe than ofthe enemies'.

Of the|two greatest breach-loading grins, which have yet been oonstruotedy-^thbse of Armstrong and Whitworth,~the latter, it is said oannot be burst, while it is oertain that no one has ever yet suooeeded i:f in bursting the former. Se iirimense,iri- v deed, is the strength of the* Armstrong. ' gun, that a piece of iron cut from it 'it'/. any part bears a tensile strain of no less '. than thirty three tons to the square inch. It is a gun of suoh strength as this Which is required, and which, if mere economy and the consumption of a large' store of very second-rate' material is ' ihe only objeot in view, it is doubtful that we j may get. The Warroffioe may depend : on one thing, — that the only great clanger, they have to avoid is making anything approaching to a seoond-rate weapon from merely economical motives, no matter how great the inducement or Ijoy/ f . reasonable the hopes of better results. Let them seek only the Best that oan be obtaiued under the 'circumstances, and both the publio and otir naval and military service ' are sure to be satisfied. : Judging of the future by the , past, and; looking to the immense results the War-office has already achieved with the Armstrong gun, the matter may be considered to be in the best train, and we have not the least doubt but that the deoision it arrives at will be one which the oountry aud the servioes will endojrse, A few weeks will at the latest iJetermine, ' what kind of rifled oaurion, in addition Jq, . _ the Armstrong, will be used, when our readers may depend on having early ahel' ' accurate information on the whpleVsu.br; ' . jeot. The attention of the publio cannot be too often or too strongly direoted to . this question of the improvement of our ■ ordnanoe-—a question not inferior in national importance .to v the . .Vojunteer . . Movement whioh- this j oui-nal has elbne so muoh to originate and forward.! Government' shouidfhegieot.. no ; effortto ' > get, if possible, even a better gunythan ? Armstrong's, and if that is riot to be^ 1 - ; " oomplish^d, th%y mtistturtf 'their eneir* gies to seeing that the oountry has jaa abundance of the artillery which; their experienoe has proved to bethe IwstJJ ?k

might give them sufficient confidence, either to j defend a pah in an accessible position, or to accept" S battle in the open country, would lead to a much . more satisfactory result than a lengthened con- f tinuance of the present state of affairs. ) In conclusion, I beg to assure Your Excellency l that no exertion that I can make, or no opportunity shall be lost of harassing the enemy in any way in my power, and thus endeavouring to terminate this unhappy war. I have, &c, T. S. Pratt, Major-General Commanding. To His Excellency Colonel Thomas Gore Browne, C.8., Governor and Commander-in-Chief, &c, &c, &c. New Zealaud.