Automatic Cannon.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 13, 27 March 1912, Page 54

Automatic Cannon.

The latest invention in the art of war is, according to the German newspaper “Vorwaerts,” a competent authority on these - matters, an automatio quick-firing artillery on the principle of the machine gun. A correspondent of the great Socialist paper says that experiments have actually been in progress for some years with artillery, fed with a bandolier strung with large cartridges, which is actuated by the recoil as in a Maxim. “These guns,” he says, “have been introduced in the navy, and have justified themselves as far as the mechanism is concerned, but they could not be kept sufficiently cool owing to the great heat generated by the firing. The experts attempted to meet this defect by cooling the tube with water. In the case of fixed or stationary artillery this problem did not present special difficulties, and has in experiment at least been solved with such success that the rapidity of fire has been increased threefold without appreciable overheating. It proved much more difficult, however, to devise a satisfactory water-cooling system to field artillery, but after many failures a successful method has been found of utilising part of the force of each recoil to send a stream of cold water along the tube of the gun. The whole apparatus adds barely 12 per cent to the combined weight of field gun and carriage. Of course, under ordinary circumstances automatic long-range guns of this type would simply waste ammunition. In emergency, of course, for repelling cavalry and on shipboard a tor-pedo-boat attack they would be invaluable. Accordingly the guns are so devised as to 'be used normally as singleloaders of the ordinary type.