SHOOTING UNDER WATER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 244, 4 January 1878, Page 17

SHOOTING UNDER WATER.

Major-General Vox Uchatitts, the inventor of the new field gun adopted in the Austrian army, publishes in the Vienna Artillery and Engineer Journal an account of some interesting experiments recently made by him with the object of ascertaining the effect produced by firing a rifle under water. It is known, he says, that fishes, when they are not too much below the surface of the water, can be shot from the shore or -from' a - boat. The armour plates of ships of war, however, do not usually extend any lower than two or three metres below the surface, as beyond that depth ships are regarded as unassailable even by the largest shot, This is so, no doubt, when the shot is fired above,w.ater ; but MajorGeneral Von Uchatius wished to find the result , which would, be attained by firing under water. ■ . , „ , . , , r For this purpose he procured a wooden raft, to the under surface of which a Werndi rifle was attached with iron ■ clamps , in such a manner that when the raft floated on the water the rifle was fired hori-" zontally at a depth of half a metre below the surface. An attendant then opened the lock, introduced a cartridge, placed the rifle at fulicock, and fired it from the shore by means of a string attached to,the • trigger. The target consisted of a wooden board an inch! thick.'/ | The result of the experiment was as follows : There was no difficulty in loading and firing the rifle, and there was the advantage that after each shot "the inside 1 of the 'barrel! pva's cleaned' by the water.' About thirty shots' were fired without dom| the smallest damage to any part of the rifle. At each shot there was a dull sound; which could "not be heard beyond a distance of fifty paces, and bubbles of . smoke rose aboveithe surface. At a distance of one and a-half metres' ' no impression whatever was produced on the target ; at one, and aquarter metres the bullet entered to a depth of from three, to four, millimetres, 1 and at one metre the target was pierced through. Major-General Uchatius also 1 made some experiments with, the view of ascertaining whether a greate* effect could be produced by corking up the barrel at its mouth so as to keep the water out, and thereby diminish the resistance to the egress of the bullet; but he found that for all practical purposes the resistance of the compressed air in the barrel was equal to that of the water, the target being penetrated only at the maximum' distance of;a metre, as in the previous experiment. — Pall Mall Gazette. '* *