GUN’S 10,000 SHOTS A MINUTE

Camp News, Volume 2, Issue 53, 13 December 1940, Page 3

GUN’S 10,000 SHOTS A MINUTE

Two new agents of destruction, which will make warfare even deadlier, have been invented and tested in America. They are:

A . compressed air gun which will

fire 10,000 times a minute, and

An explosive which is claimed to

be anything up to 100 times more

powerful than T.N.T.

The gun has been invented by William B. Hale and Durand Beam, associated with Roger J. . Adams, Hollywood engineering t research : technician.

“Anyone who can spray plants

with? a hose could knock down a diving ' plane with this gun,” / Hale

said yesterday.

The gun’ has .half-inch^ballbearings as bullets. At I,oooft. these missiles pierced aeroplane armour plate and cut a 3in. oak plank in two.

The gun emitted only a gentle

hissing noise. The steel balls shot out so quickly, that they struck brilliant sparks from each other at the

targets.

The muzzle was cooler after firing than before. Instrument dials indicated the air pressure was 1501 b. a square inch. The inventors said 2,0001 b. pressure would be feasible.

The inventor of the explosive is Dr. Arthur W. Shaudopvsky, a former’ Brussels scientist.

Dr. Shaudopvsky said he and two other research chemists tested the explosive in a remote spot, and found that wheras 1,500 grammes of highpower dynamite did 868 foot-pounds of work, the blast from only 100 grammes of his uranium explosive accomplished 4,270 foot-pounds of work.

“Though the amount detonated

was so small,” he said, “the resultant air blast shook a tower more

than a mile away.

“We cannot give any details regarding the apparatus developed for detonating the uranium explosive,” he added. —Associated Press.