Inventions of the Great War

nd Sup

ome brand-new form of gun or shell or powder had been invented by the Germans. However, while the public marveled, ordnance experts were interested but not astonished. They kne

UND THE EDGE

at St. Gobain, where the big German gun was located. And if a hole were bored from St. Gobain straight to Paris, so that you could see the city from the gun, it would pass, midway of its course, three thousand, seven hundred and fifty feet below the surface of the earth. With the target so far off, it was impossible to aim at any particular fort, ammunition depot, or other point of military impor

tles or for the defense of our coasts from naval attacks, and there is certainly no use in firing at a ship that is so far below the horizon that we cannot even see the tips of its masts; and so o

degrees, the shell will go only about half as far as if it were tilted up to 43? degrees, which is the angle that will carry a shell to its

E EARTH'S

ch a height. One of them lost consciousness, and the other, who was nearly paralyzed, succeeded in pulling the safety-valve rope, with his teeth. That brought the balloon down, and their instruments showed that they had gone up thirty-six thousand feet. What the ocean of air contains above that elevation, we do not kno

black sky. All around, the stars would twinkle, and below would be the glare of light reflected from the earth's surface and its atmosphere, while the cold would be far more intense than anything suffe

ether a shell is moving through the air or the air is blowing against the shell. When the wind blows at the rate of 100 to 120 miles per hour, it is strong enough to lift houses off their foundations, to wrench trees out of the ground, to pick up cattle and carry them sailing through the air. Imagine what it would do if its velocity were increased to 1,80

NCREASING

other hand, the larger the shell, the more will it be retarded by the air, because there will be a larger surface for the air to press against. It has been proposed by some ordnance experts that a shell might be provided with a disk at each end, which would make it fit a gun of larger caliber. A 10-inch shell, for instance, could then be fired from a 16-inch gun. Being lighter than the 16-inch shell, it would

n, it means that the length of the gun is forty or fifty times the diameter of the shell. Our biggest coast-defense guns are 50-caliber 16-inch guns, which means that they are fifty times 16 inches long, or 66-2/3 feet in length. When a gun is as long as that, care has to be take

"Scientifi

esigned by America

shell. But we cannot lengthen our big guns much more without using some special support for the muzzle end of the gun, to keep it from "whi

rwood &

nch Rifle on

that will burn comparatively slowly. We do not want too sudden a shock to start with, but we wish the powder to give off an enormous quantity of gas which will keep on pushing and speeding up the shell until the latter emerges from the muzz

uch greater accuracy from airplanes, and at a much lower cost. The German gun at St. Gobain was spectacular and it d

GE OF A HUNDRED

shell weighs 500 pounds. Two hundred pounds of powder are used to propel the shell, which leaves the muzzle with a velocity of 3,000 feet per second. If the gun is elevated to the proper angle, it will send the shell 25 miles, and it will take the shell a minute and thirty-seven seconds to cover that distance. But the long-range gun our ordnance experts designed would have to be charged with 1,440 pounds of p

ormous powder-chamber would have to be used, so that the powder gases would keep speeding up the shell unt

to be supported on a steel truss. The gun would be mounted like a roller lift-bridge with a heavy counter-weight at its

ave small holes in them through which the oil is forced as the piston moves and this retards the gun in its recoil. But this "super-gun" was designed to be mounted on a carriage running on a set of tracks laid in a long concrete pit. On the recoil the gun would

s shown by the dotted lines. The cost of building this gun is estimated at two and a half million dollars and its 400-pound shell would land only about sixty pounds of high explosives on the target. A bombing-plane costing b

SECOND LIF

ut rapidly because of their heat and velocity. They say that the life of a big gun is only three seconds. Of course, a shell passes through the gun in a very minute part of a second, but if we add up these tiny periods until we have a tot

TIC

charge of powder is exploded in the barrel of a gun, it expands in all directions. Of course, the projectile yields to the pressure of the powder gases and is sent kiting out of the muzzle of the gun. But for an instant before the shell starts to move, an enormous force is exerted against the walls of the bore of the gun, and, because steel is elastic, the barrel is e

point is its elastic limit. The same is true of a piece of steel: if you stretch it beyond a certain point, it will not return to its original shape. When the charge of powder in a cannon exceeds a certain amount, it stretches the steel beyond its

uter layers upon the inner layers, just as a blacksmith shrinks a tire on a wheel, so that the inner tube of the gun would be squeezed, or compressed. When the powder was fired, this inner

GUNS A

which it is turned down to the proper diameter and re-bored to the exact caliber. The diameter of the lining is made three ten-thousandths of an inch larger than the inside of the hoop or sleeve that fits over it. This sleeve, which is formed in the same way, is heated up to 800 degrees, or until its inside dia

rom Underwoo

-calibered French G

o as to wind up the wire upon it. A heavy brake on the wire keeps it drawn very tight. This wire, also, is put on in layers, so that each layer can expand considerably without exceeding its elastic limit. Our big 1

"Scientifi

Shrapnel She

e Fus

light S

its C

PLAY HID

a rifle. The aiming is done mathematically. Off at some convenient observation post, an observer gets the range of the target and telephones this range to the plotting-room, where a rapid calculation is made as to how much the gun should be elevated and swung to the right or the left. This calculation is then sent on t

den from above. They are usually located behind a hill, five or six miles back of the trenches, where the enemy cannot

f 16?-inch caliber and 30-caliber length. In order to test the penetrating-power of this gun a target was built, consisting first of twenty inches of steel armor and eight inches of wrought-iron; this was backed by twenty feet of oak, five feet of granite, eleven feet of concrete, and six feet of brick. When the shell struck this target it passe

FORTY-TWO-C

rence between mortars, howitzers, and guns. What we usually mean by "gun" is a piece of long caliber which is designed to hurl its shell with a flat trajectory. But long ago it was found advantageous to thro

er fired a shell that was 2,108 pounds in weight and was about 1? yards long. The diameter of the shell was 42 centimeters, which is about 16? inches. It carried an enormous amount of high explosive, which was designed to go off after the shell had penetrated its target. The marvel of this howitzer was not that it could fire so big a shell but that so large a piece of artillery could be transported over the highroads and be set for use in battle. But although the 42-centimeter g

LD-

e powder that fires it are contained in a cartridge that is just like the cartridge of a shoulder rifle. These field-pieces are built to be fired rapidly. The French 75-millimeter gun, which is considered one of the best, will fire at

HAT FI

greater distance, so that there will be little danger of their capture. It is impossible for them to fire grape, because the ranges are far too great; besides, it would be impossible to aim a charge of grape-shot over any considerable distance, because the shot would start spreading as soon as they left the muzzle of the gun and would scatter too far and wide to

wder, A. The head of the shell is made of two parts, in each of which there is a powder-fuse. There is a vent, or short cut, leading from one fuse to the other, and, by the turning of one part of the fuse-head with respect to the other, this short cut is made to carry the train of fire from the upper to the lower fuse sooner or later, according to the adjustment. The fire burns along one powder-train A, and then jumps through th

shell, so some shrapnel shell are provided with a smoke-producing mixture, whic

ee on Publi

s Masks to Meet a

drop slowly to the ground. Their brilliant light lasts fifteen or twenty minutes. Obviously, ordinary search-lights could not be used on the battle-field, because the lamp would at once be a

del &

orses had

h by Kade

ame-throwin