Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
The manufacture of torpedoes had been domesticated. Since 1889 the heavy, rapid-firing guns had been developed and proved successful. The manufacture of armor-piercing shells, of which two firms in Europe had had the monopoly, was begun in this period under the care and encouragement of the Navy Department; and the shells turned out soon surpassed the foreign product.
The modern armor-piercing shell, made of hardened steel, and with its conical point carefully fashioned for the greatest penetrating power, has all the armor-piercing effectiveness of a solid shot of the same shape, while its explosiveness makes it infinitely more destructive.
The 13-inch gun, as at present designed, is a more destructive gun than a 12-inch ordinarily, and its energy is very much greater, the result naturally being that it has superior armor-piercing powers. "I think we should keep the 13-inch gun on board of our battleships.
The gun must therefore take a large powder charge, while, as the shell has to hold as many bullets as possible, the bore must be large enough to take a short projectile of the given weight. Thus, the proportions of the shrapnel gun will be intermediate between those of the armor-piercing gun and the shell gun. There are certain axioms known from experience, which should be mentioned here.
There are also full directions for making common and even something like shrapnel shells, 'star shells' to light up the enemy at night, armor-piercing arrows shot out of muskets, 'wild-fire' grenades, and many other ultra-modern devices.
One of the principal batteries, it appeared, had for three of its large caliber guns just four armor-piercing shells each when night ended the tremendous efforts of the British and French fleet. For the fourth gun five shells were left, making for the entire battery a total of seventeen projectiles of the sort which the aggressors had to fear.
But the lift continued to bring up the blue armor-piercing shells; five times more and then it stopped. During a momentary pause in the firing on both sides, the buzzing and whirring of the electric apparatus of the lift could be distinctly heard. Then the lift appeared once more, this time with a red explosive shell. "Aim at the forepart of the Satsuma, 1950 yards!"
"And a tenth of an inch of that stuff will stop a steel-nosed machine-gun bullet?" "Stop it! A tenth of an inch of arenak is harder to pierce than fifty inches of our hardest, toughest armor steel. A sixteenth-inch armor-piercing projectile couldn't get through it. It's hard to believe, but nevertheless it's a fact.
Marksmen could sweep the decks of a ship with Mausers at the distance of a mile, and with the smokeless cartridges it would have been mere conjecture where the sharpshooters were located. There are rows of armor-piercing steel projectiles from Germany still standing around rusting in the Spanish batteries, and they never did any more than they are doing.
For reconnaissance work we used light-armored motor-cars, known throughout the army as Lam cars, a name formed by the initial letters of their titles. These cars were Rolls-Royces, and with their armor-plate weighed between three and three-quarters and four tons. They were proof against the ordinary bullet but not against the armor-piercing.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking