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Updated: May 12, 2025
The Sydney's armor was, too strong for the German guns at this distance, however, and while the vessel staggered slightly, she was not damaged to any extent. It became apparent early in the battle that the marksmanship of the Sydney's gunners was much superior to that of the foe. The range-finders were attending to their work with coolness and precision. The fire was deliberate and accurate.
Searchlights, range-finders, and anti-aircraft guns, surpassed by the daring ventures of British and French airmen, would have served but little against the night invader except for its one fatal defect the inflammable nature of the hydrogen gas that kept it aloft. A single explosive bullet served to transform a Zeppelin into a heap of scorched and twisted metal.
For seven months it was impossible for the gunner in training even to see, much less to work or fire the gun to which he was being trained. Zealous officers provided dummy wooden guns for their men. All kinds of devices were tried. And even when the guns themselves arrived, they came often without the indispensable accessories range-finders, directors, and the like.
From the ardent mouths of her eight furnaces to the last drip from her lubricators, from her bed-plates to the breeches of her quick-firers, he knew her read her gauges, thumbed her bearings, gave the ranges from her range-finders, and lived the life he lived who was in command of her.
Thus it will be seen that the "spotter" up aloft has the command of a considerable tract. Various ways and means of finding the range of a captive balloon have been prepared, and tables innumerable are available for committal to memory, while those weapons especially designed for aerial targets are fitted with excellent range-finders and other instruments.
Every other individual aboard the Kennebunk had his station, from the firemen shoveling tons of coal into the fiery maws of the furnaces to keep the indicator needles of the steam-gages at a certain figure, to the range-finders high up in the fighting-tops, bending over their apparatus. In the turrets the officers fitted telephone receivers to their heads.
The best thing to do under the circumstances is to go and check the range-finders' figures, or prepare the headlines of a message or two. A Taube, like some huge insect with a buzz of whirring wings, flew overhead, dropping multi-coloured stars from its tail. Then our guns "opened the ball." There was something blatant and repulsive about that first burst of sound.
It began a few minutes earlier than we anticipated, for our range-finders had just given the distance of the head of the Russian column as nine thousand yards, when two bright flashes, followed by a great cloud of white smoke, broke from the Oslabia's fore-turret, and presently we saw two great fountains of foam leap into the air some distance beyond the Mikasa.
"Six thousand yards" was presently signalled by the range-finders; and at the same moment three shots roared forth from the turrets of the Mikasa, Shikishima, and Fuji. We knew at what target they were aimed, and those of us who happened to have our glasses at our eyes saw a bright flash and a cloud of smoke suddenly burst into view on the Oslabia's conning tower.
Sometimes these Sky Silhouettes are the range-finders that poise in the air for a few seconds, guiding the air patrols home, and sometimes they are just the varied, interesting, gleaming, flashing "Lights of War."
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