Abstract
IT is natural that at the present time great interest should be taken in all efforts to improve, that is, to render more destructive, our implements of war. Even since the last war on the European field great advances have been made in this direction; and, as our readers know, one of the largest guns ever constructed is at present on its trial in this country. Some months ago experiments were made with what is known as the 81-ton gun, the invention of Mr. Robert Fraser; the gun was sent back to Woolwich for some alterations to be made, and on Friday the experiments were resumed at Shoe-buryness on a larger scale. On the previous occasion the gun was loaded with 370 Ibs. of powder, and threw a blind Palliser shell against the target. This target is of enormous strength, as strong and firmly founded as the ingenuity of engineers can make it. It is formed of four plates of the best rolled iron, each plate being 8 inches thick, and 5 inches of solid teak filled up each of the three intervals between the four plates. The 32 inches of iron and 15 inches of teak thus placed are solidly screwed together by bolts 3 inches in diameter, the whole forming, as far as scientific engineers and artillerists could construct it, an apparently impenetrable and immovable mass. To secure the target still more, iron plates were placed on the top and at the side, those at the side being strutted against the target with heavy timbers; and the supports at the rear of the target, to hold it up, as it were, against any blow, were of the like solid and substantial character.
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Great Guns . Nature 16, 25 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/016025a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/016025a0
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