Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1891 — Great Guns. [ARTICLE]

Great Guns.

“Few people,” says a naval officer, appreciate the tremendous power of the blast caused by firing a big gun on board of a ship. An example of its effect was seen in some recent trials in firing the 64-ton gun of the new battleship Trafalgar, considered one of the three or four finest vessels in the British navy. The gun was pointed directly ahead, and fired with a charge of 630 pounds of slow-burning powder and a 1,250-pound projectile. The blast produced by a rush of the powder-gas and the shot was so tremendous that the plates of the forecastle were forced in and tho deckbeams bent out of shape, while almost every round carried away some fragment of the projecting portions of the ship, even when the training was to the right or left. It is estimated that the vessel would be reduced to something very like a wreck, were twentyfive rounds to be fired, either directly ahead or directly astern. This interferferes with, or renders impossible, firing when either in flight or cliase, and has caused our naval constructors to modify the plans for the projected battle-ships, as it is not deemed desirable to have them sink from the discharge of their own guns.”