Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 205, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1914 — PANAMA’S BIG GUN [ARTICLE]

PANAMA’S BIG GUN

■ —5 Largest Piece of Ordnance in World Nearing Completion. Has a Velocity of 2,250 Feet a Second, and Is by 665 Pounds of Powder—Tremendous Instrument of Peace. Washington.—When its breech locking device has been perfected at Watervliet arsenal, the great 16-inch gun, the biggest piece of ordnance in the world, which was recently shipped from the Sandy Hook proving grounds, will be virtually ready for service in the Panama canal fortifications. The carriage of this great gun is under construction at the Watervliet (Mass.) arsenal. It probably will be taken back U Sandy Hook for tests aft6r being mounted, and will not be shipped to Panama befdrc next spring. A conception may be obtained of the tremendous power of this gun, destined to protect the Pacific entrance to the Panama canal, from the fact that it is 50 feet long, weighs 142 tons, and flreq a projectile about six feet long. The projectile* weighs a ton and is discharged by 665 pounds of powder. It requires eight men to carry the powder charge. This gun has a maximum range of from 22 to 23 miles, or half the distance between New York city and West Point The elevation permitted by its carriage will enable the gun to fire a projectile about 11 miles across the Pacific ocean. It has sufficient power, theoretically, to pierce two feet of the best armor at the muzzle. At 11 miles the gun "is calculated to

* ■. —■ pierce a 12-lnch armor-plate, or any side armor afloat When .a shell leaves the gun it is revolving around'its axis at about 4,000 revolutions a minute, and develops a pressure of 38,000 pounds to the square inch. The pressure to the rear on the gun and forward on the projectile amounts, to 7,600,000 pounds. The projectile’s velocity of 2,250 feet a second gives a muzzle energy of more than 84,000 foot tons —that is, an energy capacity of raising 42 tons one foot every second. Army qrdnance officers believe this gun will be a tremendous instrument of peace when it is in position on the Panama canal