Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1877 — The Largest Breech-Loading Gannon in the World. [ARTICLE]

The Largest Breech-Loading Gannon in the World.

Herr Krupp, the celebrated Prussian artillerist, is about completing a monster piece of ordnance, with the evident intention of proving that guns of can be produced on a scale to vie with the wrought-iron ordnance of England. The weight of the new gun is eighty tons, the same as the great Fraser gun &t Shoeburyness, which has recently excited so much attention-, andthoughitfalls short of the huge proportions of the 100-ton Armstrong guns, it is still a marvelous work, as being made of steel, and, unlike the English monster guns, loading at the breech. Tho caliber of the gun is about sixteen inches, the projectile weighs 1,650 pounds and the powder charge 896 pounds. The gun is built on the same model as other Krupp guns, consisting of a central, core of steel, overlapped by concentric steel rings, which increase in thickness toward the breech until they reach a total diameter of five feet ten inches, or two inches less than the Fraser gun. The cost of the gun, exclusive of the carriage, which weighs forty-five tons, is SIOO,OOO, or double that of the eighty-ton wrought-Iron guns produced at Woolwich. The initial velocity anticipated from the projectile of this gun is 1,552 fest per second, producing an energy of 27,543 tons,which is equal to 556 foot tons per inch of the shot’s circumference. The nearest approach hitherto attempted to this enormous gun is the fifty-six ton breach-loader exhibited last year at Philadelphia, which has been purchased by Russia, and has just been delivered at Cronstadt. Herr Krupp has constructed this last proof of his skill solely at his own instance, though it is not likely that it will long remain on his hands, despite its great cost. Not satisfied with this achievement, however, he has constructed plans for a 124-ton steel breech-loader, with a caliber of over eighteen inches, and throwing a shot weighing a round ton with a charge of 500 pounds of powder. The cost of this Sin is estimated at $167,500, exclusive of e carriage, which would weigh sixtytwo tons. Herr Krupp is also building for Turkey a duplicate fifty-sia ton gun of that exhibited at the Centennial and just sold to the Russian Government. — Boston Journal