The Romance of War Inventions Part 9

Each of these great guns is mounted upon a slide so that when it is fired it can slide back, thereby exhausting the effect of the recoil, yet can be returned instantly to its original position. Indeed, this return is brought about quite automatically by the agency of springs, compressed air and hydraulic power. Thus the gun fires, slides back, returns and is at once ready for the next shot.

It is trained, or pointed in a horizontal plane, by turning the turret in which it stands but the correct elevation is gained by the use of telescopic sights.

The principle of these sights is very simple. Imagine a graduated circle fixed to the side of the gun. Pivoted at the centre of the circle is a small telescope. The telescope can be turned round to any angle upon the circle and it can then be clamped at that particular angle.

The range having been given to the officer in command of the gun from the range-finding station on another part of the s.h.i.+p, the telescope is set to the correct angle. Then the gun is elevated or depressed until the s.h.i.+p being aimed at is precisely in the centre of the field of view of the telescope, in other words, until the telescope is pointing exactly at the s.h.i.+p. Then the gun is fired.

The effect, therefore, is this. The telescope always points (while the gun is being fired) at the object aimed at, but the gun is pointed upwards at a certain angle, which angle depends upon how the telescope is set upon the divided circle. Thus the setting of the telescope for a given range produces the correct upward tilt of the gun for that range.

The breech-block carries a trigger and hammer arrangement whereby the firing can be done and also an electrical arrangement so that an electric spark can be employed. Both these firing contrivances are so made that they cannot be operated until the breech-block has been inserted and _made secure_. Thus a premature explosion is guarded against.

CHAPTER X

Sh.e.l.lS AND HOW THEY ARE MADE

Modern warfare seems to resolve itself very largely into a question of which side can procure the most sh.e.l.ls. During the great war there was a time when the British and their allies were hard pressed because they had not sufficient sh.e.l.ls. The enemy had in that matter stolen a march upon them and had during the winter, when military activity is at its minimum, rapidly produced large supplies of high-explosive sh.e.l.ls.

Discovering their lack the British set about remedying it in true British fas.h.i.+on. It is quite characteristic of this strange people to let the enemy get ahead at the commencement, after which they pull themselves together and put on a spurt, so to speak, and after that the enemy had better prepare for the worst, for defeat is only a question of time. So, finding themselves short of sh.e.l.ls, they set to and dotted the whole country in an incredibly short time with huge factories entirely devoted to making sh.e.l.ls. Older factories also were adapted to the same purpose. Places intended and normally used for the manufacture of the most peaceable things--ploughs, gramophones and piano parts for example--were soon turning out sh.e.l.ls or parts thereof by the thousand.

Electric-light works, waterworks, cotton mills, technical schools, all sorts of places where, for doing their own repairs or for some similar reason, there happened to be a lathe or two, all these were organized and in a few weeks they too were working night and day "something to do with sh.e.l.ls."

Meanwhile other factories were springing up for the purpose of making explosives while others again were erected for producing the acids and other chemicals necessary for the explosive works; and yet another kind of works, the filling factories, came into being as if by magic and thousands of girls flocked from far and near to these places, there to fill the sh.e.l.ls with the explosives.

Even the soldiers did not realize a few years ago how important the supply of sh.e.l.ls was going to be. The rifle has fallen from its old place of importance while the gun and the sh.e.l.l have risen to the first place.

What, then, is a sh.e.l.l? It is what its name implies, a case covering something else, just as the sh.e.l.l of a fish covers its owner. It is a hollow cylinder of steel with certain things inside it. Its chief function is to hold these other things and to be shot out of a gun carrying them with it to their destination. You want to cause an explosion in an enemy's s.h.i.+p. You cannot get near enough to put the explosives there by hand, for he will not let you, so you put them into a steel sh.e.l.l and then hurl the whole thing at him out of a gun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOMB THROWING.

One of the most striking things about the war was the re-invention of the bomb thrown by hand. This officer hurled bombs at the enemy for twenty-four hours continuously.]

In the attempt to prevent your doing him any harm by thus throwing boxes of explosives at him, the enemy clothes the sides of his most valuable and important s.h.i.+ps with thick steel plates, wherefore you have to make your sh.e.l.l strong and tough so that it shall not splinter against the armour but shall on the contrary bore its way through, finally exploding in the interior of the s.h.i.+p.

If it is not a s.h.i.+p that you are attacking but, say, an earthwork or an arrangement of trenches, then you do not need to penetrate steel armour and your sh.e.l.l can be thinner and of lighter construction. It still needs to be strong, however, for it has another function besides simply carrying the explosive. It must hold the force of the explosion in for a moment while it gathers force so that when the hour comes the pent-up energy may strike all round with the utmost violence. Even the most powerful explosives are comparatively feeble if they go off in the open.

By holding them in check for a moment and then letting their force loose suddenly you get a much more forceful blow.

Sh.e.l.ls which contain only an explosive are called common sh.e.l.ls or high-explosive sh.e.l.ls. Shrapnel sh.e.l.ls const.i.tute another type in which the force of the explosion is simply employed to release a number of round bullets, which strike mainly because of the velocity which they derive from the original motion of the sh.e.l.l. These are above all things man-killing sh.e.l.ls, for their result is akin to a volley of bullets at close range.

We can thus sum up the chief types of sh.e.l.l as follows: the naval sh.e.l.l which has to be capable of penetrating armour: the high-explosive sh.e.l.l which must be able to break up earthworks and blow down the walls of trenches: and the shrapnel sh.e.l.l which scatters a shower of bullets and is most useful in attacks upon bodies of men rather than upon material structures.

Some sh.e.l.ls have their propellent explosive combined with them just as the familiar rifle cartridge contains the propellant combined with the bullet. In the larger sizes, however, it is much more convenient to have the propellant in a separate cartridge, which can be handled separately and loaded into the gun separately.

As has been already explained, the propellant is a "powder" which gives a steady push rather than a destructive blow: moreover, it is practically smokeless, so as not to "give away" the position of the gun to the enemy. The "high explosive," however, shatters and usually makes a dense smoke, so that the observers can see where it fell and report to the gunners whether or not they have got the range. Soldiers' letters have told us of the "black Marias" and "coal boxes" used by the Germans, those terms being simply soldiers' nick-names arising no doubt from the fact that certain particular sh.e.l.ls are filled with "tri-nitro-toluene"

which gives a black smoke. Clearly, smoke, which is most objectionable in the propellant, is a positive advantage in the bursting charge.

And now let us take a glimpse at the manufacture of one of these terrible missiles. An ingot of sh.e.l.l-steel is first cast as described in an earlier chapter. Since impurities are apt to rise, while the metal is liquid, the top of the ingot is always cut off and discarded. This waste material is used for many other purposes, in which a chance flaw would not be a serious matter, under the t.i.tle of "sh.e.l.l-discard" steel.

The lower part is then heated and pa.s.sed through a rolling mill, a machine very similar in principle to the domestic mangle, the rollers being of iron with suitable grooves cut in them. A few pa.s.sages through this machine transforms the ingot into a thick round bar. This is then sawn into short pieces called billets, each of which is the right size to form a sh.e.l.l. Again heated, a powerful press drives a pointed bar through the softened steel, thereby converting the short billet into a rough tube. Another press then slightly closes in one end, making it resemble a bottle without a bottom and with the neck broken off.

The rough forging is then ready to be machined, an operation which is performed in a lathe. The outside is made perfectly round and smooth and of precisely the right size. The inside is also bored out to the correct diameter and finished off to an exceeding smoothness so as to avoid the possibility of any rough places irritating the explosive which in due time will be filled into it. For the same reason, the inside, when finished, is varnished in a certain way and with a certain varnish. The formation of this varnish is one of those little thought of but highly important services which alcohol renders to us, as mentioned elsewhere.

The smaller end (that which has already been partially squeezed in) is bored out and screwed for the reception of the nose-bush, while the other end is recessed for the reception of the plate which forms the bottom.

Most of these operations have to be very accurately carried out and, to ensure that that is so, gauges are continually employed to check the work. These gauges are based upon a very simple principle, known as the "limit" principle. This is both interesting and important, sufficiently so to merit a more detailed reference.

It must first be realized that no two things are alike and no measurement is perfectly correct. When we lightly speak of two things being "alike" we really mean that for the purpose contemplated they are nearly enough alike. Two things might be "alike" for one purpose and yet be so unlike as to be useless for another.

What the authorities do in the case of sh.e.l.ls, therefore, and what is done nowadays in many branches of engineering, is to recognize this fact and at the same time overcome the difficulty by stating what difference is permissible. In other words, instead of saying that a thing must be a certain size, it is required to fall between two limits: it must not be more than one or less than the other.

For example, suppose a hole is required to be nominally an inch in diameter it may be specified that it shall not exceed an inch plus one-thousandth or fall short of an inch minus one-thousandth. In such a case a variation of a thousandth of an inch either way is permitted.

The permitted variation may be more than that, or it may be less and be measured in ten-thousandths, it all depends upon circ.u.mstances. Clearly in every case it is desirable to permit as large a variation as is consistent with a good result.

Now to make measures with the degree of accuracy just mentioned is not easy. One can just about see through a crack a thousandth of an inch wide if held up to a bright light. How then can dimensions such as these be dealt with easily and quickly in the rough conditions of a large workshop?

Let us again think of that one-inch hole and we shall see how simply and easily it is done. The gauge in such a case would be shaped somewhat like a dumb-bell, one end being the "go" end and the other the "not-go"

end. The former is made to agree as nearly as possible with the lower limit, the other with the higher limit, and all the inspector has to do is to try first one end in the hole and then the other. One must "go" in and the other must "not-go." So long as that happens he knows that the hole is correct within the prescribed limits. If, on the other hand, both go in, then he knows the hole is too large, or if neither goes in he knows it is too small. It may be urged by some acute reader that the gauges themselves cannot be correct, and that is quite true, but it is possible, by great care and laborious methods, to produce gauges which are correct to within far narrower limits than those mentioned.

In the case of outside dimensions the gauges take the form of a thumb and finger capable of spanning the object to be measured, and in that case also two are used, one of which must "go" and the other "not-go."

By methods such as these the sh.e.l.ls are measured and examined.

One of the most important features of a sh.e.l.l is its driving band. In the old days of round cannon b.a.l.l.s it is said that the gunners used to wrap greasy rag round each so as to make it fit the cannon and to prevent the force of the explosion to some extent wasting itself by blowing past the ball. That is one of the functions of the driving band.

It is made of copper which is comparatively soft, and it forms a fairly tight fit in the bore of the gun, so that while the sh.e.l.l is free enough to slide out of the gun it is tight enough to prevent the loss of any of the driving force of the explosive.

Its second purpose is to give the necessary spinning action to the sh.e.l.l. The old cannon ball suffered from the fact that it offered a considerable surface to the air in proportion to its weight. The idea arose, therefore, of making projectiles cylindrical and with a pointed nose, so that while the weight might be increased the resistance to the air might be even reduced. But it was clearly no use doing this unless the thing could be made to travel point foremost. Now for some rather mysterious reason, if you shoot a cylindrical object out of a gun, it will turn head over heels in the air, unless you give it a spinning motion. This motion, however, because of a gyroscopic effect, keeps the sh.e.l.l point first all the time.

It has another effect, too, known as "air-boring." A spinning sh.e.l.l seems actually to bore its way through the air. Probably this is due to a centrifugal action, the spinning sh.e.l.l throwing the air outwards from itself and so to some extent sucking the air away out of its own path.

Whether that be the true explanation or not, the fact remains that the spinning sh.e.l.l makes its way through the air better than a non-spinning one would do.

The gun, therefore, has formed in its bore a very slow screw-thread called "rifling," from a French word meaning a screw. And it is the second function of the copper band to catch this rifling and by it be turned as the sh.e.l.l proceeds along the barrel. The soft copper conforms to the shape of the rifling and so itself becomes in a sense a screw engaging with the rifling.

This band is situated near the base of the sh.e.l.l, lying in a groove turned in the sh.e.l.l for its reception. To prevent the band turning round without turning the sh.e.l.l there is a wavy groove turned in the bottom of the larger groove, and the band, being put on hot, is squeezed into the latter by a powerful press.

The nose-bush is a little fitting of bra.s.s which screws into the smaller end of the sh.e.l.l and it has a hole in its centre into which another bra.s.s fitting, the nose itself, is screwed.

The base of the sh.e.l.l is closed with a little disc of steel plate.

People sometimes wonder why the original forging is not made solid at the bottom so as to save the necessity for this disc, but the reason is that if that were done defects might very possibly arise in the steel in the centre which, since it is the very spot whereon the propellant acts, might let some of the heat or force of the propellant through, causing a premature explosion of the charge inside the gun itself instead of among the ranks of the enemy.

In the case of naval sh.e.l.ls, the nose is not of bra.s.s but of a soft kind of steel. One might expect it to be of the very hardest steel, since it has to pierce the hard armour, but experience has shown that the soft nose is better than a hard one. The reason probably is that a hard nose splinters, whereas a soft one spreads out on striking the armour and then acts as a protection to the body of the sh.e.l.l behind it. In these sh.e.l.ls, too, the fuse which explodes the charge is placed in the base.

In the others it is in the nose, but clearly it could not be so placed in the armour-piercing sh.e.l.l.

It is interesting to mention that the propellent "powder" has combined in it some vaseline or other greasy matter which acts as a lubricant between the gun and the sh.e.l.l when firing takes place.

Shrapnel is so different from the other types of sh.e.l.l that it merits a short paragraph or two to itself. Instead of being filled, as the others are, solely with explosive, the front part of it accommodates a considerable number of small round bullets, behind which comes a charge of gunpowder. The front half of the sh.e.l.l is separate from the back part, the two being connected by rivets of soft iron wire, so that a sudden shock can rend them apart. The sh.e.l.l is fired from the gun and comes flying along: suddenly, owing to the action of the fuse, the gunpowder explodes: the case then flies in two, the bullets are liberated and fall in a shower. In the South African War, where fortifications were few, these sh.e.l.ls were very effective, but against fortifications, and particularly against trenches and barbed wire, big explosive sh.e.l.ls are of much greater value.