ENGLISH AND FRENCH HEAVY GUNS.

Now that the siege of Paris is really likely to commence it may be interesting to examine what rifled ordnance the French are going to employ, as compared to what we could use in a similar

case.

I say "the French," because the French having the resources of a large naval arsenal, comparatively near, at their command, are likely to employ much heavier guns than the Prussians.

In fact it is probable that, although the Prussian guns are much better than the French, as far as they go the Prussians will bring no siege guns larger than our 9-inch guns, which fire shot of 250lbs. The French, on the other hand, have guns of 27 centimetres, which are nearly equal to 11 inches of our measurement. These guns, in fact almost all the heavy French guns are made of cast iron hooped with steel; this is a most defective sort of gun, it is a combination of two materials in the worst way. The expansive force of the gaz being all expended upon the weakest material before the stronger one is brought into play-consequently these guns are all very dangerous, and what is worse when they do give way, the cast iron flies to pieces and the steel will also fly; whereas with wrought iron guns, (I am speaking of our coiled guns), they become unserviceable by the welding giving way, and these guns generally tear asunder-they seldom fly to pieces.

The French guns consequently, although they have heavy battering charges, will if the French artillery are wise never fire anything but ordinary charges. This would be a most serious weakness if the guns were mounted on the sea face of a naval fortress and had iron-clads coming against them, but against the Prussian siege batteries it will not matter at all as very great penetration is not wanted, and reduced charges even might be used, as they will be wanted very much to drop large shell into the batteries. A greater defect in the French guns is that their breech closing apparatus seems clumsy in the extreme and very liable to get out of order.

The French guns, or rather their ammunition has another great fault, instead of firing a shell of the same weight as their solid shot, these guns in every instance fire a shell of about two-thirds the weight of their chilled shot; this can only be accounted for by the French artillery knowing the insecurity of their guns and therefore never allowing them to be too much tried, except in case of emergency.

The heaviest French rifled gun is the gun of 27 centimetres, it has five grooves, the projectiles are iron or steel with studs, the rifling is an increasing twist.

The English gun to oppose this would be the 12-inch gun. This is a muzzle-loading wrought iron gun made of coils built up round

a toughened steel tube, which is cast solid and bored out; this is a much stronger construction than the French, and a great deal safer, as should the steel tube crack there is an escape hole left for the gas between the tube and the wrought iron shell, by which the gunners would have timely warning that the gun was unsafe, as they would see the gas escaping as soon as the steel tube gave way at all.

The following table shows the relative weights, charges, &c., of these guns.

The English powder it must be remembered is much stronger than French, and the English gun has been proved with eightythree and three-quarters pounds of powder, the French probably with 70lbs of French powder. The shell of 495lbs would be a frightful missile; and although the English gun is three and a-half tons heavier than the French, it is more than probable that with English and French detachments of equal numbers, the English gun would be worked as quickly as the French, as the additional weight would be counterbalanced by the additional strength of the English detachment.

Both these guns would carry if required 9,000 yards, but it is doubtful if any one would use either at above 4,000 yards, it is very difficult to see what you are firing at when beyond that range; and, if you do not hit, it is quite impossible to say how far off you have been.

The next French gun is the 24 centimetre. This gun is of the same faulty construction as the 27 centimetre gun.

To oppose it we have the 10-inch, rather larger, and the 9-inch rather smaller. The three guns are as follows.

The English 10-inch gun is therefore 4 tons heavier than the French gun, but it fires a shell nearly double the weight of the French shell. The 9-inch gun is nearly 2 tons lighter than the French gun, but fires a heavier shell although a lighter shot.

The next French gun is that of 19 centimetres. The corresponding English gun is the 8-inch. The guns stand as follows.

The English gun has again an immense advantage in the weight of its shell.

The next French gun is that of 16 centimetres; we have a number of rifled guns to match against this.

1st. The 7-inch muzzle-loading gun, of two natures (seven tons and six and a-half tons). These guns like all the English guns described before, are muzzle-loading wrought iron guns, with steel tubes and coiled jackets over them; the rifling is a modified form of French rifling and all except the 7-inch guns have increasing twist, the 7-inch having a uniform twist.

We have next the 7-inch breech-loading gun on Sir William Armstrong's principle, this is a much lighter gun than the muzzleloading 7-inch, but it does not fire chilled shot, and has lead coated projectiles-these are always liable to get injured by being carried about in the trenches, and the breech-loading arragement of the gun is also liable to injury if exposed in the siege batteries during bad weather. This gun is mounted on a standing carriage on a slide, the slide forming the body of a platform carriage for convenience in travelling. The muzzle-loading guns before mentioned are all mounted on wrought iron trsversing platforms, for naval or garrison service.

There are also several 64-pounder guns which could be matched against the 16 centimetre gun. They are the 64-pounder wedge gun which is like the 7-inch, only the breech is closed by a wedge, this gun is mounted on a travelling carriage for siege purposes.

There is the 64-pounder muzzle-loading wrought iron gun on Sir W. Armstrong's shunt principle, but this gun would probably never be used on shore unless guns had to be borrowed from the navy.

Lastly there are two 64-pounders of cast iron with wrought iron tubes. These guns are only makeshifts, being old 8-inch or 68-pounder smooth bore guns, bored out and then fitted with a wrought iron tube which is rifled with 3 grooves. It must not be supposed that these guns are like the French rifled guns, very dangerous; in the case of the English guns, the force of the powder is first felt by the strong wrought iron tube, and should this tube begin to give way, the gunners would, as in the Woolwich guns, have warning by seeing the gas escaping round the tube. These

guns will use the same ammunition as the 64-pounder shunt gun, and also if necessary the 32-pounder smooth bore. The weights &c., of these guns are as follows.

Here again the 7-inch Woolwich gun although considerably heavier than the French gun, more than makes up for it by its safety, even with its battering charge of 22lbs, and by its large shell of 115lbs. It has, in addition to the common shell, a double shell which is 2 feet 3 inches long, weighs 168lbs and has a bursting charge of twelve and a-half pounds, this shell would of course have no penetration against iron plates, but it is a most formidable weapon against wooden ships or batteries.

The lighter natures of 64-pounders are good siege guns, they all fire good sized shell with great accuracy, and the 71-cwt gun being in outward form the same as the 8-inch smooth bore gun will have the same carriage. The 5 ton 64-pounder being the old 68-pounder, will be able to fire a chilled shot of 80 pounds and is therefore adopted even for the sea faces of second rate fortresses.

The Prussian rifled guns are in their construction much stronger than the French, they are in fact as strong as our own, but have the fault that they may fly into pieces, in fact some have done so, this will always be an objection to steel guns They are also much more expensive than our guns, being nearly £170 a ton, or more than double the cost of Woolwich guns. The shot for these guns are, like our Armstrong shot, iron coated with lead, the guns are polygrooved and breech-loading The breech closing apparatus is rather clumsy, and in siege batteries, this and the lead-coated projectiles will be a drawback. The Prussian guns would, firing against iron plates, probably have a great advantage over the French, but in the case of a siege like that of Paris, the weak points of the French guns are not likely to tell whilst the weak points of the Prussians will probably be brought forward. That is to say the weakness of the French guns will not matter, as they need never fire battering charges, and could often use reduced charges, whilst the complicated breech apparatus and the liability of lead-coated projectiles to injury will both be great when the guns are worked in siege batteries in bad weather. The Prussian

guns are not named from the weight of their service projectiles, but from the weight of the spherical shot which fit their bore, these weights are about two-fifths the weight of the service shot, thus the 4, 6, and 12-pounders fire shot weighing respectively eight and a-half, thirteen and three-quarters, and twenty-nine pounds.

The great siege gun of the Prussians is a 50-pounder, which fires a shot weighing 118lbs. The heaviest siege guns they have, (certainly any number of) is one which fires a shot of 250lbs and corresponds therefore to our 9-inch gun.

They have also rifled 24-pounders which fire shot of 691bs and shell of 54lbs with a charge of four and a-half pounds, this gun weighs about 50 cwt.

The great difficulty in a siege is not the weight of the guns so much as the weight of the ammunition. The Prussians are said to have 300 50-pounder guns on their way to Paris, if each of these guns has 500 rounds of ammunition weighing 125lbs, the shot and cartridge will weigh 8,333 tons, and would probably require 50 large railway trains to convey it.

The comparison of our own heavy guns with those of France and Prussia shows therefore that we have, as regards siege garrison or naval guns, both heavier and better guns than either Power; our fuses for muzzle-loading ordnance are excellent, being some of the many valuable legacies left this country by General Boxer.

The following statement of ordnance used in two great sieges will, (more than anything else could), show the immense increase of artillery power of late years.

The artillery about to be used at Paris, will show that great as was the increase between 1813 and 1854; it is as nothing compared with the increase since then, or rather during the last 10 years.

Statement of Ordnance employed at the Siege of St. Sebastian in 1813.

spherical case

43367

9303

2094

1930