THE ARMSTRONG GUN. T HE Minister-at-War, we are told, has suspended
the issue of Armstrong guns to the navy ; the Warrior goes to sea with the old 68-pounders, there is a fresh fire of letters condemning the new artillery, and the question supposed to be set at rest is evidently once more reopened. The action of Sir Cornewall Lewis is sure to be quite suf- ficiently canvassed in Parliament, and meantime it may be as well to state what are the ascertained grounds for re- suming a discussion every step of which is attended with so much vexation and expense. Any such course is naturally resisted with no little acrimony ; for the mere fact that a renewed inquiry should be justifiable at all, tells prin./4 facie against the value of the new piece. Five years of deter- mined efforts, guided by a most acute mechanician, with costly and exact machinery, workmen trained by himself, and every advantage State support can secure, leave us still uncertain whether the rifled cannon are for all purposes the best, and whether Sir W. Armstrong's are unquestionably the best of rifled cannon. Part of this doubt arises, it is true, from the great improvements made in the construction of the 68-pounder which, at Shoeburyness, for example, gave it a slight but appreciable advantage over the Armstrong gun, in the trials against the Warrior target. The result of those experiments was to hint—not to prove, for single experiments never prove anything—that the 68-pounder was superior to the 100-pounder Armstrong in smashing power at short range, and not its inferior in accuracy of aim. The Armstrong was only unrivalled at the very long range, and long range service does not involve the whole of the practi- cal question. It must not be forgotten that the object of research is not the absolutely best gun, the suanmum bowum of destructive mechanics, but the gun which, while efficient for all required work, costs least, and can be used with least trouble and preparation. The Armstrong gun does not, unless absolutely and unquestionably the best, satisfy this definition. It has an immense advantage in lightness, a fact which of itself gives it a preferential claim as a field gun, but not as a gun for the navy or for fixed batteries. The light gun, however, is excessively costly, and requires a small army of mechanics to keep it in order in the field, a great addition to its cost. Then, to quote only admitted facts ; proved guns burst under firing of no great rapidity and with moderate charges, vent-pieces are driven out or smashed, or jammed in the breech, gas escapes, or, to speak less techni- cally, explosive fire burns and knocks down the gunners occasionally, and though experiments have been going on for five years these are the old allegations against the wea- pon. It may very well be that these evils are inherent in breech-loading itself, and not in this or that breech- loading gun ; but then breech-loading must be aban- doned, which is one of the many points to be examined. The principle is already abandoned by Sir W. Arm- strong himself in his 100-pounder shunt guns, and if he is right his own act goes far to suggest that the rifle muzzle loaders, such, for instance, as the French guns which won Solferino, are the more serviceable kind. In China the French declared for their own weapon, and M. Xavier Raymond, in the Debate, declared them, not perhaps without an eye to the Emperor's smile, superior to our own. At Shoeburyness the French gun, which has not the breech- loading drawbacks, nearly equalled the Armstrong in endu- rance, bursting at the 42nd round, and its rival at the 45th, while another, rifled according to Mr. Bashley Britton's plan, endured 300 rounds without bursting. This gun, we are told, is capable of a range of 3000 yards at a very low elevation, and a precision quite sufficient for service. It was proposed to the Select Committee of Ordnance before Sir W. Armstrong's, and might, with the same advantages, have been developed into a superior weapon. Then, to refer to points not in connexion with breech- loading, Captain Halsted affirms that no less than three guns were disabled on board the Stork in a few months, not one of which had fired 50 rounds, or been subjected to a test equal to the rapid firing of real service. This occurred under the hands of the very best and most careful gunners of the navy, and again in the trials upon Captain Coles's cupola, when the vent-pieces were smashed by the dozen, and no less than three guns broke down in the firing. Another most serious complaint against the Armstrong is that the segmental shell peculiar to it is not safe for firing over the heads of troops, so as to protect landing parties or skirmishers. Major Hay had reported officially that in China no casualties occurred to our men from the fragments of lead flying off these shells in their passage through the air, but now we have Captain Halsted positively assert- ing the contrary, and that skirmishers of the 44th were wounded in this way. He supports his fact also by stating that this " stripping" of the shell has frequently been ob- served on board the Excellent gunnery ship. Nothing could be more disastrous than a doubt like this getting hold of the men, and it is imperative that such an unflinching scrutiny shall be made upon this point as to restore the confidence of the troops in the new weapon.
All these reported probabilities of failure—we call them no more—and some others, such as the general liability of the gun to fracture if it is hit, demand and justify the full inquiry which will now, we hope, be accorded. Hitherto it has been too much the habit to answer attack by an impu- tation on the motives of the assailant, and very often with much justice. Inventors are, next to artists, the most jea- lous and irritable of mortals, but still envy, and hatred, and all uncharitableness don't smash vent-pieces. At least, if they do, that new motor is so cheap and so formidable as to be of itself a full justification for the pause Sir Cornewall Lewis has seen fit to compel.
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