Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/395

 Terrible to the Eye Alone

A boy's bean-shooter can do more harm than one of these stage guns, despite their formidable appearance

��THE big Bertha and all the other members of the Krupp gun family stand a fair chance of being out-Krupped if our enthusias- tic motion-picture producers continue to copy faithfully the outward appearance of Germany's modern ordnance. In one of our latest celluloid thrillers, depicting the capture and ruin of this country- by an invading force, Krupp guns — or at least their wooden coun- terfeits — are utilized so real- istically as to lead the audi- ence to surmise that the Kaiser chartered a tug boat and scow to ship his Krupps over the sea for just one motion-picture play. The fact is that the office boy with his bean-shooter can do more damage than a dozen such "stage" guns.

But for motion-picture pur- poses these wooden counterfeits are just as effective as the real article. To see them roll up some peaceful countryside followed by a horde of warriors and to see the big make-believe monsters boom away at an invisible enemy is just the imitation next best thing to seeing one of compression the Crown Prince's armies

���The stage guns not only simulate the outward appearance of the Krupps but even their recoil movement at the moment of discharge

��of a modern highpower gun in action. For instance, a powder charge is exploded to represent the discharge of the genuine gun. The charge is ignited by an electric circuit.

At the instant of

��.aUNDER

��batter away at the The effect is start- lingly realistic.

The principle feature about these guns which makes them simulate the real Krupps, is their ability to imitate the natural recoil at the mo- ment of discharge, and the gradual raising to firing position. Each gun is provided with mechanical means which give a real- istic representation

��French.

��SLIDING ROD

��LATCH

��ELECTRIC CIRCUIT PTABL15HED WHEN tATCH 15 PULLED BACK

���iRREL

��BUMPER

��GUN BARREL aUNDER

��TAUT WHEN BARREL RECOILS

COUNTER WEIGHT

LATCH RELEASED BY TRIPPER. FREES WEIGHT

RECOIL OF BARREL STRIKES TRIPPER

��Diagram of the interior of the wooden gun. The charge of powder is ignited by an electric circuit

��powder discharge the gun barrel moves freely down in its frame. In its downward move- ment a spring is compressed, giving the cushioning effect of the com- pression cylinders of mcxlern guns. The gun barrel weighs four hun- dred and fifty pounds. In order to move it back again to its original firing position a counterweight of five hundred pounds is released by a lever.

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