Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/826

 790 ARTILLEKY horse artillery, however, continued to have drivers specially enlisted for that purpose, and to this very faulty system the mounted batteries have reverted since the Crimean I war. In 1827 three field batteries were ' organized, each having four pieces and 45 j horses, The British artillery continued in a j very imperfect state up to 1848, a mistaken notion of economy having kept it insufficiently j supplied with guns and horses. At that date, | as well as in 1852, it was largely increased and ; placed on a better footing. Each battery now consisted of four guns and two howitzers ; the j armament being improved by the substitution of 24-pdr. and 12-pdr. howitzers for the old 5-inch howitzer, by the introduction of the 32-pdr. howitzer, and by the practical aban- donment of the heavy 6-pdr. and 3-pdr. guns. The ammunition, particularly the shrapnel, was also made more efficient by the adoption of Captain Boxer's fuse. At Sebastopol in 1854 the English siege pieces consisted of 32 and 24-pdr. guns, 10 and 8-inch shell guns, and 13, 10, and 8-inch mortars. To these were joined 68-pdr. guns borrowed from the fleet, then thought of enormous size ; some of them were fired as many as 4,000 times, with a charge of 16 Ibs. of powder and with great rapidity. The calibres of the French siege cannon did not materially differ from those of their ally. The artillery improvement of the other European powers was steadily maintained during this generally peaceful era, and the importance of the arm continued to be felt in the few cam- paigns which took place. In the Polish war of 1831, as well as in the Hungarian cam- paign of 1849, the Russians embraced every opportunity for the employment of artillery in mass. At Warsaw the concentrated fire of a large number of guns decided the success of their coup-de-main and put an end to the resis- tance of the Poles ; the loss in the Russian artillery was however very severe, the killed alone amounting to 40 officers, 400 men, and 800 horses. On the other hand, at Inkerman in 1854 the Russian attack failed on account of the unskilful handling of their artillery masses. The principal large calibres of Rus- sian cast-iron guns at the siege of Sebastopol were 120 (shell), 96, 56, and 40-pdrs. In Bel- gium the invention (1835) of a new fuse by Gen. Bormann gave case shot an importance and utility hitherto unknown ; while iron came into general use throughout Europe for heavy gun carriages. The systems of field and siege artillery in the United States were chiefly de- rived from those of France. After the war of 1812 with Great Britain the artillery arm was i almost entirely neglected ; no field batteries j were kept up, and the heaviest gun' mounted ! on the seacoast in 1820 was a 24-pdr. About 1839 Secretary of War Poinsett caused field batteries to be organized, which, though few in number, were brought to a high state of efficiency and rendered valuable services during the Mexican war (1846-'8), particular- ly at Buena Vista, Feb. 22, 1847, where they saved the day. The columbiad, a long-cham- bered piece capable of projecting shot and shell at high angles and with heavy charges, was invented by Col. Bomford and used during the war of 1812 ; a similar gun (Paixhans), as we have already seen, was afterward introduced with great success in Europe. In 1844 the columbiad was lengthened and made heavier to enable it to stand an increased charge of one sixth of the weight of the solid shot ; but not proving strong enough, even with these modi- fications, in 1858 its use was restricted to shells, a new gun of improved model taking its place. Wrought-iron carriages for heavy guns were about this time introduced into the United States, and great care was taken in the selec- tion and treatment of American iron, some of which is specially adapted to gun fabrication. About 1847 Gen. Rodman developed his now universally adopted theory of initial tension in other words, of such a disposition of the metal that when the gun is at rest the interior parts are in a state of compression, while the exte- rior are in a state of tension ; this adds great- ly to the strength of the metal, the outer lay- ers being thus forced to stand more and the inner layers less than would otherwise be the case when the gun is fired. To practically obtain this result in cast-iron guns, Rodman had them cast on a hollow core and cooled from within by passing a stream of water through them. In 1850 Admiral Dahlgren proposed a new system of cast-iron guns for Fi. 6. Dahlf?ren Gun. the navy, which upon trial gave very favor- able results and was adopted in 1855. His guns (9, 10, and 11 -inch) were made of cast iron, solid, and cooled from the exterior; to obviate the difficulty of strain due to unequal shrinkage, they were cast nearly cylindrical and then turned down to the required shape, thus getting rid of the exterior metal which caused the strain by cooling first in the mould. The chamber is of the Gomer form, the thick- ness of the metal around the seat of the charge being a little greater than the diameter of the bore; the chase tapers more rapidly than in other cast-iron guns, which makes the breech appear thicker than it really is. In 1857 the calibres of the land service consisted of 10 and 8-inch columbiads, 42, 32, 24, 18, and 12-pdr. guns, 10 and 8-inch and 24-pdr. howitzers, and