Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/827

 ARTILLERY 791 13, 10, and 8-inch mortars, all of cast iron. Besides the light 12-pdr. or Napoleon gun, FIG. 7. 18-inch Mortar. the bronze pieces consisted of heavy 12 and 6-pdr. gnns, and of 32, 24, and 12-pdr. howitz- ers, together with 12-pdr. mountain howitzers and 24-pdr. Coehorn mortars. We have now come to the most recent period in the history of artillery improvement, extending from the Italian campaign of 1859 to the present date (1873). Although the employment of rifle cannon in war was originally attempted by the English, the French are entitled to the credit of first successfully using them in battle. The English 68-pdr. and 8-inch Lancaster rifles failed at Sebastopol in 1854, the shot jamming in the bores; but the French bronze rifled fours, after a model devised by Col. Treuille de Beaulieu, were brilliantly successful in the Italian campaign of 1859. So recent was their construction that the batteries had to march with empty carriages, the guns being boxed up and sent to the army after it had left France. Once in Italy, the incontestable superiority of the French artillery seemed to recall the days Cascable. Breech. Reenforce. Chaw. Muzzlt. i ~n i B^ H --I C Fnf. . lr FIG. 8. Field 6-pdr. smooth-bore Bronze Gun. of Charles VIII. ; at Solferino particularly, it destroyed the Austrian batteries at the unpre- cedented range of 1,600 yards before they could get into position to return the fire, and shook the confidence of the reserves by shell- ing them at distances hitherto deemed entirely safe. When every gun fired a cast-iron spheri- cal projectile, its weight indicated the diameter of the bore, or calibre of the piece ; but with the elongated projectiles of rifled cannon which .ire of various lengths, the case is very different, the weight of the shot being no indication of the power of the gun, nor giving any definite idea of the size of the bore. With French rifle projectiles whose length does not exceed twice their diameter, the same numbers desig- nate their calibres as of old, but they now re- fer to kilogrammes instead of pounds ; thus the 4-pdr., or four, formerly meant that the gun fired a cast-iron sphere weighing 4 Ibs., but now signifies that its projectile weighs about 4 kilogrammes or 8 '823 Ibs. Compared with English guns of the same diameter of bore, the French throw a lighter shot, the English pro- jectiles, particularly the Whitworth, being al- ways longer. The rifled twelves, consisting of the gun-howitzers (Napoleon guns) converted by rifling, were not used in Italy, there not being enough ammunition, but were success- fully tested in Mexico; at Puebla they were found very useful in breaching masonry. The French also transformed by rifling the old 12-pdr. field gun into a gun of reserve and position, the old long 12-pdr. gun into a garri- son gun, and the short 24-pdr. gun and 50-pdr. gun into siege guns. None of these pieces fire solid shot ; the three kinds of twelves use the same projectiles, but with different charges of powder. The short twenty-four weighs 2,000 kilogrammes or two tons, and the charge is va- ried according to the range desired, up to a maximum of 2 kilos (5 Ibs.), which gives a range of 5,000 metres; the carriage of the gun enables it to be fired as a mortar. The long twenty-four only differs from the short by its length and weight, which is three quarters of a ton (740 kilos) more. The fifty is not heavier than the short twenty-four, and is fired with the same charge of powder; its projectile weighs 51 kilos (113 Ibs.), with a bursting charge of 3*5 kilos (7 Ibs. 13 oz.). Both are mounted on the same carriage, which is drawn by only six horses. Following the same principles, the French artillerists have also utilized some of the old Paixhans guns by rifling and hooping with steel; a gun of this kind of 22 centimetres bore weighs about 14 tons, and throws 170-lb. hollow projectiles to a distance of 6,000 or 7,000 yards. So, too, with their naval guns : the old thirties, origi- nally intended to carry spherical 32-lb. shot with a charge of 11 Ibs., after being hooped