Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/210

 been obtained with the much lighter smooth bore. The same rapidity of loading could not be expected, but a gun could be directed on its object much more expeditiously with cogged wheels and winches than with the old rough method of handspikes and tackles. The gun recoiled up a slide, the extent of the recoil being regulated by friction between carriage and slide. The projectiles, instead of being passed from hand to hand, as in the case of the 32-pounder, were wheeled up in iron trucks to the muzzle and then hoisted by a tackle for insertion. There was still room for the display of strength and activity. We had not arrived at working a lever—as at a railway siding—to actuate a hydraulic ram which would bring up the ammunition, while the movement of another handle ejected a rammer which forced all into its place. By the improved method of mounting already described, and mechanical arrangement for controlling the recoil, we were enabled to work guns weighing 25 tons on the broadside with celerity and safety. Though heavy, such guns were necessarily short. Thus the 12-in. 25-ton gun had a bore only 12 calibres long—the calibre of a piece being the diameter of its bore. As we are now employing ordnance of 25, 30, and 35 calibres, the advance in this respect since 1870 can be realised. But after that date longer and heavier guns were constructed. With the same calibre, 12-in., we proceeded to a 35-ton gun of greater length for the 'Devastation's' turrets. Then a slower burning powder being produced, we found that a 38-ton gun could be made nearly 16 calibres long of