Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Volume 8The Institution, 1864 - Military art and science |
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acid action Admiral HALSTED advantage ammunition angle applied armour armour-plates Armstrong Armstrong gun army artillery balloon barrel battery Bessemer bore breech breech-loader bullet Captain Fishbourne carried cartridge cast-iron centre centre of buoyancy charge coil guns Colonel command considerable constructed deck effect employed Engineers experiments explosion fact feet fire force forts give grooves gun-cotton gunpowder heat ignition important inches iron labour loading material means metal military motion multigroove muzzle muzzle-loader naval necessary nitric acid non-commissioned officers object obtained ordinary ordnance plates position practice present pressure principle projectile purpose question railway regiment rolling round round shot Royal Royal Engineers Royal Naval Reserve shell ship Shoeburyness shot shunt side Sir William Sir William Armstrong smooth-bore soldier Spithead steel tion tons tube vessel Voghera weight Westley Richards wrought iron yards دو دو
Popular passages
Page 419 - ... of a second, or to instantaneity. The instantaneous explosion of a large quantity of gun-cotton is made use of when it is required to produce destructive effects on the surrounding material. The slow combustion is made use of when it is required to produce manageable power, as in the case of gunnery.
Page 419 - This 08 per cent, is not only waste in itself, but it wastes the power of the remaining 32 per cent. It wastes it mechanically, by using up a large portion of the mechanical force of the useful gases. The waste of gunpowder issues from the gun with much higher velocity than the projectile; and if it be remembered that in 100 Ib.
Page 106 - God bless the army, bless their coats of scarlet, God bless the navy, bless the Princess Charlotte, God bless the guards, though worsted Gallia scoff, God bless their pig-tails, tho...
Page 418 - BvATcely differing in appearance from unchanged cotton, it may be distinguished from it by its harshness, by the crepitating sound which it yields when pressed by the hand, by its having lost the property of depolarisation which ordinary cotton possesses, and by its electric condition. Iodine dissolved in a solution of iodide of potassium affords a certain means of distinguishing explosive from ordinary cotton. If the former is moistened with this iodine solution, and...
Page 419 - The slow combustion is made use of when it is required to produce manageable power, as in the case of gunnery. It is plain, therefore, that, if we can explode a large mass instantaneously, we get out of the gases so exploded the greatest possible power, because...
Page 325 - From the heights of Montebello the Austrians beheld a novelty in the art of war. Train after train arrived by railway from Voghera, each train disgorging its hundreds of armed men, and immediately hastening back for more. In vain Count Stadion endeavoured to crush the force in front of him before it could be increased enough to overpower him.
Page 347 - ... for several hours. This accounts in great measure for the want of uniformity observed in the composition of gun-cotton and its effects as an explosive in the earlier experiments instituted ; and it is moreover very possible that the want of stability and consequently even some of the accidents which it was considered could only be ascribed to the spontaneous ignition of...
Page 415 - ... up to 180 rounds without any inconvenience. The absence of fouling allows all the mechanism of a gun to have much more exactness than where allowance is made for fouling. The absence of smoke promotes rapid firing and exact aim. There are no poisonous gases, and the men suffer less inconvenience from firing in casemates, under hatches, or in closed chambers.
Page 419 - ... the refuse of gunpowder itself. There is yet another peculiar feature of gun-cotton. It can be exploded in any quantity instantaneously. This was once considered its great fault; but it was only a fault when we were ignorant of the means to make that velocity anything we pleased.
Page 358 - ... it easily conceivable that this material may be made to produce the most varied mechanical effects, when applied to practical purposes ; that it may, indeed, be so applied as, on the one hand, to develope a force, very gradual in its action, which may be directed and controlled at least as readily as that obtained by the explosion of gunpowder ; while, on the other hand, it may be made to exert a -violence of action and a destructive effect far surpassing those of which gunpowder is susceptible....