Show COAST DEFENSE PROBLEMS Extensive preparations for coast defense de-fense are being made Having entered the lists Uncle Sam is bound to hold hIs own As the antiexpanlonists have it he Is trying to hold more than his own Be that as it may the time has come when our long stretch of coastline coast-line cannot be left unprotected when our coast cities can no longer remain an easy mark for a hostile fleet The defense armament most desIred can best be obtained it is declared by having recourse to a Gruson turret These are manufactured by the Krupps who are wmlng with fair inducements in-ducements to locate a plant in this country in conjunction with some American Am-erican manufacturer but they refuse to disclose the secret process whIch they control for making chilled cast iron armor To protect the modern coast defense rapidfire guns which are to be strung along our shores at irregular intervals it is deemed advisable to get the best known armor of defense According to a statement given out by the war department the Germans employ coastturrets at the mouth of the Elbe and the ItalintIs possess one of the Krupp turrets mounted on the island of Palmyra near SpezzIa The plates of these turrets have a thickness thick-ness of thirtysix inches The cost of the Italian turret was 1200000 lade pendentl of the guns inside The I chilled castiron plates of a Gruson turret are practically Indestructible In experimental tests these turrets have been attacked by the heaviest caHbred guns but without doing much damage to the system The turrets are dome shape and lie very close to the ground the only weak part of the arrangement beIng the exposed gunbarrels The I turrets can defend the breech sections of the contained heavy rifles but that Isall The plates of the Gruson turrets are mortised before they are erected into place No bolts are employed and the interstices between the sections ire filled In with molten white metal which on cooling unites the entire mass But they are pensive A Gruson turret with its emplacement one large enough to successfully defend the lower New York harbor under ordinary circumstances cir-cumstances will cost in the neighborhood neighbor-hood of 5000000 Besides the Gruson turrets the engineers en-gineers and experts favor overhead shields for the more advanced guns noW mounted on disappearing carriages car-riages Recent experiments abroad have demonstrated that at ranges of 4000 to 5000 yards a gunpit can be effectively ef-fectively cleared by the shrapnel fire from a ship German authorities say that a six Inch q1Jickfiring naval gun at these ranges can keep down the fire of any open pit in existence The English are using overhead shields in their coast defense system and are thoroughly wedded to the practice while the pres eat American gun positions are open in the rear and unprotected overhead Although it may be necessary to solicit so-licit outside aid in the manufacture or turrets owing to a closely guarded secret se-cret in the possession of the Krupps the best guns as well as the best ships in the world are being made in thE United States The ne sixteeninch gun now at the Watenliet arsenal is almost finished It will be the crowning triumph gun manufacture It will be the most powerful piece of ordnance in the world Its length will exceed by nearly fie feet the monster gun which the Krupps xhibited at the Worlds fall in 1893 and which is now employed for experimental purposes on the lfeppen range in Germany The projectile for this American gun will weigh approximately one ton The ordnance experts have calculated that if a velocity of 25GO feet can be obtained the new gun when given an angle ofelevation of fortyfour degrees wlll have a range of sixteen miles And the possibilties of the new smokeless powder are very great After all if worst comes to worst Yankee ingenuity and American courage cour-age and industry are always to be depended de-pended upon All they need S absolute abso-lute freedom from departmental jobbery job-bery and those millions for defense that have been always ready for any emergency |