Show a r 1 a jt 1 6 t y amy now that the american battleship fleet Is well on ita way to the pacific leaving the atlantic coast practically without any warships tor its krotec alon the question naturally arises in the minds ot a great many people aa to what would happen it foreign corn should suddenly arise with some of the european powers would the big cities along the coast boston new york philadelphia baltimore and other cities be at the mercy of a hostile fleet only a few years back during the spanish american war when the american fleets were or dered to cuban waters in the course of the spanish american war some persons were troubled because the shore resorts of the country were suf to be left to the mercy of what proved to be the well nigh harmless spanish fleet apparently they as fumed that it was essential to the success of the enemy that it should shell summer hotels with a great ex ture of powder and now once again an american fleet comprising a large proportion of the vessels of the atlantic squadrons has left the eastern coast of the country for a pe of several months no war Is now in progress but the plane swifter than thought in its flight pos sessco of the power to lift ships from their watery ways and transport them thousands of miles through the air has yet to be invented what would happen to anew york of boston or bal almore or washington should war break out unexpectedly are these ports amply protected 9 asks the man in the street the war department makes little noise about the condition of the coast defenses such activity as one sees about the fortifications reveals little the sun spreads a flood of gold upon the soft grassy covering of their sloping sides and somehow one does not think of them as impregnable fort such guns as one sees look innocuous enough they do not seem as formidable as one imagines they ought to look in fact however these fortresses are mailed fists with a vel vet covering army officers assert that no hostile war vessel could reach the upper bay of new york harbor it it could be seen it would be before it reached the narrows gunnery has shared in the modern tendency to specialize and to become highly scientific in its practice gun ners are now specialists A battery Is a highly organized mechanism working almost automatically in the old days the men who fired the guns used to see what they fired at today with guns capable ot throwing a thousand pound shell as far as the eye can see on a clear day the men who discharge the guns no longer necessarily see the object which la to be struck by the giant hall they release until the shot Is fired the gun itself cannot be seen above the para pet hitting the target has become al most an exact science by means the striking of a target has become eo nearly an that the tugs which tow the floating targets are separated from them by only feet of line the men upon the tugs have no more expectation of beng struck than if they were a mile behind the gun they never have been struck although the different batteries have frequent practice the song of tho shell to the men on the tug Is not like the song of tho lorelei for death does not follow in ita wake to be sure like motoring one has to become accustomed to face what seems like impending death faith in the gunner as in the chauffeur and in the gun as in the motor car Is an essential what Is done by the gung in some of our forts Is illustrated by what has recently been accomplished at two of the torta along the atlantic coast at boston recently a target tour and a halt miles from the fort and moving along the horizon at the rate of alve miles an hour was struck by every shot fired from a ten inch battery in less than four minutes the number of shots being six the following day a battery of 12 inch guns performed the same feat bunching the shots more closely than did the ten inch guns the shots of both batteries were BO close together at the target that they might havo been in a rec tangle ten by 20 feet battery parrot capt kilborn at fortress monroe recently was called upon to fire at a moving target an un known distance away y actually it was about three and one halt miles away pyramidal hi shape it looked as it moved across the water about aa ft lego mutton sail on a skiff would appear at a distance of tour miles every shot was a hit and the fourth and last destroyed the target the entire round was fired in one minute and nine seconds one of the firing tests Is called fire command in this test the gun ners are expected to change the fire from one target to another of the three in the airing as directed and hit it without changing the speed ot the fire the targets are supposed to represent the vitals of a warship this mythical vessel Is considered to have a freeboard or height out of water of 24 feet in estimating the hits the basis Is that 0 a representative bat A shot which does not actual ly hit the target but which would have pierced a vessel had it been where the target was Is counted a hit officers on the tug towing the targets work out the score by means of the range rake this Is an implement which looks like a garden rake with a short handle the spaces between the teeth each represent a given number of yards when a shot strikes the officers sight along the handle and note how many spaces to the right or left of the center the shot hit A gunner of the old school would turn gray it he bad suddenly to adapt himself to the new methods in the face of the enemy hairline telescopes surveying instruments aarom eters thermometers anemometers weather vanes tide gauges and stop watches are required to secure the requisite results the accuracy of the fire Is obtained only by taking into consideration such details as the of the earth the speed of the target or the hostile warship tho range or distance of the object from the gun the pressure or density of the air the speed and direction of the wind the temperature and age of the powder when placed in the gun the height of the tide at the moment of firing the shot and the drift of the projectile there can be no guesswork in securing such artistic results as making bits with successive shots the effect of all of these factors in the combination under all possible conditions has been worked out by experiments and computations and the result utilized in devising apparatus which automatically registers the information which Is essential at such a speed that half a dozen half ton shots can be thrown into a ship from a single battery in the space of less than four minutes the shot is the distance to the right which a revolving projectile from a rifled gun will go in the course of a given distance the range and the point where a vessel will be at the moment a shot could reach it are reck boned in actual practice at least once in every 20 seconds the establish ment of 20 seconds as the interval when a fresh survey shall be taken Is based upon the fact that no boat could change its speed or its course sufficiently in thai space of time to affect the probability of a shot hitting it |