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Show MIGHTY GUNS OF THE lUFORCES; Tractor Mount for 7-inch1 Rifles Were Hailed by I the French. ' I MONSTER 14-INCH GUNS: Navy Has Tried Out the! 16-inch Rifles With Unexpected Un-expected Success. WASHINGTON, Dec. 12. Some Idea of the great work confronting! tho navy when the United States "en-1 tered the war is set forth in the an-! nual report of Rear Admiral Earle.i chief of ordnance, made public today. To this bureau alone fell the task of, expending during a single year more than half a billion dollars for guns' and equipment. In .discussing seemingly impossible problems, Admiral Earlc disclosed that the navy was called upon not only to arm all American war craft, auxiliaries and tho merchant fleet, but to provide armament for British, French, Italian, Belgian and Russian shipping. Guns of 3 to 5 inch caliber were at a premium pre-mium and the demand for them was ton times frrpater fbnn tho nvfcMnrr capacity for manufacture. A total of 937 craft of all kinds, not in the regular regu-lar navy, were armed between July 1, 1917, and July 1. 1918. Gun mounts formed a separate knotty knot-ty problem. The facilities created for their manufacture met all urgent needs. The Linderman Steel and Machine Ma-chine company of Muskegon, Mich., the report stated, delivered 360 mounts for -1-inch guns 2S days ahead of schedule and established a record for other manufacturers. Only brief reference was made to two of the most striking accomplishments accomplish-ments of the bureau, the designing, building and shipping of the 1-1 -inch rifles on railway mounts which effectually effec-tually hammered the German rear positions po-sitions in the closing weeks of the war, and tho development of a tractor for rirics up to 7 -inch caliber from which the guns could be fired. This latter achievement, never attained by the allied al-lied armies, the report said, was hailed in France with even greater satisfaction than was the arrival of the first of the 14 -inch monsters comprising com-prising the naval batteries. Failure to obtain a sufficient supply of depth bombs used by American destroyers, de-stroyers, hampered efficient operations against enemy submarines. By strenuous stren-uous efforts, however, the shortage was overcome and before war ended, American destroyers were using depth bombs freely, and this, the report said, aided in curbing German sumbarine operations in the closing months of the war. The fire control equipment used on American war craft Is on a par with that in any navy. Admiral Earlo said, and range finding and sighting dev- frnr, r i, ri 1 T I .... ui iuu nuci nivc uvvu yru.iiiy improved. im-proved. "The efficiency of our gunnery, assisted as-sisted by these new Instruments," he added, "should find our ships in the next sea battle at least equal in gunnery gun-nery lo any enemy." The first of the lG-inch. 50 -caliber i main battery rifles for new dread-1 dread-1 naughts as been tried out. with a suc-I suc-I cess that exceeded expectations, fixing fix-ing this monster of naval warfare as "an exceptionally splendid piece of ordnance." Another new naval weapon, weap-on, an 8-inch bomb-throwing howitzer, is being delivered to destroyers or larger craft. " , |