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Show HUDSON MAXIM TELLSOFBIBGUNi May Be 100 Feet Long and Be 20 Inches in Diameter. NEW YORK, March 25. Hudson Maxim, inventor, declared in a statement state-ment regarding the bombardment of, Paris by the new German cannon, that it is entirely possible to secure a range of over sixty miles with a gun, but there is nothing new in the idea. "I understand that the new projectile pro-jectile is practically of nine-inch calibre," said Mr. Maxim. "With a nine-inch gun from forty to fifty feet In length, and with the maximum elevation ele-vation of forty-five degrees, a projectile projec-tile may be thrown to a distance of moro than twenty miles. "Now, if we double the calibre of the gun, we quadruple the area of tho base pf the projectile. If we were to take a gun of elghteen-inch calibre and shoot a nine-inch projectile from that we would have four times the propelling pro-pelling energy on the base of the shell during the entire flight of the projectile pro-jectile through the bore of . tho gun. "It would be perfectly possible to employ a gun for such purpose of twenty-Inch calibre, throwing a sub-calibre sub-calibre projectile of nino inches. Then we would have a good deal more than four times the area upon which the powder gases would push against the projectile. Nothing New in Idea. "There is nothing new in this idea of a sub-calibre projectile. Sub-calibre projectiles were used in the old fifteen-inch Zalinski dynamite gun in order to get greater range. "With a gun of twenty-inch calibre, made from eighty to one hundred feet long, it would be perfectly possible to get the maximum range attributed to the Germans. The gun would probably be what is generally designated as a knockdown gun one shipped to tho firing line in sections and erected in place. The gun, however, would be so long that it would not support itself without dropping. It would have to be supported by nn external structure. The mounting of the gun "would be somewhat of a bridge builder's job. Charge for Big Gun. "Tho best kind of powder charge for such a gun would be a cordite composition, com-position, consisting of about 50 per cent nitro-glycerine and 50 per cent gun cotton. "This gun when fired at a maximum elevation of 45 degrees would throw the projectile above most of the atmosphere at-mosphere of the earth, so that at least half of the travel of the projectile would be through a partial vacuum and the total resistance which the projectile pro-jectile would encounter in, say sixty" miles, would not be more than it would be in thirty miles If the projectile woro passing through atmosphere as dense as at the earth's surface. "I understand it is rumored the projectiles pro-jectiles now reaching Paris are partiy driven by the propeller during flight. If this is a fact the Germans are accomplishing ac-complishing the result by a method not so simple or as good as that which I have indicated, for the flight of the projectile would neither be as accurate nor as sure as if the projectile should derive its entire energy from the gun." nn |
