Popular Mechanics/Volume 49/Issue 1/Breaking the World's Big Gun Record
Triangular, Three-Sided Targets Used at Sea to Give Speedy Destroyers and Swooping Airplanes a Chance to Attack from Any Side, Making Complicated Maneuvers Possible
By G. K. SPENCER
Smashing a thirty-foot target in the sea, eighteen miles away and out of sight of her gunners, the U.S.S. "West Virginia" recently has passed all world's gunnery records. Though the gunners did not have the slightest glimpse of their objective, owing to the curvature of the earth's surface, the co-operation of the fast observation planes resulted in the achievement, which brought a great sum in prize money to the gunners and the control forces.
The system by which this firing was made possible is one of the marvels of modern gunnery. Upon receiving information that their ship would be called upon to fire an unusually difficult schedule, in common with other vessels of the battleship divisions, the gunners were practiced assiduously in the southern drill fields of the Pacific ocean before they entered the Atlantic through the Panama canal. "General quarters" was sounded frequently and the men drilled by day and night at the great guns. The exhibition of morale was astonishing, but one of the most amazing elements of all was the fact that not only the gunners, but the entire ship's company, in a divine service to which attendance was entirely voluntary, prayed for the success of their guns in the firing to come.
"The ship was in high morale that day." quietly commented an officer, who was asked to explain the result of the firing. "All hands helped us," declared a gunner, "they gave us perfect ranges from the tops, the radiomen caught every signal perfectly, the engineers gave us just the right amount of steam and power to the fraction of an inch of ship movement, the plotting room didn't make a single mistake, the "bridge" swung the ship's wheel accurately to keep our guns on the target, our captain trusted us—he knew the ship was right."
This gunner really epitomized the operation of the great ship, by which 1,400 men each performed a scientific task with perfect accuracy—and helped the gunners. He indicated that it is no longer sharp-eyed gunpointers who are solely responsible for hitting a naval target at sea, but that 1,400 men are really behind each shell which is fired, for if the helmsman were nervous at his wheel, it is manifest the guns would be moved enough to throw them off their target. If an engineman gave too much oil to his boilers, the increased steam pressure would forge the ship ahead too rapidly; if a radioman failed to accurately receive a signal from the observing aircraft, the range would be in error, as it also would if the aircraft observing the target failed to judge correctly the number of yards by which the projectiles were going over the target or falling short of it.
Gunnery Umpires, on a Platform Erected on the "California's" After-Turret Rifles, Watch the Shells Fired by the "West Virginia," While the Turret Motors Swing Them About
The day of firing is preceded by months of practice drills. All hands must be perfect at their stations. A slight error may mean the lives of a hundred shipmates. The drudgery of the work is relieved by thoughts and hopes of the coming "shoot." Drills not only include the gunners, but the rest of the ship's company. The enginemen are at their stations simulating war conditions; the hospital corpsmen are their battle dressing posts, the carpenters and shipfitters are at their repair stations ready to "clear away wreckage." It is an inspiring moment when the "West Virginia's" bugles are sounded throughout the ship by telephonic loud speakers, and 1,400 men spring to battle stations. Just as an intelligent trainer brings his athlete to a fighting edge and never permits him to go stale, so the shooting crews of the "West Virginia" are brought along until they are tense with the desire to see and hear the "big steel" thunder out its message to the waiting targets. Only the targets do not wait, but are towed rapidly by another vessel, which necessitates very fine adjustments to hit them. There is tension—but no nervousness. There must be perfect timing of all operations.
The turret is formed of three separate decks, all included in a great circular armored shaft of steel. On the top deck, the gunners stand on a narrow platform and work the guns; on the next deck down the shell room is located and shells are raised by electric elevators: on the next deck below is the powder room, from which powder is also raised to the guns on electric elevators. The whole system is adjusted to a point where the men in the powder and shell rooms operate their small elevators so that, as soon as the shell is rammed into the breech of the gun by an electric ram, the powder elevator is rising with the powder. In case of serious accident, every man in the turret is willing to throw the proper valves which will isolate the turret, flood it and prevent fire spreading. The magazines, too, may be flooded, and the men in them are ever will ing to die themselves if it be necessary to save the ship. When the U.S.S. "Mississippi" suffered the loss of twenty-one men in her No. Three turret three years ago, the entire ship was saved from destruction by a magazine explosion only because one of the men flooded the magazines as he was dying. His hand was found firmly clenched to the valve handle. Such accidents are now believed impossible, the navy having developed a system of creating air pressure in the turrets, so that as soon as the gun breech is thrown open after firing one projectile, the air pressure from the inside is stronger than that from without, and the air rushes out through the gun's barrel carrying all unburnt powder and other hot debris from the gun out to the deck. Previously the air would rush into the magazine from the outside through the gun muzzle, carrying the hot powder particles into the space where there were hundreds of pounds of powder bags awaiting the next loading.
Six of the "California's" Great Rifles Undergoing Elevation Tests to Try Out the Mechanism before Putting to Sea for Target Practice after the Annual Overhauling
The big day arrives! The ship will shoot at noon! Up on the boat deck, where the anti-aircraft guns are mounted, the officers are making a final check of everything. The "director" crews are aloit, for now the United States navy uses the scientific "director fire" method which was first used by the German navy at the battle of Jutland. A gunner. standing ready, chalks a fanciful name on his great weapon, "Battling Betsy," for instance, and an old officer, standing by, brings his
eyelids to a wistful half-close. He remembers that the American navy has named its guns thus from the days of Paul Jones. "Good gunner," he thinks, "fine boy, and navy to the core." A high-school boy from the middle west, blond and young.
All hands are now at action stations; the ship is stripped for war. High up on the signal bridge the ranking officers pace, awaiting word from the admiral. Signalmen stand ready to haul down the "commence firing" signal flag, and hoist the blood-red pennant which signifies the ship is manning her guns.
The Breech of One of the "West Virginia's" Turret Guns; the Trough in the Foreground Is the Wheeled Cart Which Brings the Huge Shell Up to Be Slid In Where the Sailor Now Rests
The radiomen are tuning their sets to the airplane wavelengths. On deck the catapult men are preparing to shoot a plane from the ship with powder, as though the plane were being fired from a gun. The plane is hoisted to the catapult, hooked on—mechanics carefully test all connections, try all valves, tighten a nut here and there—then the officer aviators come on deck in their khaki flying uniforms and carefully buckle their parachutes, on which they sit when aloft.
Suddenly a flash of red bunting breaks from the bridge and rapidly shoots upward. The aviators scramble into their plane. Another signal flag, this time a green one, flashes upward to the main truck of the foremast and the pilot raises his hand. The catapult is fired and the plane dips and begins to take the air. From other ships planes of the same type rise, they join and take battle station in the air, some with ominous machine guns poking fore and aft to protect other planes which fly lower. The commanding officer of the air takes command and all the planes forget the surface and obey the new commander, who is in turn instructed by radio from the admiral on the "West Virginia."
The fleet is ready to open fire. Deep in the bowels of the ship, the radiomen are tense at their instruments. The observer in the planes tunes in on the predetermined wavelength, which will change as the battle progresses, in order to con fuse any "enemy" listeners. In the turrets, the big steel guns rest calmly in their carriages—110 tons of dormant destructive power. It is the calm before the storm for these 16's are as loud as they are pow- powerful. The sound of their discharge is difficult to describe. Not just an earbitting crash, but an infernal super-thunder that reverberates long after the shell is speeding on its flight. The writer has been on deck behind a turret when the big guns were fired and the feeling is as though some giant hands were crushing one's body from all sides.
High aloft, the speeding planes await the striking of the first shot. They see the "California" towing the target rapidly. She is so close to the target that a landsman would believe it inconceivable that another battleship, eighteen miles away, could hit the bit of canvas without at least endangering her. But naval gunfire is so accurate today that there actually is no danger. A man might appear in a rowboat 200 feet ahead of the target and be perfectly safe so long as he could keep that distance away from the target.
The radiomen in the "West Virginia" suddenly hear their call sign and begin to receive directions from the planes in the air eighteen miles away. They hear, "100 over," and immediately yell it into a voice tube which reaches the bridge and gunnery officer. Instantly the turrets change the lay of their guns and fire again. Again the monster guns crash out, and this time the planes radio, "straddle"!
The guns are "on" and the welcome words from the planes, "no change," delight the waiting crews on the guns. These were the words passed that memorable day at Gonaives off the Haitian coast when the "West Virginia" made her record.
OLD AQUARIUM USED AS CHURCH SERVES RURAL COMMUNITY
Having been abandoned as a home for fish, an old aquarium in an Ohio city was remodeled into a community church. Its shape afforded a roomy auditorium. and the only alterations made were entrance and a hallway.
Aquarium Transformed into Church in Ohio City
NOVEL SIPHON EMPLOYS BULB TO START AND STOP
Small Metal Siphon Designed to Extract Cream from the Milk Bottle, and a Big Tube for Barrels
A novel siphon built of aluminum tubing and equipped with a rubber bulb by which it can be started without the usual sucking has been patented by a Chicago inventor, who is marketing it in sizes small enough to extract the cream from the milk bottle, through grades up to siphons big enough to empty oil and gasoline barrels. A U-shaped tube extends into the container, and a third leg is bent down over the outside to provide the outlet. The intake hole is on the top side of the bend in the container. After the siphon is inserted, the rubber bulb is pressed once to expel the air and fill the "U" with liquid. A second pressure on the bulb forces the liquid over the upper bend and starts the flow. The bulb can be held depressed, or slowly released without interfering with the action, and the flow can be stopped at any time by squeezing the bulb and releasing it quickly, which action draws the liquid back over the upper bend.
TAXICABS AND CAMELS MEET AT ORIENTAL FAIR
Courtesy George C. Hanson
Where Modern Manufacture Is Competing with the Old; Native Mongol Hut and One of the New Variety
What spectators declare is the most rudely picturesque bazaar in the world is the Gandjur fair held at Barga in Manchuria, the meeting place of east and west. A camel market is a conspicuous feature, but automobiles have been introduced and one taxicab driver is said to have made $2,000 in six days, operating his car day and night, hardly stopping for food or rest. Ready-made houses, manufactured by Europeans, and resembling in some respects the mail-order variety popular in this country, have also appeared. They are made of wood, the parts being standardized for quick assembling. The native Mongol dwelling is known as a "yurt." It is constructed of skins with a hole in the domed roof for the smoke to pass out from the fire, which is built in the center of the earthen floor. Foreign-made furniture has also been displayed in recent times. Much of the merchandise is hauled to the fair in native carts. The wheels are interesting details of these vehicles, the felloes being fashioned of a wooden stick from a single pole and bent into circular shape. Although the few automobiles that have appeared have proved popular in general, the exhibitors do not like them, for the machines frighten the horses and oxen.
FISH FROM TROPIC TRAVEL TO ZOO IN LUXURY
Scarlet fish, hermit crabs and jazz fish journeyed in luxury recently from the Madeira islands to the London zoo, for they swam in big tanks filled with continuously flowing steam-heated sea water, to duplicate as exactly as possible their natural surroundings. Nearly ninety specimens were successfully transported. A large wooden tank was divided into compartments and fitted with steam pipes, while fresh water was pumped into the tank and kept at constant temperature by the steam.
STRIP INSULATION FROM WIRE WITH TIMESAVING TOOL
As a substitute for the slower method of removing insulation from wire with pliers or other tools, a stripper now on the market is intended to save time and work. It has two notched steel jaws, which are snapped around the wire simply by depressing a floor pedal. This cuts the insulation without touching the wire, and an easy pull slides the covering off.
CATCHING BIG GAME FISH FROM SMALL BOATS
SLED WITH ROLLER RUNNERS SPEEDS OVER BARE GROUND
Bare Spots in the Coasting Slide Have No Terror for This Sled with Wheeled Runners
Bare spots on the coasting slide will not stop a roller-runner sled now on the market. Inserted in each runner, are three small wheels that project slightly so that, when bare ground is encountered, they permit the sled to pass swiftly over, yet do not interfere with the speed on snow. If the soil is not loose or muddy, the sled may be used for summer coasting and, when so employed, is easily steered by a wheel on the guiding arm. This has a spring that acts as a shock absorber if the wheel strikes an obstruction.
MAKING WEATHER FOR THE ZOO GUARDS ANIMALS' HEALTH
The hippopotamus is apparently a hardy creature, but it must be given special care when winter comes to the zoos. The hippo's bath must be kept at a temperature of fifty-five to sixty degrees. Monkeys suffer from colds and more serious lung troubles if not kept in temperatures equal to those of their native haunts, so the air is cleansed and moistened by blowing it through damp silk cloths. Preparations for putting the animals in winter quarters are commenced late in September or the early part of October. The Siberian tiger will stand much colder temperatures than its cousins from Africa, so the first few cold days are not likely to harm it. Many of the tropical birds learn to acclimate themselves to the rigors of chilly winds and storms, and many of the fur-bearing animals display longer or shorter coats according to the season, after they have been in captivity for a number of years, although in their native surroundings there is little or no variation in their fur.
AIR-SERVICE STATION FOR AUTO ELIMINATES GAUGE
Filling Tire from the Automatic Air Station, Which Shuts Off Supply When Proper Pressure Is Reached
No gauge is needed in using an automatic air-service station for inflating the tires. You simply turn an indicator to the desired pressure, pull out the hose on a convenient spring reel, apply the chuck to the valve and, while the tire is being filled, a bell rings. It stops when the proper amount of air has flown in. The hose is then released and coils itself up on the concealed reel. The unit is an attractive addition to the usual service station and has a bulb labeled air at the top.
¶ Bars of iron were used as money years ago in Great Britain.