NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
November and December 1863
From The Missouri Democrat, Monday, December 7, 1863.
England’s Artillery Deficiencies.
[From the London Daily News, November 7.]
Day by day, the evidence is accumulating of the perilous position in which we stand because of our want of an efficient rifled gun for use on board the ships which are to cope with the iron-clad navies of other powers. Beside our inferiority in this respect to the Americans, to which we have already called attention, we now learn that our inferiority to both the Russians and French is even more positively certain. Our best gun, the old 5-ton 68-pounder, can only indent our 4½-inch plates; but it appears from the report of a cotemporary that the same plates have been pierced through and through by rifled guns supplied to the Russian Government by the great German maker, Krupp, and by on of their own nation, Aboukoff, who has contracted to furnish a regular supply. These are 8-inch bore, made of cast steel, and throw a 300 lb. shell of 23 inches length, or a 450 lb. shot with a 50 lb. charge.
Admiral Halsted, in the letter which we published a short time ago, gives a similar intelligence as regards France. Her new gun already constitutes the armament of one of her ships, and is being rapidly supplied to the rest. It is a breech loader, and though only a five ton gun, with a caliber of 6¼ inches, it throws a shot of 110 lbs, with a charge of 18 lbs of powder, and pierces the Gloire plates—quite as good as those of our ships—at a distance of 1,800 yards. And even the old French cast-iron guns, after being rifled and strengthened, are able to throw a 95 lb shot far more effectively than our 68-pounders, the most effective gun, according to the Duke of Somerset, which we possess.
