The protracted trials conducted on board the Destroyer to test its
submarine gun terminated last week. Having, says the _Army and Navy
Journal_, in a previous issue described this novel type of naval
artillery, it will suffice to remind our readers that its caliber is 16
inches, length of bore 30 feet, and that it is placed at the bottom of
the vessel, the muzzle passing through an opening formed in the wrought
iron stem.
We have hitherto, in discussing the properties of the Destroyer,
referred to its offensive weapon as a "torpedo," a term not altogether
inappropriate while it was actuated by compressed air. But Capt.
Ericsson having in the meantime wholly abolished compressed air in his
new system of naval attack, substituting guns and gunpowder as the means
of producing motive energy, it will be proper to adopt the constructor's
term, _projectile_. It will not surprise those who are acquainted with
the laws of hydrostatics and the enormous resistance offered to bodies
moving swiftly through water, that the determination of the proper form
of projectile for the submarine gun has demanded protracted experiments,
commencing at the beginning of June and continued up to last week, as
before stated. The greater portion of these experiments, it should be
observed, has been carried out with a gun 30 feet long, 15 inches
caliber--not a breech-loader, however, as in the Destroyer, but a
muzzle-loader, suspended under the bottom of two wrecking scows, the gun
being lifted above the water, after each shot, by shears and suitable
tackle. The present projectile of the Destroyer is the result of the
extended trials referred to; its length is 25 feet 6 inches, diameter 16
inches, and its weight 1,500 pounds, including 250 pounds of explosive
materials. We are not at liberty at present to describe its form, but we
may mention that the great length of the body and the absence of all
internal machinery enable the constructor to carry the stated enormous
quantity of explosive matter. With minimum charge of powder in the
chamber of the gun, the speed attained by the projectile reaches 310
feet in the first three seconds.
The question may be asked, in view of these facts, whether the boasted
costly steam ram is not superseded by the cheap aggressive system
represented by the Destroyer. Evidently the most powerful of the English
steam rams could not destroy an armored ship as effectually as the
projectile from the submarine gun, the explosion of which is capable of
shattering any naval structure.
It should be borne in mind, also, that being protected by heavy inclined
transverse armor, the Destroyer, attacking bows on, can defy ordnance of
all calibers. Again, the carrier of the submarine gun, in addition to
the swiftness of its projectile, can outrun ironclad ships.
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