Ray gun

“ But, if the enemy have ray shields, then perhaps these others also will be important. There are molecular motion guns, metal tubes, with molecular director apparatus at one end. A metal shell is pulling the power turned on, and the shell leaps out at a speed of about ten miles per second—since it has been super-heated—and is very accurately aimed, as there is no terrific shock of recoil to be taken up by the gun. ”

“ It is not impossible. The Ray artillery there is not carefully guarded; the early nights are dark. Make Sanson’s Ray guns useless at a stroke, and then storm the fortress in the old way, man against man. ”

“ It looked fiercely hungry and Delgezie expected it to spring at him, but it stood motionless and the old man’s eyes searched the camp for a gun, but he could see no weapon, and then he remembered that the guns had been left outside. He uttered a grunt of indignation—that a lone wolf should invade his camp, seemingly as the aggressor, was, for the old Indian, a new experience. Keeping his eyes fixed on the wolf, Delgezie stealthily reached for a billet of wood. ”

“ The air had needles in it, and he readjusted the hood of his hairy coat and tightened the wide ribbed belt around his waist.
Slipping the fox into his bag, he reached for his axe and gun, and with the long, even strides of one who could never tire, continued his “rounds,” pausing now and then to “trim” a trap when nothing was in it, or killing an animal when caught and dropping it into his trapping-bag.
As he pressed on, his keen eyes, ever alert, caught a glimpse of a small dark blot moving along the face of a ridge of rocks in the foreground. ”

“ In time, the use of the two-engine bomber led to the development of attack aviation. This was built around very fast, two-engined planes which could carry both bombs and guns. These medium bombers were to be used to attack targets of medium range with both bombs and guns. They were to be used to destroy enemy troops, transports, and gun emplacements. In the few years of World War II, attack bombers were developed from comparatively slow planes to ships with the speed of fighters. They are capable of carrying more than a ton of bombs, and of mounting cannon and as many as fifteen machine guns. ”

“ This is the usual situation in the heat-generation collision and rarely harms the ship.
"Perpendicular impact, however, does the damage. At low velocities and densities perpendicular impact craters the hull and most of the blast effect is dispersed laterally and to the rear. At higher velocities the particle vaporizes but the explosive force craters the hull and shapes inward, a lot like the effect of an air gun pellet on plate glass. Although the hull penetration may be mere pea size, blast and compression inside can be terrific, besides the sharp shock throughout the whole ship." ”

“ When used for ground strafing it has no superior. With two 1000-pound bombs tucked under its wings it becomes a deadly dive-bomber. Armed with rocket tubes and its eight big machine guns blazing, it can blast enemy tanks, transport, and gun emplacements effectively.{86}
SUPERFORTRESS
The first giant Flying Fortress had hardly taken off from the Boeing factory at Seattle, in 1935, before its engineers began to think about bigger and faster super-bombers. ”

“ The target, the moving target, at which the shot is fired, floats on the water at a distance of eight to sixteen miles; and without the use of powerful glasses is all but invisible. Range and direction (azimuth) are determined by a combination of most delicate scientific observing instruments. Now the great gun swings majestically into place. “Fire!” A concussion follows as if many railroad trains were coupling—mighty, stunning. Then ensue seconds of eager watching from the battery, but not many such; for the projectile travels twice as fast as sound itself. ”

“ It first must be understood that all modern guns on ships-of-war are breech-loading and rifled, and that the smooth bore exists only as a relic, or to be brought out in an emergency for coast defense, when modern guns are not available. From the thirteen-inch down to the four-inch, the guns are designated by their caliber, the diameter of their bore, and the shot they throw, while from that to the one-pounder they take their name from the weight of the shot. Everything below the one-pounder is in the machine-gun class. ”

“ The rising sound of the reports told plainly of the swinging muzzle, and officers and men dropped flat in the mud and waited till the sweeping bullets had passed over their heads. Men may work on and 'chance it' against rifle fire alone, but the sweep of a machine-gun is beyond chance, and very near to the certainty of sudden death to all in the circle of its swing. ”

“ Rayburn repeated. "We may have a chance to pull through if we don't rile these follows; but if we go killing any of them now it's all day with us, for sure. We'd better let 'em have our guns; but there's something mighty odd in their having found out all of a sudden what a gun is."
Very reluctantly Young surrendered his rifle to the officer, who looked at it contemptuously, as though he considered it but a poor sort of weapon in case real fighting was to be done. ”

“ After this battle we captured some damaged machine-guns; this was the firearm most dreaded by us. A large iron plate serves the purpose of a shield, through which aim is taken, and the trigger can be pulled while the gun is moving upward, downward, to the left, or to the right. More than six hundred bullets are pushed out automatically in one minute, as if a long, continuous rod of balls was being thrown out of the gun. It can also be made to sprinkle its shot as roads are watered with a hose. It can cover a larger or smaller space, or fire to a greater or less distance as the gunner wills. ”

“ The two machine-guns on the ’drome were trained and aimed in daylight to shower bullets exactly over the tip of the tongue of wood. A patent gadget invented by Guns allowed the gun-muzzles a certain amount of play up and down, play which careful calculation showed would pour a couple of streams of bullets across the end of the wood up and down a height extending to about a thousand feet, that is, 500 above and 500 below the level at which it was estimated the Huns usually flew on these night raids. ”

“ Again, I have seen a shrapnel burst alongside within range; and five minutes later the balloon was down and out of sight. No balloon observer hopes to see the enemy's guns. He is watching for shell- bursts, in order to inform the guns of his side whether they are on the target or not.
Riding along the roads at the front one may know that there is a battery a stone's throw away only when a blast from a hidden gun- muzzle warns him of its presence. It is wonderful to me that the artillery general who took me gun-seeing knew where his own guns were, let alone the enemy's. ”

“ The hunter who has no love for the saddle, and prefers stalking, should provide himself with some breech-loading rifle or carbine, carrying a heavy ball—the heavier the better. The most effective weapon is the needle-gun used in the army, having a bore the size of the old Springfield musket, and a [458] ball to correspond. A bullet from this weapon usually proves fatal. But there is little genuine sport in such practice. ”

“ Or nearer to the line, the whistle of an approaching shrapnel speaks of coming danger, and then a prone figure on the ground tells of one more who has been 'pipped,' to use a [162] colloquialism of the Front. When we consider the extreme range of a seventeen-inch gun as being not far short of thirty miles, the difficulty of being out of range is at once apparent. Nearer at hand, within a few yards, an accurately thrown bomb is a fruitful source of injury to our fighting men, whilst in these days of accurate rifle fire 'snipers' mark the slightest movement at a thousand yards. ”

“ The proportion of force expended on the projectile, depends on the disproportion between the weight of the gun and that of the projectile. If they were of equal weight, they would be driven with equal force in opposite directions, and to obtain the maximum effect the gun should be absolutely unmoved by the discharge; therefore a light gun is merely a contrivance to produce a small effect. With a light fowling barrel we help weight first by a wooden stock, and next by the body of the shooter; and if the contact be not close, we learn what a “kicking” gun means. ”

“ But it must be always remembered that the object of the fire fight is to bring a concentrated and overwhelming fire to bear at the right moment on certain positions of the enemy, and when the moment arrives machine guns can and will use the most rapid rate of fire possible, which will be from 250 to 300 rounds a minute or equal to [8] that of 50 or 100 riflemen. Mere volume of fire, however, is useless without control, accuracy, and concentration, and it is here that the machine gun is so vastly superior to the rifle ”

“ But he must remember that Philip Ray could have nothing more than a revolver, and that he himself had one, and at close quarters such a weapon was as effective in the hands of a man unaccustomed to its use as in those of one who had practised shooting hours a day for years. ”

“ The spinning bullet is virtually a gyroscope and maintains its axis in the line of flight. Hence it is possible to use a long pointed bullet instead of the round ball of earlier days and to give the projectile a shape that will enable it to cut through the air with comparatively little resistance. The same bullet fired from a smooth bore gun would begin to tumble and would encounter so much air resistance that it would fall short in the space of a few hundred feet, besides which it would wander far off its course.
MACHINE GUNS
A rifle is really a machine for hurling small projectiles. ”

“ In minor operations where every available rifle is required with the fighting force, machine guns will be found invaluable to replace infantry. Their exact position with the convoy must depend upon its composition and length and the number of guns available. The principle of having a machine gun, or where possible a section, at the head and another at the rear end of the line of wagons or pack animals is sound, as these are the vital points, and an attack on the centre can be met by a cross fire from these positions. ”

“ Nevertheless, the first improvement in guns and projectiles that followed the advent of the armor-clad, gave the gun the lead, and the gun has kept the lead ever since.
Today, the long-range, high-power naval gun, charged with smokeless powder, and throwing a projectile made of tempered steel inconceivably tough and hard, and charged with high explosive, is the most powerful dynamic instrument ever produced by man. A 12-inch naval gun throws a projectile weighing half a ton, at a velocity nearly three times the speed of sound. ”

“ Over their heads the great shells shrieked and rushed, round them crackled a spattering rifle fire, the occasional hammering of a machine gun, the rolling crash and whirr of bursting shells and flying splinters. Wide out to right and left of them, far to their front and rear the roar of battle ran, long-thundering and unbroken, in a deafening chorus of bellowing guns, the vibrating rattle of rifles and machine guns, the sharp detonations and reports of shells and bombs and grenades. ”

“ There are various modifications of this weapon, but in all of them air is driven into a strong chamber by means of a forcing syringe, and is released by the pull of the trigger, so as to drive out the missile which has been placed in the barrel.
It is worthy of notice that the term “noiselessly destructive” weapon, as applied to the air-gun, is entirely false. I have already mentioned that with the blow-gun of tropical America a definite explosion accompanies the flight of each arrow. ”

“ We sat almost exactly in the centre of a circle of these rings.
"The reason is this," said Daisy: "every bullet in your cartridges is steel-tipped and armour-piercing. To the base of each bullet is attached a thin wire of pallium. Pallium is that new metal, a thread of which, drawn out into finest wire, will hold a ton of iron suspended. Every bullet is fitted with minute coils of miles of this wire. When the bullet leaves the rifle it spins out this wire as a shot from a life-saver's mortar spins out and carries the life line to a wrecked ship. ”

“ Old guns which have been laid by will not uncommonly be found spiked, by having a common nail driven into the vent. If efficient tools are at hand this may be drilled out, if not, put a charge of powder in the gun, bore a gimlet hole in one of your wooden wads, through which pass a loosely-twisted string well impregnated with dissolved gunpowder, and afterwards dried. Cut the end of your prepared string just at the muzzle of the gun, light it, and get out of the way, when the explosion, which soon takes place, will not unfrequently expel the spike. ”

“ Down below, in the center of the ruined city, a single half-broken detector vane moved slightly, catching the roar of the ship. The base of the great gun throbbed painfully, straining to turn. After a moment a red warning light flashed on down inside its destroyed works.
And a long way off, a hundred miles from the city, another warning light flashed on, far underground. Automatic relays flew into action. Gears turned, belts whined. On the ground above a section of metal slag slipped back. A ramp appeared. ”

“ The want of length of bore in guns is illustrated by short carronades, in which the flame is forced backwards, charring a ship’s sides at the instant the shot leaves the muzzle. The want of weight in a gun is illustrated by the fact, that if a recoiling gun be backed against a solid bank of timber, it will throw the shot further—but there will also be some risk of bursting. ”