Excerpt from Naval Gunnery: A Description and History of the Fighting Equipment of a Man-of-War

This work has been written, not for experts, but to give the general public some information on the all-im portant subject of the armament of our ships of war, which they may not be in a. Position to obtain conveniently for themselves. There is much that is not original in the book, as it is, from its very nature, a compilation in the main from the standard works and text-books on gunnery, which are not as a rule available for use by the man in the street. My aim has been, therefore, to trace the history of naval gunnery from the date when guns are first mentioned as having been used on board ships down to our own time, and to put into a readable form enough of the heavy matter contained in the standard text-books to give non-pro fessional readers a fair insight into the causes which have brought us from the smooth-bore muzzle-loading 68 pounder, the heaviest gun in existence at the time of the Russian War, to the breech-loading 111-ton guns of the Sans Pareil and Benbow, and from the smooth-bore 32 pounder of the same period to the 6-inch quick-firing gun of to-day, and also to give some idea of how the guns on board men-of - war are now constructed, mounted and worked, and how complex but formidable a fighting machine is the battleship of the present day, when com pared to the wooden ships of the line and frigates of only thirty years ago. Great as have been the changes andviii preface.

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