[Illustration:  Fig. 5.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 6.]

The simplicity of the arrangement is apparent.  The recoil always acts parallel to the slide.  This is much better than allowing its direction to be affected by elevation, and the distributed hold of the steel bands is preferable to the single attachment at trunnions.  Theoretically, the recoil is not so perfectly met as in some of the earlier Elswick designs, in which the presses were brought opposite to the trunnions, so that they acted symmetrically on each side of the center of resistance.  The barbette tower is covered by a steel plate, shown in Fig. 1, fitting close to the gun slide, so that the only opening is that behind the breech when the gun is in the forward position, and this is closed as it recoils.

The only man of the detachment even partly exposed is the number one, while laying the gun, and in that position he is nearly covered by the gun and fittings.  Common shell, shrapnel shell, and steel armor-piercing projectiles, have been approved for the 1101/2 ton gun.  The common shell is shown in Fig. 3.  Like the common shell for all the larger natures of new type guns, it is made of steel.  It has been found necessary to support the core used in casting these projectiles at both ends.  Consequently, there is a screw plug at the base as well as at the apex.  The hole at the base is used as a filling hole for the insertion of the bursting charge, which consists of 179 lb. of powder, the total weight of the filled shell being 1,800 lb.

[Illustration:  Fig. 3.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 7.]

The apex has a screw plug of larger diameter than that of the fuse.  This is shown in Fig. 4.  The fuse is a direct action one.  The needle, B, is held in the center of a copper disk, C C, and is safe against explosion until it is actually brought into contact with an object, when it is forced down, igniting a patch of cap composition and the magazine at A, and so firing the bursting charge of the shell below.  E E E are each priming charges of seven grains of pistol powder, made up in shalloon bags to insure the ignition of the bursting charge, which is in a bag of serge and shalloon beneath.

The use of this fuse involves the curious question of the physical conditions now existing in the discharge of our projectiles by slow burning powder.  The forward movement of the shell is now so gradual that the inertia of a pellet is only sufficient to shear a wire of one-tenth the strength of that which might formerly have been sheared by a similar pellet in an old type gun with quick burning powder.  Consequently, in many cases, it is found better not to depend on a suspending wire thus sheared, but to adopt direct action.  The fuse in question would, we believe, act even on graze, at any angle over 10 deg..  Probably at less angles than 10 deg. it would not explode against water, which would be an advantage in firing at ships.