...Railway artillery - Personal Page of GENE SLOVER

815
are no guns,older than 1904. Quite a number of the guns are as late
as 1916. If the data given in the Bulletin de Renseignement d'Artillerie
of January-February, 1919,can be accepted, it is certain that the
Germans were securing ranges from these guns at ordinary muzzle
veloci.ty far in excess of the ranges that we are securing from our guns.
This is probably through the improvement in their projectile design.
850. CRADLEs.-All cradles constructed may be termed smooth
Cylinders, and the maximum thickness of the walls is 10 centimeters.
The cradles of the larger guns are provided with bronze liners about
6 millimeters thick and 1 meter long, at both forward and rear ends.
In all cases, the cradles are provided with the simplest types of
brackets for the attaching of the recuperator and recoil c.ylinders.
851. PROVISION TO PREVENT ROTATION OF THE GUN.-All breech
lugs are fastened to the gun by the interrupted ring method. All
lugs I\re so shaped as to bear either between two recuperator cylinders
or on two sides of a single recuperator cylinder to prevent rotation of
the gun. There is no evidence in any case of the use of the spline,
typical in American design, for the prevention of rotation of the gun.
852. HYDRAULIC BUFFERs.-In most cases, two hydraulic buffers
are provided. Apparently, there is no fixed policy of balancing these
since, in many cases, the two cylinders are located on the bottom of
the cradle. In some cases, the hydraulic cylinders are provided with
extensions on the forward end which are evidently counterrecoil
buffers. In a number of other cases, no such extensions are visible.
853. RECUPERAToRs.-The designers seem to have favored the
combined air-spring recuperators for the heavy guns. There is no
attempt at balancing them, and the number of cylinders varies from
one to four. AU of the 380 and 305 millimeter guns are provided
with only one recuperator cylinder each. As noted under the heading
of "Rotation of gun," in every case the recuperator cylinders are used
as guides for the extension of the breech lug to prevent rotation of
the gun.
854. GUN CARRIAGE-TRAVERSING MECUANIsM.-In all cases, the
heavy gun carriages are constructed entirely of structural steel, and
with the exception of the 28-centimeter mortar carriages, are of the
front pintle type. The pintle bearings in all cases are ball bearing
and there is only one case of actual provision for direct contact
between the racer and. base ring for transmission of the horizontal
force of recoil into the emplacement. The rear of the carriages is
carried on heavy rollers (two to four in nUmber, 10 to 2Qcentimeters
across the face and 0.60 to 1 meter in diameter) running on circular
tracks set in the concrete emplacement. In some cases (38-centimeter
guns) the traversing pinion meshes with a rack attached to the
roller path. In other cases (380 and 305 millimeter guns) the·
traversing pinion meshes with gears bolted to the face of the rollers.
181768--21----52
Digitized by Coogle