"Gunnery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... demonstration, it is not strange that he was looked upon as having a very correct eye for distances, and was ever afterward called upon to fire whenever experiments were wanted. Naval gunnery, be it remarked in passing, is quite a different matter from army practice: in the former, with its platform never at rest, it is like shooting a bird on the wing, when distance and motion must be accurately gauged and allowed for; in the latter, from its gun on a fixed platform, it is ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... occupied the space intended for each gun-carriage, where hammocks hung from hooks served them instead of beds; how the chapel was in a closet opened only on Sundays. He described the gymnastic feats in the rigging, the practice in gunnery, and many other things which, had they been well described, would have been interesting; but Fred was only a poor narrator. The conclusion the young ladies seemed to reach unanimously after hearing his descriptions, was discouraging. They ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... with which the little craft was armed—two eleven-inch rifled cannon, the invention of John Adolph Dahlgren. Dahlgren had been connected with the ordnance department of the navy at Washington for many years, and his inventions had revolutionized United States gunnery. ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... weathered the reefs and was practically safe,—safe at last. He had passed brilliantly in engineering; had been saved by his prompt and ready answers the consequences of a "fess" with clean black-board in ordnance and gunnery; had won a ringing, though involuntary, round of applause from the crowded galleries of the riding-hall by daring horsemanship, and he was now within seven days of the prized diploma and his commission. "For heaven's sake, Billy," pleaded big Burton, the first captain, "don't do any thing ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... in aviation. Instruction is very detailed and thorough as befits a career which, in addition to embracing the endless problems of flight, demands knowledge of wireless telegraphy, photography, and machine gunnery. ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... stretching its lengthening breakwater out on one side, and on the other connected with the land by the pale dim outline of the Chesill Bank. The water was dancing in golden light; white-sailed or red-sailed craft plied across it; a ship of the line lay under the lee of the island, practising gunnery, the three bounds of her balls marked by white columns of spray each time of touching the water, pleasure parties crowded the steamer; but to Dr. May the cheerfulness of the scene made a depressing ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... two hostile vessels meet equally matched in all the ordinary points of equipment and preparation, and manned by crews equally skilled in gunnery, the advantage will be in favor of the ship that loads quickest; and should it happen that nicety of aim becomes a matter of secondary importance, in consequence of the closeness of the action, then, evidently, rapidity of fire will determine ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... approached, the Germans were busy throwing coal boxes at the church tower, or what was left of it. They generally like to leave a bit of a church tower or gable standing, for as nearly as I could follow their gunnery they used these points to "clock on," that is to say, a ruined steeple will be the centre of the clock. The observer will then direct the guns something like this, "Aubers Church, one o'clock, five hundred yards." The above directions would mean to fire from the church tower ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin," When I can tell at sight a Chassepot rifle from a javelin, When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at, And when I know precisely what is meant by Commissariat, When I have learn what progress has been made in modern gunnery, When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery, In short when I've a smattering of elementary strategy, You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee— For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury, Has only been brought down to the beginning of ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... suppose, before they were married, Tom got some man, like Pat Mara of Tomenine, to learn him the "principles of politeness," fluxions, gunnery, and fortification, decimal fractions, practice, and the rule of three direct, the way he'd be able to keep up a conversation with the royal family. Whether he ever lost his time learning them sciences, I'm not sure, but it's as sure as fate that his mother ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... been repeated formation of distinct branches or 'schools,' such as the further specialised specialist gunnery and torpedo sections. It was not till 1860 that uniform watch bills, quarter bills, and station bills were introduced, and not till later that their general adoption was made compulsory. Up to that time the internal organisation ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... slackened, for every gun with which the garrison sought to make reply was dismounted the moment it was advanced into the embrasure, compelling their withdrawal during daylight hours; and though each night as soon as dark screened them from the accurate gunnery of the Americans, they were restored and the firing renewed, it was done with a feebleness that bespoke discouragement and exhaustion. For two days shot and shell splintered and tore through abattis and fraising, and levelled parapet and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the controller the naval business of the country largely falls. He directs the operations of the admiral superintendent of naval reserves in regard to ships, the hydrographer, the director of naval ordnance, so far as the gunnery and torpedo training establishments are concerned, and the naval intelligence department, and he has charge of all matters relating to discipline. The mobilization of the fleet, both in regard to personnel and material, also falls to him, and among a mass of other business ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... gunboats rounded the point of land a mile and a half below the fort, the Rebels opened fire, and the boats replied. There was excellent gunnery. The shots from the fort and batteries fell upon the bows of the boats, or raked their sides; while the shells from the boats fell plump into the batteries, cutting the embankments, or sinking deep in the side of the hill and ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... were remarkably well-matched, but the engagement was decisive evidence of the superior qualities of northern marksmanship. It was, in fact, an exhibition of that magnificent gunnery which was so evident in the war of 1812, and which was to be shown again in the war with Spain. Nearly all of the 173 shots fired by the Kearsarge took effect, while of the 370 fired by the Alabama, only 28 ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... to time issuing from an absolutely irrelevant tunnel, and, progressing at the rate of quite a mile an hour, crawled into the corresponding tunnel on the other side. At the base of the hill British soldiers, who seemed quite cognisant of the utter futility of the Boer gunnery, were complacently driving off cattle. Captious critics might have taken exception to the fact that the waxen camellias adorning the hill were nearly as big as the battlements, and considerably larger than the engine of the train. But fortunately detractors were absent, and such trifling ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... of our gunners paralysed, for a time, the initiative of the Turkish Staff. This tremendous reply was unexpected. And the British shells burst in their magazines, their supply depots, their headquarters dug-outs in a startling way. Never was gunnery so deadly. Never was slaughter so sure. Regiments waiting en masse for the assault were torn and butchered. Trenches were burst and destroyed. It was death, desolation, and disaster of an unexpected and amazing kind. ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... stores and shipping. This exploit, which Drake called "singeing the king of Spain's beard," delayed the expedition for a year. The "Invincible Armada" [30] set out at last in 1588 A.D. The Spanish vessels, though somewhat larger than those of the English, were inferior in number, speed, and gunnery to their adversaries, while the Spanish officers, mostly unused to the sea, were no match for men like Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, the best mariners of the age. The Armada suffered severely in a nine-days fight in the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... The article on "Gunnery" gave them just one of those convenient tables which are the blessing of wise men and learned men, and which lead half-trained men to their ruin. They found that for their "range," which was, as they supposed, eleven hundred yards, the ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... not know the exact line of demarcation between engine-room and gunnery repairs, but I imagine it is faint and fluid. E11, for example, while she was helping E14 to shell a beached steamer, smashed half her gun-mounting, "the gun-layer being thrown overboard, and the gun nearly following him." However, the mischief ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... an ordinary grammar school education, I felt like a child. When discouragement came, I took refuge in the fact that several avenues of usefulness were open to me in army life. I had shown some proficiency in gunnery. For a steady plodder who attends strictly to business there is always promotion. As a flunky, there was the incentive of double pay, the wearing of plain clothes, and some intimate touch with the aristocracy. Many a time one of these avenues seemed the only career open for me. I hardly knew ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... can command. They have appointed Captain Henry Bennet, late of the United States army, Inspector-General of their legion, and he is commissioned as such by Governor Carlin. This gentleman is known to be well skilled in fortification, gunnery, and military engineering generally; and I am assured that he is receiving regular pay, derived from the tithing of this warlike people. I have seen his plans for fortifying Nauvoo, which are equal ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... record seems to show he was pretty much like other boys. According to his classmates, with all of whom I find he was very popular, he stood high in the practical studies, such as seamanship, gunnery, navigation, and steam engineering, but in all else he was near the foot of the class, and in whatever escapade was risky and reckless he was always one of the leaders. To him discipline was extremely irksome. He could maintain it among others, but when it applied to ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... mad gusts tugging on the wire. Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. What are ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... most important personage in the ship. He had once been a captain's clerk, and having distinguished himself very much in cutting-out service, had applied for and received his warrant as a gunner. He had studied the "Art of Gunnery," a part of which he understood, but the remainder was above his comprehension: he continued, however, to read it as before, thinking that by constant reading he should understand it at last. He had gone through the work from the title-page to the finis ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... which has been for some weeks thoroughly investigating the marvelous invention—a revolution in truth—in gunnery, at the Villa Reine-Claude, Montmorency, have deposited a preliminary report at the Ministry of War. We are not at liberty to state more than the prodigious result. On a miniature scale, but which could be enlarged from millimetres to miles without, we are assured, affecting the demonstration, ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... 1848 a manning difficulty in the Navy, which became so grave that the large force of disciplined men employed in protecting the revenue were drilled in gunnery to fit them for sea service. Many of them were called out to serve aboard ship during the war with Russia in 1854. One of the grievances in the service was the irritating and unfair policy of the Board of Customs ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... were about to witness the influence of science on gunnery," said the Quartermaster, advancing towards the staging occupied by the females. "Major Duncan derides the idea of mathematics entering into target-shooting; but I tell him philosophy colors, and enlarges, and ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... that some kind of sea discipline had been established while he slept, and that Kelly had been put in charge of the gunnery department and been relieved from standing watch; otherwise, by the former arrangement, Kelly would have been below while Forsythe and Hawkes were ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... life and credit more readily with an English crew, yet I believe a feather would turn the scale between the two countries, so far as courage and seamanship goes; and let it not be forgotten, although we have now regained our superiority in this respect, yet, in gunnery and smallarm practice, we were as thoroughly weathered on by the Americans during the war, as we overtopped them in the bulldog courage with which our boarders handled those genuine English weapons, the cutlass and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... veteran had been induced to take his post in this warlike attic; where, there is little doubt, had occasion further offered for his services, he would have made a suitable display of his knowledge in the science of gunnery. But the simple history of the Wish-Ton-Wish had furnished another evidence of a political truth, which cannot be too often presented to the attention of our countrymen; we mean that the best preservative ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... day, with just enough wind to help the nimble, seaworthy English ships in their guerilla tactics. Howard's policy was to take full advantage of the three factors that were on his side in the solution of the problem, better seamanship in his crews, better gunnery, and handier ships. To close with and grapple in the fashion of earlier naval battles would have been to risk being crushed by superior numbers. His policy was to hang upon the flank or rear of the Armada, close in and try to cripple ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... in their hands, were subjected to torture, one form of which was that of lashing captives to the cannon's mouth and applying the match. Fort Montague is not occupied by even a corporal's guard to-day, and is of no efficiency whatever against modern gunnery. The reader will thus observe that the principal business which has engaged Nassau heretofore has been wrecking, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... modern gunnery that given a chart of a city the gunner can drop a shell within a few yards of any desired spot. The Germans had a chart of Ypres. They might have saved the Cloth Hall, as they did save the Cathedral at Antwerp. But they were furious with thwarted ambition—the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... water. This was denied. Then I asked if I could wash in the lake; and this favor was granted, and the advice volunteered that it would be a good thing to do. And further the kind lady made a motion toward a dangling red tassel that hung from a rope, and suggested that I get me to a gunnery and quickly, too, otherwise she would have to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... destructive views, have given us also the means of satisfying them. From the earliest dawnings of policy to this day, the invention of men has been sharpening and improving the mystery of murder, from the first rude essays of clubs and stones, to the present perfection of gunnery, cannoneering, bombarding, mining, and all those species of artificial, learned, and refined cruelty, in which we are now so expert, and which make a principal part of what politicians have taught us to believe is ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... "I presume it to be understood that each may employ such charge as he prefers, and that each shall load his own piece?" The seconds assented to this. Of course, in those days only muzzle loaders were used, although we had cut-felt wads and all the improvements in gunnery known at that time. My weapon was supplied me by Captain Stevenson—a good Manton, somewhat battered up from much use, but of excellent even pattern. Orme shot a Pope-made gun of London, with the customary straight hand and slight drop of the English makes. ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... exercise and made his sailors continually practice both gunnery and work with the cutlass. They were always in training and always prepared. That is the reason why they won. As you know, if you want to win in athletics you have to train hard and practice daily. If you want to win at warfare you have ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... his gunnery, as one who knew how to do it, and had the most terrible mind to do it thoroughly, and the most terrible faith ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... was running on a course parallel to that of the monitor, and at the same time driving her toward her consort, so that the unfortunate ship was now between two fires. Crash! crash! roared the guns as the two Chilian ironclads converged upon their quarry; and so excellent was their gunnery that every shot told. Half an hour after the action had commenced the Huascar's tiller-chains were shot away, and she at once yawed to starboard, almost in the track of the Cochrane. Captain Latorre instantly saw that this was his opportunity to ram, and he accordingly ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... at West Point had thoroughly grounded him in a knowledge of gunnery; and, as he was not a little of a pedant, it was sometimes amusing, when the sailors were at quarters, to hear him criticise their evolutions at the batteries. He would quote Dr. Hutton's Tracts on the subject, also, in the original, "The French Bombardier," ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... metaphysical studies or the fine arts could flourish at a period when men's minds were more occupied with the philosophy of war than with the science of Descartes, and were more inclined to patronize a new invention in the art of gunnery, than the chef d'oeuvre of a limner or sculptor. The Irish language was the general medium of conversation in this century. No amount of Acts of Parliament had been able to repress its use, and ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Dartmouth, heading the list at the passing-out exam, and so at once gaining the rating of midshipman; doing equally well afloat during the subsequent three years and a half, qualifying for Gunnery, Torpedo, and Navigating duties, serving for six months aboard a destroyer, and everywhere gaining the esteem and goodwill of my superiors, here was I, Paul Swinburne, at the age of seventeen and a half, an outcast kicked out of the Navy with ignominy and my career ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the full significance of what could be done by broadsides fired from sailing ships against the mediaeval type of vessel that still depended more ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... of this corps must appear obvious when it is considered that the only person supposed to be qualified and experienced in gunnery on board His Majesty's ships, is the gunner, who, too often ignorant of his own duty, is totally unable to instruct others. In the quarter bills of most ships, it is well known that a very small proportion of the marines are reserved for musketry, the greater part being in general ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... been home on leave; and it was not until this year that he had got his job at Woolwich teaching gunnery, while he waited for a bigger job in the Ordnance Department. Ferdie Cameron had always said that Frank Drayton would be worth watching. He would be part of the brains of the Army some day. Nicky watched him. His brains ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Assistant's crew were wounded, one afterwards dying; and "the depth to which the arrows penetrated into the decks and sides of the brig was reported to be truly astonishing." But bows and arrows, on this as on many another occasion, were no match for gunnery; so that, after a hot peppering, the Papuans gave up the fight, paddling back to a safe distance as fast as they could, without exposing themselves to fire. They rallied beyond reach of musket balls, as though for a second onslaught, but a ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... his commission a young officer was ordered to report himself at the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich, to undergo six months' further training in his regimental duties and in practical work at the Arsenal, with occasional visits to the School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness. It was a happy six months if he managed to keep out of trouble, for there were many temptations to overcome. Straight away from the strict discipline of the "Shop," the young officer found himself—or ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... salt-water lake communicating with the ocean. There is only one entrance, the Golden Gates, possibly one-third of a mile wide. It is commanded by fortifications, built on the rocks on either side, but these being stone appeared to me ill adapted to the enormous forces gunnery can exert to-day. Just outside the Golden Gates, lashed by the waters of the Pacific, is a large solitary rock, called the Seal Rock. Hundreds of seals live on it, finding their food in the ocean. No one is allowed to molest them, ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... o'clock one hundred and fifty-five guns suddenly opened on that one division. For two hours the air was fairly alive with shells. Every size and form of shell known to British or American gunnery shrieked, whirled, moaned, whistled and wrathfully fluttered over the ground, says Wilkinson. "As many as six in a second, constantly two in a second came screaming around the headquarters. They burst in the yard; burst next to the fence where ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... rapidly she improved in marksmanship. With a little instruction from Arthurs and the cowboys in the matter of sighting and holding her weapon, she developed quickly from a stage of dangerous uncertainty in her gunnery to one of almost expert accuracy. Then she made of the rifle a companion on her horseback excursions, to the destruction of gophers, rabbits, and even a badger and a coyote. It was a brave day when she rode into the corral with a coyote ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... are Masters of, for publick View, by way of Detection of the monstrous Ignorance and Deficiencies of European Science; which may serve as a Lexicon Technicum for this present Age, with useful Diagrams for that purpose; wherein I shall not fail to acqaint the World, 1. With the Art of Gunnery, as Practis'd in China long before the War of the Giants, and by which those Presumptuous Animals fired Red-hot Bullets right up into Heaven, and made a Breach sufficient to encourage them to a General Storm; but being Repulsed with great Slaughter, ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... gained that he was able from the first to do his duty as well as any one. He was fortunately stationed at the gun of which Jacob was captain, and the old sailor took pains to instruct him in handling it. Naval gunnery not being in those days the art it has since become ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston
... equations just as they measured progress on land by miles. It was only the navies engaged that knew the truth, and they had inadequate means of making their knowledge known. British sailors were loath to admit even among themselves the defects in their vessels, gunnery, and leadership which the battle revealed; but they made less a secret of Von Scheer's skill. He had with a smaller force inflicted greater damage on his enemy, and he had snatched his fleet from the jaws of destruction. He was ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... Instead, therefore, of giving him the command of Sherman's division, for which his rank indicated him, Banks kept Stone at headquarters without special assignment, and made every use of his activity, as well as of his special knowledge and ready skill in all matters relating to ordnance and gunnery. ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... and hunters in the neighborhood; and often the hunter, despairing of getting a gun to suit him in any other way, went to work himself, and wrought out a clumsy, but unerring gun, in which, perhaps, was the germ of some of the latest improvements in scientific gunnery. The different gun-makers had shooting-matches, at which the excellence of the work of each was put to the severest tests, and by which their reputations were established. The result is a rifle, compared with which, as manufactured ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of the military faculties, courage, activity, and fortitude, discipline, gunnery, and tactics, for the first time the palm was awarded by Englishmen to Americans over Englishmen. Without fortuitous advantage the Americans proved too much for the redoubtable English, though superior in number, therefore universally arrogating to themselves even with inferior numbers, a mastery ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... competent leaders. This ill-directed fleet had been hustled into port by the pressure of the well-manned and well-commanded British, who had pinned them there ever since, so that they had never had an opportunity of learning seamanship. Their harbour drill and their harbour gunnery had been of no service when sails had to be trimmed and broadsides fired on the heave of an Atlantic swell. Let one of their frigates get to sea and have a couple of years' free run in which the crew might learn ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... being already at anchor and more numerous as engaged, had a distinct advantage; to which also contributed musketry fire from the transports. Nevertheless, the result cannot be deemed creditable to the French captains or gunnery. ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... of powder between the decks of the Neptune during the action, by which several men were killed and wounded, early directed his attention to the service of artillery on board ship; and the science of gunnery became his favourite study. Hastings was subsequently serving in the Seahorse when that frigate engaged two Turkish men-of-war, and captured one of them, which proved to be a frigate much larger than herself. During his career of service, he visited ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... ammunition were being delayed by the fearsome and lamentable state of the roads. But the cavalry was pushing on ahead, and tired infantry were stumbling in extended order through the soaked fields on either side of us. There was hard gunnery well into the red dusk. Right down the valley came the thunder of it, and we began to realise that divisions, perhaps even corps, had come up on ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... the open ocean; and it is not necessary to tell the reader, that the smallest variation in the direction of a gun at its muzzle, becomes magnified to many yards at the distance of a few hundred feet. Marine gunnery has no little resemblance to the skill of the fowler; since a calculation for a change in the position of the object must commonly be made in both cases, with the additional embarrassment on the part of the seaman, of an allowance for a complicated movement ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... coastguard, in whose hands a sum of money has been placed for the purpose. It will be recollected that this gallant officer commanded the Benbow, 72, at the siege of Acre. Commander Jerningham is an additional commander appointed to the Excellent gunnery-ship, and has been selected for the purpose of carrying into operation the plans and arrangements of Captain Stewart, and to superintend the system of instruction of the men at great gun exercise, which is precisely the same as that laid down in the 'Rules for exercise and service of great guns ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... wounded, out of a crew of 320. She came out of action, therefore, with 67 effective men more than her conqueror. It is highly creditable to the Nymphe's crew, that they beat a ship like the Cleopatra by gunnery, notwithstanding their inexperience; and carried her by a hand-to-hand ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... unlimited delight of the American public, and the stupefaction of England, five American cruisers in succession captured or sank five British in the autumn of 1812, utilizing superior weight of broadside and more accurate gunnery with merciless severity. These blows did no actual damage to a navy which comprised several hundred frigates and sloops, but the moral effect was great. It had been proved that Americans, after ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... specimens of workmanship, which had been at target practice for a long time and now yearned for the reality, like the boy who has a gun and wants to try it on the real game. The proof of the superiority of American gunnery was demonstrated in every naval battle. The accurate aim of Dewey's gunners at Manilla, and Sampson and Schley's at Santiago, was nothing less than wonderful. No less wonderful, however, was the accuracy of the Americans than the inaccuracy of the Spaniards, who seemed almost unable ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... means of that complex but concealed machinery which ran like a network of nerves over the whole fabric, there had been shot out under every window-ledge rows and rows of polished-steel cylinders, the cold miracles of modern gunnery. They commanded the whole garden and the whole country-side, and could have blown to pieces ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... of place to relate a characteristic story of Admiral Sims, whose career in our service, whose notable contributions to naval gunnery are too well known to need repetition. Several years ago, on a memorable trip to England, he was designated by the admiral of the fleet to be present at a banquet given our sailors in the Guildhall. Of course the lord mayor called upon him for a speech, but Commander Sims insisted that a bluejacket ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... pursued are classed under twelve heads:—1. Infantry tactics and military police; 2. Mathematics; 3. French; 4. Drawing; 5. Chemistry, mineralogy, and geology; 6. Natural and experimental philosophy; 7. Artillery tactics, science of gunnery, and the duties of the military laboratory; 8. Cavalry tactics; 9. The use of the sword; 10. Practical military engineering; 11. Grammar, geography, ethics, &c.; 12. Military and civil engineering, and the science ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... had grappled themselves inextricably to her sides and prow. The four drifted together, before wind and tide, a severe and savage action going on incessantly, during which the navigation of the ships was entirely abandoned. No scientific gunnery, no military or naval tactics were displayed or required in such a conflict. It was a life-and-death combat, such as always occurred when Spaniard and Netherlander met, whether on land or water. Bossu and his men, armed in bullet-proof ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... demonstrate that solid bodies do slowly evaporate. It is proper here to mention our countryman, Count Rumford, whose discoveries as to the nature and properties of heat, improvement in stoves and gunnery, and in the structure of chimneys and economy of fuel, have been so ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the tornado; all our guns give tongue together, St. Barbara for the gunnery and God defend the right— They are stopped and gapped and battered as we blast away the weather, Building window upon window to our lady of the light; For the light is come on Liberty, her foes are falling, falling, They are reeling, they are running, as ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... ascertained. Equality in sailing power was of great importance, but where it was wanting, the superior sailor, if superior in metal and men had an advantage which nothing but a calm or a lucky hit aloft could destroy. The crews of every ship on the North American Station were to be exercised in gunnery. Wisdom had been luckily forced upon the Admiralty. And the result was good. Sir John Borlase, the naval commander, in North America, blockaded every harbour in the United States. American commerce was ruined. The carrying trade of the Atlantic ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... seen, many of them had been decoyed from British war-vessels by offers of higher pay. The British ships on the other hand were manned largely by landsmen, often impressed from the jails. A false economy had induced the British admiralty to impose narrow limits on the use of ammunition for gunnery practice. The Americans on the other hand were very liberal in this respect, with the result that in the early years of the war they were greatly superior to their enemies in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... setting. In other words, it is the horizontal angular distance of a star from the east or west points. It is eastern or ortive when the heavenly object rises, and western or occiduous when it sets, and is moreover northern or southern according to its quarter of the horizon.—Amplitude, in gunnery, is the range or whole distance of a projectile, or the right horizontal line subtending the curvilineal path in which it moved.—Amplitude, in magnetism, is the difference between the rising and setting of the sun from the east and west ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... was bracing himself for a dash across the street when a figure in Terran battle armor came around the building on the run, dodging and crawling as spring bolts raised the dust in front of him. It was the short, stout Gunnery Sergeant, Polasky. Terrence breathed a ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith
... Gentleman of Europe out of mischief. Our autobiographer gives us a plain, blunt, not to say bald record of what must have been an interesting life. He was at Eton under KEATE; a cadet at Woolwich, where he saw a gunner receive two hundred lashes; a gunnery subaltern in the Crimea, where he saw many queer and unedifying things; a successful administrator in Madagascar, Mauritius and Penang, and finally Governor of the Straits Settlements, with a K.C.M.G. and honourable retirement to follow. But he is a man of action rather than words, and his faculty ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... familiar with it before the other nations of Christendom. The affirmation of Zurita, however, that 5000 balls were fired from the battery of the besiegers at Gerona in one day, is perfectly absurd. So little was the science of gunnery advanced in other parts of Europe at this period, and indeed later, that it was usual for a field-piece not to be discharged more than twice in the course of an action, if we may credit Machiavelli, who, indeed, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Nelson's victories had filled the ordinary run of naval men with an over-weening confidence in their own invincibility; and this over-confidence had become more than usually dangerous because of neglected gunnery and defective shipbuilding. The Admiralty had cut down the supply of practice ammunition and had allowed British ships to lag far behind those of other nations in material and design. The general inferiority ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... for deeds, and Hamilton had been occupied in other ways than writing pamphlets. During the past six months he had studied tactics and gunnery, and had joined a volunteer corps in order to learn the practical details of military science. All his friends belonged to this corps, which called itself "Hearts of Oak," and looked very charming in green uniforms and leathern caps, inscribed "Freedom ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Company was suddenly converted into the British Camel Corps at Khartum it was discovered to contain the camel-keeper of Bostock's menagerie. We found piano-tuners for the Sirdar's Palace, gardeners for the Barrack plantations, and in later days expert mechanics for anti-aircraft gunnery. Skilled clerks like Sergeants J.C. Jones and Beaumont were marked out by Nature for the orderly room. Many men well qualified to hold commissions served in the ranks and died before the nation recognised their quality. Lastly, we could turn out more barristers than all the other East Lancashire ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... their-selves, them that's under obligation to 'ee. But you started on me, an' so I'll be polite an' lead off. In th' first place, with all this tow-row, the fish be all gone to bottom; there's not one'll take hook by day nor net by night. An' next, with a parcel o' reservists pickin' up the gunnery they've forgot, for a week or so the firin' is apt to be flippant. Yes, Mr Pamphlett, you can go back to your business an' feel all the easier in mind every time a bangin' great shell makes ye bob up an' down in your chair. 'Tis a fine thing ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... were, they were silenced forever as a frightful beam of destruction stabbed relentlessly through the control room, whiffing out of existence the pilot, gunnery, and lookout panels and the men before them. The air rushed into space, and the suits of the three survivors bulged out into drumhead tightness as the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... below-stairs eagerly discussing Joe Atlee's medical qualifications, and doubting whether, if it was a knowledge of civil engineering or marine gunnery had been required, he would not have been equally ready to offer ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... even greater. It is not possible, therefore, to insist upon any singular credit, in the mere fact that under such odds victory falls to the heavier vessel. What can be said, after a careful comparison of the several reports, is that the American ship was fought warily and boldly, that her gunnery was excellent, that the instant advantage taken of the enemy's mizzen-mast falling showed high seamanlike qualities, both in promptness and accuracy of execution; in short, that, considering the capacity of the American captain as evidenced by his action, and the odds in his favor, nothing ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... answer. Alexandro Tron worked the big guns of the castle with terrible precision. Two galleys were quickly sunk, four men were killed in the trenches by a single shot—a new and alarming experience in those early days of gunnery—four times the Fort of St. Angelo was attacked in vain; winter was approaching, and the Sultan determined to raise the siege. In vain Barbarossa remonstrated: "A thousand such castles were not worth the life of one of his brave men," said the Sultan, and on the 17th of September the ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... an engineer. I found him up to everything that is done in the contracting line by Messrs. Peto and Brassey—cunning in the article of concrete— mellow in the matter of iron—great on the subject of gunnery. When he spoke of pile-driving and sluice-making, he left me not a leg to stand on, and I can never sufficiently acknowledge his forbearance with me in my disabled state. While he thus discoursed, he several times ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... surely been more disposed to hold to their positions, fearing that she carried troops, and meant to land them. Now she was steaming slowly away. How many did our bag amount to? The Intelligence Officer was sanguine, so was my colleague, but the gunnery officer was rather pessimistic. 'Two or three of those rounds went just wrong,' he grunted. 'We've struck a bad day.' After that the porridge and the bacon and the eggs were done with; we were soon back ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... and take pot shots at herons as they flew over the Tweed, which rolled beneath his leafy perch. Driving down to Carham, "Tweedside," who was my companion, showed me Rosebank across the broad stream, and, while I was reminding him of Walter Scott's gunnery, we saw in an adjacent ploughed field three herons standing close together, apparently in doleful contemplation. On this drive also we crossed a burn which divides English from Scottish soil, and it was tumbling down in angry mood. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... knowledge common to his age. Louis XIII knew little Latin; cared nothing for literature; but although either irritable or inert when compelled to study, could develop great energy when he was engaged in gunnery, horsemanship, or falconry. The latter pursuit was his principal amusement, His purity of heart and propriety of language were extreme, and deserve the greater mention from the contrast which they afforded to the morals and manners by which he ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... from our brigade left for the course in machine gunnery. This course lasted two weeks and we rejoined our unit and were assigned to the Brigade Machine Gun Company. It almost broke my heart to leave ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... London is now practically under the control of the home forces, of which Lord French is Commander-in-Chief, and Admiral Lord French is Commander-in Chief, and Admiral the gunnery defences of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... and impregnable citadel. It is difficult to decide in this most remarkable fortress whether nature or art has done the most to render it what it seems absolutely to be, impregnable,—the strongest citadel in the world. The improvements in modern gunnery have lately caused important additions and alterations to be made. A hundred-ton gun was landed fresh from England while we were at the rock. One natural cave which was visited, in the system of fortified ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... officers were captains of the popular craft, machine gunnery. At dinner they referred to themselves with conscious boredom as members of the "Suicide Club"—in those days every recondite branch of the service referred to itself as the Suicide Club. One of the captains—Rachael's captain, Gloria observed—was ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a body of some 400 men trained to the use of fire-arms and under military discipline. The majority are Sea Dayaks, the remainder Malays and Sikhs. Two white officers, the commandant and the gunnery instructor, are supported by native non-commissioned officers. The force is recruited by voluntary enlistment, the men joining in the first place for five years' service. This force supplies the garrisons of the small forts, one or more of which ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... the book is invaluable. There is no danger that they will neglect it. They will actually learn it, for exactly the same reasons that our fellows learn the gunnery instructions—or did learn them before they were withdrawn ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the delights of Western life, Rake, "feeling like a fool," as he thought himself, for which reason he had diverged into Argentine memories, applied himself to the touching and examining of the rifle with that tenderness which only gunnery love ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... proofs that British seamen gained their victories as much by their proficiency in gunnery and their activity as by their strength and courage. Of this there are numberless instances, among others the following. In 1761, on the evening of the 13th of August, the Bellona, of 74 guns, and a crew of 550 men, Captain Robert Faulkner, and the Brilliant, a 36-gun frigate, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... our green warriors were kept circling above the contending fleets of Helium and Zodanga, since their batteries were useless in the hands of the Tharks who, having no navy, have no skill in naval gunnery. Their small-arm fire, however, was most effective, and the final outcome of the engagement was strongly influenced, if not ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Its burnt remains lay on the bottom of the bay. The forts had been battered into shapeless heaps of earth, their garrisons killed or put to flight. It was an awful example of the difference between accurate gunnery and firing ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... he, jocosely. 'Only first-class certificates in gunnery, seamanship, and mathematics; then, to finish up with, the unhappy youth has to look forward to an interview or two with the hydrographer, who isn't at all a gentleman to be made ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... after careful sighting, and the position having been verified, came a third shell and landed superbly and within easy sight upon the very lip of the trench, blowing a great gap in the earthwork. It was gunnery of the most ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... to be kulpigxi. Guinea gineo. Guitar gitaro. Gulf golfo. Gull trompi. Gullet faringo, ezofago. Gully valeto. Gulp engluti. Gum gumo. Gum gumi. Gun pafilo. Gun (cannon) pafilego. Gun-carriage subpafilego. Gunpowder pulvo. Gunsmith armilfaristo. Gunnery pafilado. Gush sxpruci. Gust ekventego. Gut intestotubo. Gutter defluilo. Gutter-spout defluilo. Gymnast gimnastikisto. Gymnasium gimnastikejo. Gypsum ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... wanted to point his instrument exactly to a star he was confronted with precisely the same difficulty as is met in gunnery and rifle-shooting. The sights and the object aimed at cannot be in focus together, and a great deal depends on the form of sight. Tycho Brahe invented, and applied to the pointers of his instruments, an aperture-sight of variable area, like the iris diaphragm used now in photography. ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... closed in the pilot and RO saw that they were headed directly toward a large, yellowish- orange light. For several minutes they played tag with the UFO. Both the radar on the ground and the radar in the F-94 showed that as soon as the airplane would get almost within gunnery range of the UFO it would suddenly pull away at a terrific speed. Then in a minute or two it would slow down enough to let the F-94 catch ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... retreat; but as they drew back the batteries re-opened, and so effectively, that the coming on of night alone saved the English from being driven at once, and on the spot, from their defences. The walls were of the old {p.304} sort, constructed when the art of gunnery was in its infancy, and brick and stone crumbled to ruins before the heavy cannon which had come lately ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... the throng of youthful humanity, followed by the sentry, who had received orders to abandon his post. On the half-deck, the gun-room officers met the swarm of senior officers issuing from their cabins, mostly clad in pyjamas and uniform caps. The Gunnery-lieutenant was afterwards heard to declare solemnly that he had seen the Paymaster issuing from the ship's office with the ledger on his head, while under his left arm ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... "Thanks to bad gunnery, both ships on that occasion managed to get out of range without being sunk, though some of the shells burst close aboard, and the Vicksburg's ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... in which the Americans singularly distanced the Europeans was in the science of gunnery. Not, indeed, that their weapons retained a higher degree of perfection than theirs, but that they exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and consequently attained hitherto unheard-of ranges. In point of grazing, plunging, oblique, or enfilading, ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... walls and one large window opening upon a rose-garden on the southern side of the house. There was a ponderous carved-oak bookcase on one side of the room; on all the others the paraphernalia of sporting—gunnery and fishing-tackle, small-swords, whips, and boxing-gloves—artistically arranged against the panelling; and over the mantelpiece an elaborate collection of meerschaum pipes. Through a half-open door Gilbert caught a glimpse ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... his career in the navy had been one sequence of brilliant achievement. As naval attache at Paris and Petrograd, in the course of his distinguished service he had ample opportunities for the study of European naval conditions, and later he was intrusted with the important duty of developing gunnery practice and marksmanship in our battle-fleet. The immense value of his work in this respect is an open book. His instincts were wholly scientific, and with neither fear nor favor he carried forward ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... praise; but said that he was not by any means equally certain of success, so large a proportion of his forces being only a raw militia, brave enough no doubt for anything, when they saw their way to it; but knowing little of gunnery, and wholly unused to be shot at. Whereas all the Doones were practised marksmen, being compelled when lads (like the Balearic slingers) to strike down their meals before tasting them. And then Colonel Stickles ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... disguised with flowers, tropical plants, and other adornments, that the guests can scarcely realise the fact that they are actually on board a man-of-war. A long supper table is laid between decks, and here the visitors are invited to inspect the gunnery arrangements and a certain part of the vessel which had sustained some ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... isolated area of the New Mexico desert. Conducted in the final month of World War II by the top-secret Manhattan Engineer District, this test was code named Trinity. The Trinity test took place on the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, about 230 miles south of the Manhattan Project's headquarters at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Today this 3,200 square mile range, partly located in the desolate Jornada del Muerto Valley, is named the White Sands Missile Range and is actively ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... both vessels sustained caused the battle to take on the character of an action at long range. Under such conditions, the victory was assured to the side showing the best gunnery. For a moment only did it seem that the vessels were likely to come to close quarters, and the English captain seized that occasion to call up his boarders. But they refused, saying, "She's too heavy for us." And a few minutes later the Englishman hauled down his flag, having ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... gathered around the more distinguished marksmen, with their hands stuck under their waistbands, listening eagerly to the boastful stories of skill that had been exhibited on former occasions, and were already emulating in their hearts these wonderful deeds in gunnery. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... generalship was successful. It might have been regarded as risky to leave 100,000 men to guard a river confronted by 250,000 picked and reenforced French troops. But General von Kluck's faith in German guns and German gunnery was not ill-founded. This was the first of the open-air siege conflicts, and the French army had no guns which could be used against the German heavy artillery. Hence it followed that the brilliant work of the Sixth French Army on this first day of the battles of the Marne achieved ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various |
