"Gunnery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... how: you never do—that our transport and 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 ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... a note to take to the Service de l'Intendance, to the Gunnery School, to the Bridges Department, and in the evening to the A.D. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the poets, astronomers, and critics, may settle it among themselves." How remote seems that epoch now! and how remote will the present soon appear! while art and science will resume their sway serene, beneath skies eternal. Yesterday I turned from treatises on gunnery and fortification to open Milton's Latin Poems, which I had never read, and there, in the "Sylvarum Liber," I came upon a passage as grand as anything in "Paradise Lost,"—his description of Plato's archetypal man, the vast ideal of the human race, eternal, incorrupt, coeval with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... to George was of great importance and of great danger. The enemy had already trained their heavy guns on to the hill, and it was only their bad gunnery that made it possible for the officer's plan to be carried out. In every direction shells were flying, bursting overhead, on either side, short, and far over the city, till the air was filled with ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... Manual of Gunnery Instructions for the Navy of the United Slates. Compiled from the Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy, for the Use of the United States Naval Academy. New York. D. Van Nostrand. ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... dumb?" cried Joe, merrily enough. "Well, I s'pose she was obliged; but I don't think much of their gunnery, messmates," continued the man, as he made use of the glass again. "Oh, they're all at work, sir, re-loading, and it will soon be our turn. I propose, sir, that we let them give us another shot, and then dash in ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... "The gunnery was superbly accurate and shattered the periscope. Thereupon the submarine, now a blinded thing, rushed along under water in imminent danger of self-destruction from ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... 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, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... increasingly difficult, even compulsory recruiting by press-gang. At the same time, 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 of British shipbuilding was such an unwelcome truth ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... rows on rows of windows, and understood the Master's material threat. By 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 ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... military technical academy at Charlottenburg, where officers may study the technical engineering and communication services, an artillery and engineer school at Munich, a field-artillery school of gunnery, a foot-artillery school of gunnery, a cavalry telegraph ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... full use of his education if the navy of his day had not been inspired with the will to fight and to conquer, with the discipline that springs from that will, and had not obtained through long experience of war the high degree of skill in seamanship and in gunnery which made it the instrument its great commander required. These conditions of the navy in turn were products of the national spirit and of the will of the Government and people of Great Britain to devote to the navy as much money, as many men, and as vigorous support ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... the 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. ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... 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
... Benson for a while. "Don't let Axelson get the jump on you," he said. "Be on the alert every moment." The gunners, keen-looking men, graduates from the Annapolis gunnery school, grinned and nodded. They were proud of their trade and its traditions; Nat felt that the vessel was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... encountered female society. He seemed excited when relating the misdeeds of his enemies, and his usually languid voice assumed a little asperity, as he described the way in which, while he made war in Bosnia, "ces diables des Turcs" had surprised his garrison at Lessandro. My knowledge of gunnery was not extensive, still I could not be ignorant of the chance he had, with three short twelve-pounders, of injuring any building whatever, when firing at it at a distance of eight hundred yards, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... forever when the first atomic bomb was tested in an 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 ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... three weeks to-day since I came to England, and it seems ages. The first week was spent on leave, the second I passed my exams in gun drill and gun-laying, and this week I have finished my riding. Next Monday I start on my gunnery. ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... peculiar. As Professor of Artillery he was responsible for little more than the drill of the cadets and their instruction in the theory of gunnery. The tactics of artillery, as the word is understood in Europe, he was not called upon to impart. Optics, mechanics, and astronomy were his special subjects, and he seems strangely out of place ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... zealous than successful. From the very beginning of his career, he never thought of liberty, save as the closest associate of law. Diligently devoting himself to the study of the military art, and particularly to gunnery, he asked for the command of an artillery company, and obtained it after a thorough examination, being made captain on the 14th of March, 1776, when but two months beyond his nineteenth year. He completed his company, and expended the very last ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... went about 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 ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... "Every breed of gunnery that there is. You know a Coast Guard cutter becomes a part of the navy in time of war, so an officer has got to know just as much about big guns as an officer in the navy. He might have to take his rank on a big battleship if the United States was at war. You bet I'll ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the simple legitimate processes of trade, the merchant captains would never have learnt the art of extracting every ounce of value out of their ships as fighting machines; certainly they would not have developed the very marked supremacy in gunnery which was so decisive a feature in the contest with Spain. The mere temptations of successful barter would not have sufficed to attract the fiery and alert young gentlemen of Devon or elsewhere, and the daring mariners who revelled in meeting and overcoming any apparent odds. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... his 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. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... as the sea. The largest ship is rarely quite motionless, when on 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 ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... visited the dockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and always befriended Fletcher 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 on oars ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... his watches to keep at sea and his picket boat to run in harbour, while his spare time was fully employed in mastering the subtleties of gunnery, torpedo work, and electricity, and in rubbing up his rapidly dwindling knowledge of engineering and x and y. It was well that he did so, for at some distant period when the war ceased he would have to pass certain stringent examinations before ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... blown itself out the artisans again set to work on the big East Indiaman. Job, who had learned the science of gunnery under good masters, supervised the placing of every porthole with reference to ease and safety in firing as well as to the effectiveness of a broadside. He had a section of the deck forward of the capstan reinforced stoutly to ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... when that functionary went periodically to the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, to receive and escort the young gentlemen cadets from Marlow College, who were abandoning the red coat and drill of the foot-soldier to become neophytes in the art and mystery of great gunnery and sapping. ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... and 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 sigh ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith
... 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 contrast to the purpose of his visit, as he fixed ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stop to pick up her boat, and the delay probably saved us; we must, moreover, have been a very uncertain mark in the unnatural light, which doubtless would be no aid to gunnery practice. On we tore, with the steam-gauge uncomfortably near danger point; the warship in hot pursuit, looking, wreathed as she was in the smoke and flame of her fiercely worked guns, and the electric glare of the vivid shaft which still turned night into day, more like some ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... insubordinate seamen and no 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 ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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
... 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 asked me, whether I myself could ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... 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, or point-blank firing, ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... was present at the battle of Trafalgar on board the Neptune. An explosion 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
... spruits ran red with it, if only they could win their way to where their half-starved comrades waited for them. But nothing happened. Hours passed and nothing happened. An occasional shell from the big gun plumped among them. One, through some freak of gunnery, lobbed slowly through a division, and the men whooped and threw their caps at it as it passed. The guns on Swartz Kop, at a range of nearly five miles, tossed shells at the monster on Doornkloof, and finally blew up his powder magazine ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... soon been silenced, while the other three 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 coats of mail, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "The excellent gunnery of the American sailors is entirely due to the practice which they had undergone, but the target fired at was stationary, while their ship was moving. The conditions were different in action. The Spanish were under ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... 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 ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... had been turned into a schoolroom; how six cadets 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, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... 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 ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... and without experience of the fearful effect of modern gunnery, we cannot appreciate what a dangerous errand these brave men undertook. To sail close under the guns of many batteries and forts, through a narrow channel known to be mined, was to face death, and almost sure death—an ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... victories, though managed by the hand, are achieved by the head, we feel little disposed to meddle with what Burke calls "the mystery of murder," or "the present perfection of gunnery, cannoneering, bombarding, and mining;" and inveterate as may be the weapon of the goose-quill, we trust our readers will not suspect us of any other policy than that of pleasing them, the ne plus ultra of all public servants. As our title implies, we are bound to present or reflect ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... to the instructional anti-submarine course for masters and officers, gunnery courses for cadets and apprentices were started at Portsmouth, Chatham and Devonport. A system of visits to ships by officer instructors for the purpose of affording instruction and for inspection, as well as for the purpose of lecturing, was instituted, ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... against a competent enemy unless those aboard it have been trained by years of actual sea service, including incessant gunnery practice, would be to invite not merely disaster, but the bitterest shame and humiliation. Four thousand additional seamen and one thousand additional marines should be provided; and an increase in the officers should be provided by making a large addition to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the party 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
... that several of them have a new and secret, experimental control system. One of our missions on this cruise was to carry out field tests. Well, it turned out that the system is still full of, ah, bugs. Gunnery Command has had endless trouble with it, has had to keep tinkering the ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... echoing up the winding glen. At the first report the girl, though startled, was not greatly frightened; for the sound was common enough in the week when those most gallant volunteers entitled the "Yorkshire Invincibles" came down for their annual practice of skilled gunnery against the French. Their habit was to bring down a red cock, and tether him against a chalky cliff, and then vie with one another in shooting at him. The same cock had tested their skill for three summers, but failed hitherto to attest it, preferring to return in a hamper to his hens, with a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... 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 at our stations. Once more our gun bombarded. ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... 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
... 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 ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... "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 Jacob's-ladder was ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... Dan put me thro' the gunnery practice on the way out, an' I went through it creditably. Only a slight hitch now and then. Two or three balls in the mouth ready to spit ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 elevation of a forty-two pounder ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... distance beyond the German line. Then, 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
... short time, prevailed upon the admiral to transfer him to his own ship, the Sybille, of 48 guns, "a crack frigate," in a high state of discipline, the crew of which was remarkable for its skill in gunnery. ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... they swung the guns round on to the town at point-blank range! Then they sent a message to the battery of horse-artillery operating with them to ask for gunners to give them instruction in the art of gunnery, as they were not doing enough damage themselves! I cannot say whether the instructors arrived or not, but the Anzacs clung to their captured guns like leeches and continued to use them in spite of the furious ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... 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 bursting ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... managed nearly to weather the eastern point. The Cerberus, however, was by this time standing directly towards her, a point off the wind, so as to make her escape almost impossible. Again the frigate fired—the water was smooth, and her gunnery was good. The shot struck the schooner's hull. Another and another followed. Still she stood on. She was in stays; another tack or two would carry her round the point, and there were reefs amid which she might possibly make her ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... hereditary states, and in many besides; and he had an ardent love of books, both classical and modern. He delighted in music, painting, architecture, and many arts of a more mechanical description; wrote treatises on all these, and on other subjects, especially gardening and gunnery. He was the inventor of an improved lock to the arquebus, and first divined how to adapt the disposition of his troops to the use of the newly- discovered fire-arms. And in all these things his versatile head and ready hand were personally employed, not by deputy; while coupled with so much artistic ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Muses. I tell you if you stand well in her gratheth, by Jove, Thir, you mutht give yourthelf up to her body and thoul. How the deuthe can a fellow that's out at drill at hicth in the morning, and all day with his head filled with tacticth and gunnery, and—and—' ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... guns opened up with a roar that shook the ground. The guns were served with the precision that has made American gunnery the envy of the world, and great gaps were torn in the dense masses of the enemy troops. But the lanes filled up instantly, and with hardly a moment of faltering the ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... 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
... 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
... Spanish fleet had ceased to exist. 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 at random. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... Marne—strategy—strategy, my dear sir. But wait. Wait a few days. If we could only get that boasted British navy to venture out from their holes, then the war would be over. Mark what happens in the Pacific. Scientific gunnery, three salvos, two hundred minutes from the first gun. It is all over. Two British ships sunk to the bottom. That is the German way. They would force war upon Germany. Now they have it. In spite of all the Kaiser's peace efforts, they drove ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... military operations; and an art when considered with reference to the practical rules for conducting campaigns, sieges, battles, &c. So is engineering a science so far as it investigates the general principles of fortification, and also artillery, in analyzing the principles of gunnery; but both are arts when considered with reference to the practical rules for the construction, attack, and defence of forts, or for the use ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... of charging a hunter. A shot struck the corner of the target just as we got away from it, slightly splintering it, so as to give the bewildered Indian a pleasant practical lesson in the science of gunnery and fortification. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... 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, buccaneering, privateering, and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... give and by money which they 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
... Practices in Arithmetick, Geometry and Astronomy, Geography and Navigation, Embatteling and Quartering of Armies, Fortifications and Gunnery, Gauging and Dialling; explaining the Loyerthius with new Judices, Napers, Rhodes or Bones, making of Movements, and the Application of Pendulums: With the projection of the Sphere for an Universal Dial. By ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... Ordnance Regulations were finished, in the spring of 1852, Farragut was again assigned to the Norfolk navy yard, and directed to utilize the experience he had gained in compiling them by giving weekly lectures on gunnery to the officers on the station. In prosecution of the same line of professional work, he was soon after ordered to conduct a series of experiments at Old Point Comfort, near Norfolk, to determine certain questions connected with ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... half of C 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
... the subject," said Tom. "It's time that you and I and Gordon should pass for seamanship, and as soon as we go home we shall get through the college and gunnery, and then, I hope, before long ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... broadside; but the sailors were fighting the most renowned naval power in the world, The British captains in every case sought the encounter, and they were defeated by the superior tactical skill, and especially the superior gunnery, of the Americans, Congress was obliged by the force of public sentiment to begin the construction of new vessels. At the same time American privateers ranged the seas and brought in British merchantmen. In 1813 there was a ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... coming of the 1st of June. With a margin of only two demerits Will had safely 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, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... engage at once the whole line of vessels and the Trekroner. It is difficult entirely to approve this refusal to concentrate upon a part of the enemy's order,—an advantage to which Nelson was fully alive,—but it was probably due to underestimating the value of the Danish gunnery, knowing as he did how long they had been at peace. He may, also, have hoped something from Parker's division. Be this as it may, he spread his ships-of-the-line, in the arrangement he prescribed, from one end to the other of the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... 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 ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... cut the lighting wires, for instance, the defects would be obvious at once; so with the heating or telephone wires. Nothing was touched except the lines to the guns, of which there are eight disposed upon the deck. From the guns connections run to the switch room, the conning tower, the gunnery control platform aloft, and to the gunnery officer's bridge. It was the main cable between the switch room and the conning tower which was cut, and it was one cable laid alongside a dozen others. Now who could know that this was the gun cable, and the only one in which ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... fever heat when, with twenty hands holding him, poor Noyes was hustled in among them. They rushed at him like a pack of wolves. Had that been a bank parlor in festive Arizona, they would not have endured the delay incidental to procuring a rope, but would have ended it and him by gunnery at short range. Noyes could not be shaken; his nerve never failed. He said a gentleman had hired him as a clerk, and that was all he knew. He had left him at the Stock Exchange; if they would let him go, he would try and find him and bring him around to the bank. J. Bull is gullible, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... 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' ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... 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 ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... learning not to depend upon mere guesses—no matter how shrewd. Mahmoud Effendi could not pass on to others the art he had acquired. But the science of gunnery can be taught to any man of average intelligence and natural aptitudes. Pericles left posterity not one hint about how to judge men—how to recognize ability. Humanity needs a scientific method of judging men, so that any man of intelligence can discover ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... 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 he held ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Kluck's 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 ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... 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 ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... majority he had by no means attained to the degree of 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 ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... were the first to come forward. Well armed, they stole out of the stockade, but it proved a useless mission. The mutineers were bolder than we fancied, or they put more trust in Israel's gunnery, for four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores and wading out with them to one of the gigs that lay close by, pulling an oar or so to hold her steady against the current. Silver was in the stern-sheets in command, and every man of them was now provided with a musket ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the felucca was half concealed in smoke. Then came the discharge of the gun. The shot was seen skipping along the water, at a safe distance from the leading boat certainly, and yet sufficiently near to make it pass for indifferent gunnery. This leading boat was the Proserpine's launch, which carried a similar carronade on its grating forward, and not half a minute was suffered to pass before the fire was returned. So steady were the men, and so nicely were all ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... brought it home, which might indeed have been true. At this moment, I recollected a circumstance that I had lately heard from the officers in the country, who had been talking about a fowling-piece, and of the careless manner in which fire-arms are sometimes proved [Footnote: See Manton on Gunnery.]. Upon examination, I found that what I suspected might be just possible was actually the case with respect to the piece in question—the touch-hole had never been bored through, though the piece was marked as proof! I never shall forget the satisfaction which ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... 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, recommends dispensing with the use of artillery altogether. Arte ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... theory and practice of gunnery, as well as in the tactics of the arm, was to be given to the officers and non-commissioned officers of the volunteer batteries, by the study of suitable text-books, and by actual recitations in each division, under the direction of the regular officer commanding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various |
