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about her presenting that perishing appearance noticed in some ships even though they may have seen but little service. This will probably be accounted for by reason that she was originally well built, both in respect to the work and materials put into her, and that she has been well kept; added to which 30,000l. was spent upon her not long since in giving her new boilers and decks, having forecastle and poop built, cabins fitted, and bilge keels placed upon her. Although, of course, the Wivern is a long way behind the terrific engines of destruction of more recent times, she is a fine addition to the China command, and properly manned should be a real protection to this harbour and Colony. She presents the least possible target, answers her helm most readily, has no top-hamper, possesses many water-tight compartments, and not a man need be exposed in working her big guns in action, as she. has steering-gear below and a bullet-proof tower for the officer directing the movements of the vessel. With all these immense advantages, it must be apparent that in the duello there is no craft of any nationality in the Far East that would have any chance with her. In addition to her fighting power, she is formidable as a ram, as she has 4 or 5 feet of spur; and on a recent occasion, when I saw her in The dry dock, I was surprised to find that she was rather a pretty model below the water-line. "Wivern" is 220 feet long, with a beam of 41 feet, and in commission has a complement of 150 men; and, with stores, provisions, and ammunition on board, in fighting trim, she has a mean draught of 17 feet.
Soon after his Excellency the Governor arrived on board, the ship's head was laid to westward, and she proceeded under easy steam down the harbour and out through the Sulphur Channel; and on arriving off the south-east point of Lamma Island the steam trial commenced. The working of her machinery was highly satisfactory, and going down with the wind 11 knots were got out of her with sixty-nine revolutions; after being brought head to wind and going back over the same course, a similar result was obtained; and later, with seventy revolutions, a slight improvement upon 11 knots was made.
The "Wivern's" armament consists of four 12-ton guns, Woolwich pattern, two in each turret; four Nordenfeldt guns, two on the forecastle and two on the poop; a Gatling gun, mounted on a carriage fit for shore fighting, but the gun can be readily detached and hoisted into a cutter for boat service; there is also a 9-pounder for the latter kind of work. In addition to this she carries the formidable Whitehead fish torpedoes, containing a charge of 33 lbs. of gun-cotton, and spar torpedoes with 35 lbs. of the same explosive. The projectiles for the 12-ton guns are of several kinds-empty common shell, weighing 237 lbs.; Palliser chilled shot, of 250 lbs.; and Palliser chilled shell, of the same weight, but containing a bursting charge which explodes immediately it has contact with the object; beside these are case-shot and shrapnel. A full charge of powder is 30 lbs. rifle large grain, and a battering charge 50 lbs. pebble. The mechanical appliances adopted in loading and working these guns are such as to enable the gunners to fire with great rapidity, and the result is that a tremendous weight of metal can be poured into an enemy's ship in an incredibly short space of time. But of modern weapons, probably less is generally known about the Nordenfeldt than
gun
other. any The first ship in the British navy which received a Nordenfeldt gun was the "Comus," now in Hong Kong Harbour, followed by the "Northampton," 12, double-screw armour-plated ship, and the Wivern," and it is now being generally adopted in the service. As a defence against torpedo- boats the Nordenfeldt, gun has been proved to be a much superior weapon to the Hotchkiss in a very essential particular-that of penetration-the only apparent advantage of the latter over the former being the rapidity of its delivery. The power of the Nordenfeldt is such that perfect penetration has been effected through of an inch of best Bessemer steel at 200 yards, and through of an inch of a target of similar metal at 500 yards distance. The projectile is a pointed steel bullet 24 inches in length, and one inch in diameter, the entire cartridge being 5 inches long. The gun is simple in structure, apparently not easily deranged, and of great strength; it has four barrels in a row, which are fed from a case placed upon the top containing four tiers of ten-forty rounds: these can be discharged as single shots with time intervals, or the four can be fired almost simultaneously, and the action of refilling the breeches ejects the empty cartridge. The gun is easily shifted from one part of the ship to another, and, being placed upon a swivel, can be fired round the compass. Some trials recently made on board the "Iris," in the Medway, gave great results. In one case the torpedo-boat model was completely riddled and cut to pieces by 115 hits in the course of a 400 yards run only, the "Iris" going at a speed of 8 knots. In another trial on the same ship, whilst going a registered speed of 172 knots, and the tide was moving at the rate of 21⁄2 knots more, the gun really travelled over 20 miles an hour; from 700 yards distance to close up, 102 shots were discharged in 1 min. 9 sec., and afterwards 111 shots in 1 min. 10 sec., and the target was found to have been hit by 110 shots out of the 213; which is 93 shots per minute fired and 48 hits per minute recorded, and since that 158 shots and 104 hits have been made in the same time.
The guns' crews were from the "Iron Duke," and had no further preparation than a couple of days' drill by Mr. Pascoe, the gunner of the "Wivern.” These men did remarkably well, with both ordnance and Nordenfeldts, considering all the circumstances. The practice was at unknown distances from 800 to 1,500 yards, and on the whole the direction was very good, and seemed to be highly satisfactory to the array of gunnery talent assembled from the various ships. Sixteen rounds were fired from the turrets and a hundred from the Nordenfeldts, and all the time the ship had way on and sometimes was going at a good speed. I did not see the target until after it was cast adrift, but it was a barrel, apparently no larger than a kilderkin, with a staff and flag stuck on it. Of course, this was a very small object at 1,500 yards, but more than once it was thought to have been smashed, so near did the shots fall to it. The men deserve praise for the smart manner in which they executed the order "prepare for action," as the bulwarks on both sides were lowered, the flying bridge hoisted, and the rigging eased in 64 seconds: at the word "action" the upper deck was cleared as if by magic, every man having dived down below to his post. This part of the drill was got through with much smart- ness and no bungling. Soon after "cease firing" was sounded the crew were again on deck, and in a
Appendix No. 4.
HONG CNG,
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