RAPID FIRING
The gun-recoil carriage, as the new invention was called, increases the rate of fire, since there is no delay in running up. The French were quick to develop this new feature, and set to work to make the rate of fire as high as possible. Up till then the ammunition fired from a field-gun had consisted of a shell, a bag of powder, and a friction-tube introduced through the vent to fire the charge. This was called a round of ammunition, and its complexity was increased by the fuse, which was carried separately and screwed into the shell when the round was prepared for loading, and afterwards set with a key to burst the shell at the required distance. The French combined the whole of these separate parts into one, so that a round of “fixed” ammunition, as now used, looks exactly like an enlarged rifle cartridge. (See [Fig. 2].)
Further, they did away with the cumbrous process of setting the fuse by hand, and introduced a machine which sets fuses as fast as the shell can be put into it. One of these machines is shown in [Fig. 4]. It is of a later pattern than that of the French service gun, being the one used by the Servians with their new gun made by the famous firm of Schneider of Creusot. The machine is set to the range ordered by the battery commander, the shell is dropped into it, and a turn of the handle sets the fuse.