DISMISSION. A summary discharge from the service; which a court-martial is empowered to inflict on any officer convicted of a breach of special laws, though it cannot for minor offences which formerly carried death!
DISMOUNT, To. To break the carriages of guns, and thereby render them unfit for service. Also, in gun exercise, to lift a gun from its carriage and deposit it elsewhere.
DISMOUNTED. The state of a cannon taken off a carriage, or when, by the enemy's shot, it is rendered unmanageable. Also, cavalry on foot acting as infantry.
DISOBEDIENCE. An infraction of the orders of a superior; punishable by a court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offence.
DISORDER. The confusion occasioned by a heavy fire from an enemy.
DISORGANIZE, To. To degrade a man-of-war to a privateer by irregularity.
DISPART, or Throw of the Shot. The difference between the semi-diameter of the base-ring at the breech of a gun, and that of the ring at the swell of the muzzle. On account of the dispart, the line of aim makes a small angle with the axis; so that the elevation of the latter above the horizon is greater than that of the line of aim: an allowance for the dispart is consequently necessary in determining the commencement of the graduations on the tangent scale, by which the required elevation is given to the gun.
DISPARTING A GUN. To bring the line of sight and line of metal to be parallel by setting up a mark on the muzzle-ring of a cannon, so that a sight-line, taken from the top of the base-ring behind the touch-hole, to the mark set near the muzzle, may be parallel to the axis of the bore. (See [Gun].)
DISPART-SIGHT. A gun-sight fixed on the top of the second reinforce-ring—about the middle of the piece—for point-blank or horizontal firing, to eliminate the difference of the diameters between the breech and the mouth of the cannon.
DISPATCH. All duty is required to be performed with diligence.