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t-r vBreech-LoadInff Arm**tton* Unit* y^■ade by C'abulfrtmlthM.London T i me*.In the first plaoc, the Afghans have c always had the reputation of being r good gunners.- They area nation of J lighting men, and were accounted good ^ marksmen, even with their old jheaaik. F Moreover, the mutinous troops of the r Wall have been trained to the use of 1' artillery by us, and doubtless many of e these deserters have joined the forces * of Ayoob. In the second place, Sliere a Ali was an artillerist by nature, and had for many years been engaged in * perfecting his guns. Shortly after his ilt; return from visiting Lord Mayo, in '} 1869, he assembled all the “cunning i‘ smiths” inCabul, and gave orders that c rilled guns were to be produced. The members of Shere All’s ordnance se- ^ loot committee had never had the advantage of passing through an “ad- t vaiiced class,” but their intellects were r sharpened by a tolerably shrewed no- I tion of what would be the consequences h of failure, and their unguided skill a was thus assisted by the mother of in- Tvention. The president, or chief smith, £was sent to Pesnawur with letters of in- Jtroduction to our commissioner, and f was there afforded opportunities ofvisiting the workshops in the arsenal, einspecting the breech-loading arm- cstrong guns, ‘ _ .1-----------himself acquainted with the nature and | i methods of manufacture of modern weapons. He returned to Cabul withwooden models of various guns, in- eeluding rifled breech-loading arm- (1strongs, and with more or less complete tworking drawings. A manufactory of rJrilled guns and smalll urnis was forth- vwith started in the Bala Hissar, forcedlabor to any extent being procurable namong the smiths of Cabul, who have ■ever had a high reputation for native tskill. The result was some ninetv ri- cfled guns of various calibres, chiefly of vthe class of mountain and field. Some rof these guns were made of wrought- tiron strips, laid side by side on a core, cand welded together by hand with vbamls of iron sulwequently beaten on t to keep the barrel together. The gun’ ten bored out by lathes driven by 1'power, and rifled by hand. The I breech-block, . vent-piece, and other parts were forged by hand, and the result was a very fair imitation of anarmstrong breech-loading rifled gun. »Doubtless the weapon would not have Istood many discharges of poiulre brutale, 9but it was quite equal to a fair charge .of Cabul powder, and, when nicely pol-| cished up, it made a very creditable ap- i{carance. A large number of small *wonzo guns were also cast, and many TCvt01ll4muii/,u guu» H ere aiso cast, auu manyof them rifled bv hand. Shot and shell were copied from specimens brought from Inditt, but the mysteries of the time-fuse appear to have bafHed tlie wily Afghan. He succeeded in mraking. , very fair powder in large quantities,!, both coarse grain and fine grain, the percentage of ingredients being the same as with ,us, and. he turned out very respectable copper caps, but his attempts at fuse composition were not successful, and his shells generally either burst in the muzzle of the gun or I in flight, or did not buret at all. £.arge u numbers of Snider cartridges were also made by hand in the Bala Hissar arsenal, the cases being “solid drawn,” and thus capable cf being refilled many times. It has been computed that at the time of Shere Ali’s death there were about three hundred and eighty guns of different sorts in Afghanistan. We captured two hundred aim fifty-six, or thereabouts, during 1889-80, leaving one hundred and twenty-four unaccounted for. Many of those are konwnCabul to Tur-kistan and Herat, and it is bv no meansimprobable that some of Shere Ali*e breech-loading rifled arm strongs may have been forwarded to the latter fortress, and that thus the presence of ] breech-loading guns with Ayoob’s force may be accounted for. V . -
Newspaper Details
Chippewa Falls Herald
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, US
Fri, Sep 17, 1880
Page 2
Full Page
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USA 08 Oct 2019
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