explosive better than anything else. The projectiles, at the instant of explosion, were probably going at a velocity of about 2,000 feet per second. Pieces of the base plug of one of the projectiles were thrown back with such violence as to not only overcome the forward movement, but to throw them backward with a velocity estimated to be at least 1,000 feet per second.
This shows that a projectile filled with Maximite and exploded in a state of rest would have its fragments hurled at a velocity of about 3,000 feet per second, a much higher speed than that of a rifle ball, and that the forward-moving fragments, when a projectile is exploded in flight, will be hurled at a velocity something like 5,000 feet per second, or more than twice the speed of a rifle ball.
For the same reason that a large number of small bullets thrown at a high velocity are more effective and deadly than the large, heavy, slow-moving bullets formerly employed, a shell filled with such an
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| Fig. 3. | Fig. 4. | Fig. 5. |
Fig. 3.
The fragments, natural size, of the point of a forged steel armor piercing shell, exploded with Maximite, showing the ragged and shredded state of the metal produced by the explosive, with the hardened tip of the projectile broken off by the impact.
Fig. 4.
Side view of a fragment from the body of a 12-inch armor-piercing forged steel shell, exploded with Maximite. On the left of the fragment, which was the inner surface of the shell, is seen the flattening and stretching effect of the blow which it received from the explosion, as though it had been heated and then struck with a sledge-hammer, the force of the blow being so sudden and severe that the whole outer surface of the shell, except a small piece seen hanging to the fragment on the right was knocked off by the force of the impact.
Fig. 5.
View of opposite side of fragment seen in Fig. 4, showing where this piece was jammed upon a neighboring fragment with such force that its surface «:i-made In flow like wax.
