Searchlights on Anti-Aircraft Cannon

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Title (Dublin Core)

Searchlights on Anti-Aircraft Cannon

Subject (Dublin Core)

Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)

Title: Searchlights Mounted on Anti- Aircraft Cannon
Caption: British anti-aircraft cannons were advanced with searchlights to increase rapidity and accuracy of fire

extracted text (Extract Text)

376

Searchlights

ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER

Ab

unted on Anti- Aircraft Cannon

The electric searchlight has been advantageously combined with many different
forms of war machinery in the past
few years of the great international
cataclysm across the sea, but possibly one of the most unusual adaptations of the electric searchlight is
that shown herewith, which illustrates how the English cannon employed for the defense of London
against enemy aircraft, was fitted
with a small searchlight in order to
increase the rapidity and accuracy
of fire. The anti- aircraft gun is
mounted on a tall building or
promontory, or else on a high
powered motor truck so as to speed
rapidly from place to place. Such
a combination spells deadly accuracy of fire, as anyone who has experimented with the electric flashlight pistol will have found, for when the
searchlight or flashlight beam was centered on the target, and the shell or bullet
dispatched, it struck the center of the
spot of light on the target; in the present
case, it would strike in the center of the
beam from the searchlight. It can readily
be imagined with what rapidity the gunners
can "spot" an enemy aeroplane or dirigible and bring it down.

McADOO WOULD ELECTRIFY ALL
RAILROADS.
Director -General of Railroads McAdoo
said recently on his return from a trip

that his observation of the vast resources
of water power during the two months he
had been absent from Washington since
the close of the last bond campaign, had
imprest him with the idea of electrifying
the railroads of the United States. f the
Government were to continue the administration of the railroads of the country
for any prolonged period, he said, he would
be in favor of resorting to the use of electricity just as far as it could be practically
employed.
Director -General McAdoo said that for
the present nothing could be done toward
substituting water -power for coal -produced
steam, but it might come as a plain matter of uczcssity while this war was on.
1

it would first be desirable to keep up the
volume of manufacturing power and then

required to relieve terminal
needs. Ultimately electricity would he
principally employed first of all in simplifying terminal problems.
The fact that the topography of the
country was relieved by its many mountain ranges, all abounding in streams that
would provide power, was a guaranty of
the practical distribution of current in the
sections that were now forging rapidly
forward in manufacturing importance.
Some of the virgin ground of iganufacturing development, such as the South
along the Atlantic seaboard, especially invited the consideration of this plan to relieve the country from the thralldom of
coal mining and shipment, according to
:Mr. McAdoo. He held that even if there
were no such great necessity to conserve
our coal supply. the fact that transportation limits the available power of our coal
would of itself justify transforming many
of our railroads to electrical systems.
it would be

October, 1918
forth in an entire number recently given
over to the subject by the leading French
magazine, !e Sais Tout. Trench warfare
has imposed the use of the telephone for
the transmission of orders, for reports and
for communications of all kinds. In order,
however, that it should be the ideal
agent of communication, there are
certain features attending the use
of electricity in this connection not
necessary in times of peace.
Communication must be secret,
and the wires must be placed so
that they cannot be destroyed by
shot or shell. In the first days of
the war the Boches quite successfully tapt the French wires. Their
listening posts were discovered, and
the telephone officer attaçhed to
each regiment has so disposed of
wires and currents that secrecy is
now assured.
A means of making use of the
electric magnet under water has
been devised in Japan, and it promises to be
of great assistance in locating sunken vessels, to recover which salvage operations on
a big scale are expected after the war.

ARC -WELDING SAVES MONEY.
Arc -welding by electricity has been
brought prominently before the public thro
the fact that it was used to restore the

broken engine castings of the interned German steamships. When breaking these castings the much learned ( ?) and foxy Germans thought they could not be repaired.
and that it would require a year or more to
replace them. However. even before the

The Secretary suggested that probably
electrification would be actually undertaken while the Government had control
of the railroads, and that the problem would
he attacked at the most favorable points iq
the country where the static value of water
was most obvious and the cost of makinn
the change from steam to electricity would
be comparatively slight.
U -BOAT IN

SPANISH

PORT DIRECTS
RAIDS BY RADIO.

Investigation has disthat the German
submarine U -56, which recently arrived at Santan-

English Anti- Aircraft Guns Used in the Aerial Defense of
London Have Been Fitted With Searchlights to Increase the
Accuracy and Rapidity of Fire, This Unit Being Mounted on
a Motor Truck.

closed

Welding High -Speed Steel Tips on Tool
Shanks of Ordinary Steel by the Arc Method.

der, Spain. tinder its own
power, had been in communication with other
U -hoats at sea.
Commander Reisser of
the U -boat. repeatedly was
seen signaling toward the
sea, while the Spanish government intercepted wireless messages from the U56 after a French steamer
was sunk and its crew
killed by a submarine.
It is quite obvious that
the U -56 was sent to Santander to organize the destruction of Allied and
Spanish shipping from a
favorable spot, it is believed.

ships could be otherwise overhauled and
made ready for transport service the broken
castings had all been repaired and were
good as new. This achievement has imprest
the value of arc -welding upon the minds
of many shop managers, and in many plants
castings and other parts of apparatus which
in the past would have been scrapped as
hopelessly damaged, are now perfectly restored by the arc -welding process at small
cost and great saving of time.
One large manufacturer, working on munitions, has installed an arc -welding equipment for the sole purpose of making tools
for turning shells.
Ordinarily these tools are made from
high speed steel and cost about $12.00 each.
This manufacturer uses high -speed steel
for the tip of the tool only, welding it to a
shank of carbon- or machine -steel, and in
this manner the tools arc produced at a
cost of $2.00 to $4.00. For some time this
plant has been turning out 240 welded
tools per day, the men working in shifts
of four, which is the capacity of the outfit
illustrated. Photo courtesy lf'estinghouse

FRENCH VIEW OF
ELECTRICITY IN
MODERN WAR.
The

important

part

played by electricity in the
modern war game is set

Electric Co.

Language (Dublin Core)

engg

Temporal Coverage (Dublin Core)

Date Issued (Dublin Core)

1918-10

Is Part Of (Dublin Core)

pages (Bibliographic Ontology)

376

Rights (Dublin Core)

Public domain

Archived by (Dublin Core)

Mikhail Vsemirnov

Spatial Coverage (Dublin Core)

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

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