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[Extreme range of the Dreadnought’s turret-guns:—Fired from in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral.]

As an instance of the tremendous range of the Dreadnought’s guns: mounted on one of the Dover forts, they could easily drop shells on the deck of a Channel packet in the act of leaving Calais harbour. Imagine one of them mounted in front of St. Paul’s and firing with full charges in any direction. Its shells would burst over Slough in one direction and over Gravesend in the other. Hertford, St. Albans, Chertsey, Sevenoaks, would all be within range. Twenty-five miles is the extreme estimated range of a shot fired with a full service charge, and the trajectory of the projectile would, at its culminating point, attain a height in the air of nearly six miles, twice the height of Mont Blanc.

They are “wire guns,” as the term goes, constructed in each case by winding coil on coil of steel ribbon or “tape” (a quarter of an inch wide and ·06 of an inch thick), round and round on an inner steel tube, the barrel of the piece; just as the string is wound round the handle of a cricket bat. The tape or “wire” is then covered by outer “jackets,” or tubes of steel. Upwards of 228,800 yards of wire—a length of 130 miles—weighing some 15 tons, are required for each of the Dreadnought’s 12-inch guns, and it takes from three to four weeks to wind on the wire. The rifling of the barrel comprises forty-eight grooves, varying in depth from ·08 of an inch at the muzzle to ·1 at the breech. Each of the Dreadnought’s guns, separately, employs in its manufacture from first to last upwards of five hundred men in various capacities, and costs, as turned out ready to send on board, but without sighting and other vital appliances, between £10,000 and £11,000.