"Gunnery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his record seems to show he was pretty much like other boys. According to his classmates, with all of whom I find he was very popular, he stood high in the practical studies, such as seamanship, gunnery, navigation, and steam engineering, but in all else he was near the foot of the class, and in whatever escapade was risky and reckless he was always one of the leaders. To him discipline was extremely irksome. He could maintain ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... perform simple tasks, and many of them were sent to the Pacific less than two weeks after activation. In contrast, the 51st Defense Battalion spent two months in hard field training, scarcely enough considering the number of raw recruits, totally unfamiliar with gunnery, that were being fed regularly into what ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... the land by the pale dim outline of the Chesill Bank. The water was dancing in golden light; white-sailed or red-sailed craft plied across it; a ship of the line lay under the lee of the island, practising gunnery, the three bounds of her balls marked by white columns of spray each time of touching the water, pleasure parties crowded the steamer; but to Dr. May the cheerfulness of the scene made a depressing contrast to the purpose of his visit, as he fixed ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were subjected to torture, one form of which was that of lashing captives to the cannon's mouth and applying the match. Fort Montague is not occupied by even a corporal's guard to-day, and is of no efficiency whatever against modern gunnery. The reader will thus observe that the principal business which has engaged Nassau heretofore has been wrecking, buccaneering, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... several mathematical treatises; turned his attention to the theoretical study of artillery and fortification; upheld Newton's principle of ultimate ratios against Berkeley, and in 1742 published his celebrated work, the "New Principles of Gunnery," which revolutionised the art of gunnery; was appointed engineer-in-general to the East India Company (1749), and planned the defences ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... brother; there they were,—Froissart, Barante, Joinville, the Mort d'Arthur, Amadis of Gaul, Spenser's Faerie Queene, a noble copy of Strutt's Horda, Mallet's Northern Antiquities, Percy's Reliques, Pope's Homer, books on gunnery, archery, hawking, fortification; old chivalry and ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... over-gallant First Gentleman of Europe out of mischief. Our autobiographer gives us a plain, blunt, not to say bald record of what must have been an interesting life. He was at Eton under KEATE; a cadet at Woolwich, where he saw a gunner receive two hundred lashes; a gunnery subaltern in the Crimea, where he saw many queer and unedifying things; a successful administrator in Madagascar, Mauritius and Penang, and finally Governor of the Straits Settlements, with a K.C.M.G. and honourable retirement to follow. But he is a man of action rather than words, and his faculty ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... by Thomas Audley by order of Henry VIII may be taken as the last word in England of the purely mediaeval time, before the development of gunnery, and particularly of broadside fire, had sown the seeds of more modern tactics. They were almost certainly drafted from long-established precedents, for Audley was a lawyer. The document is undated, but since Audley is mentioned without any rank or ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... specimens of workmanship, which had been at target practice for a long time and now yearned for the reality, like the boy who has a gun and wants to try it on the real game. The proof of the superiority of American gunnery was demonstrated in every naval battle. The accurate aim of Dewey's gunners at Manilla, and Sampson and Schley's at Santiago, was nothing less than wonderful. No less wonderful, however, was the accuracy of the Americans than the inaccuracy of the Spaniards, who ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... officers were captains of the popular craft, machine gunnery. At dinner they referred to themselves with conscious boredom as members of the "Suicide Club"—in those days every recondite branch of the service referred to itself as the Suicide Club. One of the captains—Rachael's captain, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... war ship against a competent enemy unless those aboard it have been trained by years of actual sea service, including incessant gunnery practice, would be to invite not merely disaster, but the bitterest shame and humiliation. Four thousand additional seamen and one thousand additional marines should be provided; and an increase in the officers should be provided by making a large addition to the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a note to take to the Service de l'Intendance, to the Gunnery School, to the Bridges Department, and in the evening to the A.D. and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... well-matched, but the engagement was decisive evidence of the superior qualities of northern marksmanship. It was, in fact, an exhibition of that magnificent gunnery which was so evident in the war of 1812, and which was to be shown again in the war with Spain. Nearly all of the 173 shots fired by the Kearsarge took effect, while of the 370 fired by the Alabama, only 28 reached their target. As a result, at the end of an hour and ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... fighting efficiency and employment of the fleet, and upon him and upon the controller the naval business of the country largely falls. He directs the operations of the admiral superintendent of naval reserves in regard to ships, the hydrographer, the director of naval ordnance, so far as the gunnery and torpedo training establishments are concerned, and the naval intelligence department, and he has charge of all matters relating to discipline. The mobilization of the fleet, both in regard to personnel and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... much of anything about gunnery, except with four-pounders on a yacht; but that last gun was elevated so that we know about the range of her pieces," said the captain. "It is less than half a mile, and her shots would not do much damage at more than half ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... give and by money which they can command. They have appointed Captain Henry Bennet, late of the United States army, Inspector-General of their legion, and he is commissioned as such by Governor Carlin. This gentleman is known to be well skilled in fortification, gunnery, and military engineering generally; and I am assured that he is receiving regular pay, derived from the tithing of this warlike people. I have seen his plans for fortifying Nauvoo, which are equal to any ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... "The gunnery was superbly accurate and shattered the periscope. Thereupon the submarine, now a blinded thing, rushed along under water in imminent danger of self-destruction from collision ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... mastery of the art of war. He admitted that he deserved high praise; but said that he was not by any means equally certain of success, so large a proportion of his forces being only a raw militia, brave enough no doubt for anything, when they saw their way to it; but knowing little of gunnery, and wholly unused to be shot at. Whereas all the Doones were practised marksmen, being compelled when lads (like the Balearic slingers) to strike down their meals before tasting them. And then Colonel Stickles asked me, whether ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... three had grappled themselves inextricably to her sides and prow. The four drifted together, before wind and tide, a severe and savage action going on incessantly, during which the navigation of the ships was entirely abandoned. No scientific gunnery, no military or naval tactics were displayed or required in such a conflict. It was a life-and-death combat, such as always occurred when Spaniard and Netherlander met, whether on land or water. Bossu and his men, armed in bullet-proof coats of mail, stood with shield ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "Phoebe" (38) and the sloop "Cherub" (24) on the 28th of March 1814. In these actions, except the last, the Americans had the advantage of greater size and a heavier broadside, but they showed excellent seamanship and gunnery. The capture of three British frigates one after another caused a painful impression in Great Britain and stimulated her to greater exertions. Vessels were accumulated on the American sea-board, and the watch became more strict. On the 1st of June 1813 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... hands stuck under their waistbands, listening eagerly to the boastful stories of skill that had been exhibited on former occasions, and were already emulating in their hearts these wonderful deeds in gunnery. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... left for the course in machine gunnery. This course lasted two weeks and we rejoined our unit and were assigned to the Brigade Machine Gun Company. It almost broke my heart to leave ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... was off La Plata," said my informant, "when Garibaldi was at war with Rosas, that the frigate I commanded was on that station, as well as a small gun-brig of the Sardinian navy, whose captain never harassed his men by exercises of gunnery, and, indeed, whose ship was as free from any 'beat to quarters,' or any sudden summons to prepare for boarders, as though she had been ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... unwillingness to emulate the foreigners' achievements in armaments or military tactics. In fact, for a number of years previous to 1853, Satsuma and Choshu and other western clans had been very busily engaged in manufacturing guns and practising gunnery: to that extent, at any rate, the discoveries of the students of European sciences had been deliberately used by those men who were to ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... and "ravelin," When I can tell at sight a Chassepot rifle from a javelin, When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at, And when I know precisely what is meant by Commissariat, When I have learn what progress has been made in modern gunnery, When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery, In short when I've a smattering of elementary strategy, You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee— For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury, Has only been brought down to the beginning of ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... believe a feather would turn the scale between the two countries, so far as courage and seamanship goes; and let it not be forgotten, although we have now regained our superiority in this respect, yet, in gunnery and smallarm practice, we were as thoroughly weathered on by the Americans during the war, as we overtopped them in the bulldog courage with which our boarders handled those genuine English weapons, the cutlass ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... tornado; all our guns give tongue together, St. Barbara for the gunnery and God defend the right— They are stopped and gapped and battered as we blast away the weather, Building window upon window to our lady of the light; For the light is come on Liberty, her foes are falling, falling, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... the Tweed, which rolled beneath his leafy perch. Driving down to Carham, "Tweedside," who was my companion, showed me Rosebank across the broad stream, and, while I was reminding him of Walter Scott's gunnery, we saw in an adjacent ploughed field three herons standing close together, apparently in doleful contemplation. On this drive also we crossed a burn which divides English from Scottish soil, and it was tumbling down in angry mood. Scores of other rivulets on either ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Geometry. Bombarding. Astronomy. Gunnery. History. Fortification. Navigation. Encamping. Decimal arithmetic. Intrenching. Trigonometry. Approaching. Dialing. Attacking. Gauging. Delineation. Mining. Architecture. ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... felucca was half concealed in smoke. Then came the discharge of the gun. The shot was seen skipping along the water, at a safe distance from the leading boat certainly, and yet sufficiently near to make it pass for indifferent gunnery. This leading boat was the Proserpine's launch, which carried a similar carronade on its grating forward, and not half a minute was suffered to pass before the fire was returned. So steady were the men, and so nicely were all parts ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... neither have educated himself nor made full use of his education if the navy of his day had not been inspired with the will to fight and to conquer, with the discipline that springs from that will, and had not obtained through long experience of war the high degree of skill in seamanship and in gunnery which made it the instrument its great commander required. These conditions of the navy in turn were products of the national spirit and of the will of the Government and people of Great Britain to devote to the navy as much money, as many men, and ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... holocaust. The present representative is in three segments. The city itself is composed of two, and the citadel makes a fairly important third. From a military point of view, the citadel was once counted first, and the city itself made an unimportant third,—with no second. But modern gunnery has changed that estimate. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... I recollected a circumstance that I had lately heard from the officers in the country, who had been talking about a fowling-piece, and of the careless manner in which fire-arms are sometimes proved [Footnote: See Manton on Gunnery.]. Upon examination, I found that what I suspected might be just possible was actually the case with respect to the piece in question—the touch-hole had never been bored through, though the piece was marked as proof! ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... arts could flourish at a period when men's minds were more occupied with the philosophy of war than with the science of Descartes, and were more inclined to patronize a new invention in the art of gunnery, than the chef d'oeuvre of a limner or sculptor. The Irish language was the general medium of conversation in this century. No amount of Acts of Parliament had been able to repress its use, and even the higher classes of English settlers appear ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... British Camel Corps at Khartum it was discovered to contain the camel-keeper of Bostock's menagerie. We found piano-tuners for the Sirdar's Palace, gardeners for the Barrack plantations, and in later days expert mechanics for anti-aircraft gunnery. Skilled clerks like Sergeants J.C. Jones and Beaumont were marked out by Nature for the orderly room. Many men well qualified to hold commissions served in the ranks and died before the nation recognised ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... The article on "Gunnery" gave them just one of those convenient tables which are the blessing of wise men and learned men, and which lead half-trained men to their ruin. They found that for their "range," which was, as they supposed, eleven hundred yards, the elevation of a forty-two pounder was one ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... stamping their defiance; it made one want to get to grips with his aggressors. In the brief silences one could hear our chaps laughing. The danger seemed to fill them with a wild excitement. Every time a shell came near and missed them, they would taunt the unseen Huns for their poor gunnery, giving what they considered the necessary corrections: "Five minutes more left, old Cock. If you'd only drop fifty, you'd get us." These men didn't know what fear was—or, if they did, they kept it to themselves. And these were the chaps ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... close behind Sing hurried below. A moment later she heard the boom of the old brass six pounder which for many years had graced the Ithaca's stern. In the bow Professor Maxon had mounted a modern machine gun, but this was quite beyond Sing's simple gunnery. The Chinaman had not taken the time to sight the ancient weapon carefully, but a gleeful smile lit his wrinkled, yellow face as he saw the splash of the ball where it struck the water almost at the side ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the reason. Under the circumstances, I think it's permissible to tell you that several of them have a new and secret, experimental control system. One of our missions on this cruise was to carry out field tests. Well, it turned out that the system is still full of, ah, bugs. Gunnery Command has had endless trouble with it, has had to keep tinkering the ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the full significance of what could be done by broadsides fired from sailing ships against the mediaeval type of vessel that still depended more on oars than ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... promoted to the rank), who, to give positive evidence of the size of his master's spirit, just battered down a defenseless town or two. It may turn out that the bombshelling was only to practice a little in that sort of gunnery, and that using up the property of American citizens to illustrate the war principles of Uncle Sam was merely an evidence of spunk in Mr. Pierce, who expected his people to ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton |
