Ballistics

Branch of gunnery relating to the motion of projectiles; interior ballistics treats of the action of the powder gases in producing strains on the gun and in moving the projectile to the muzzle; exterior ballistics deals with the motion of the projectile after it leaves the muzzle. Benjamin Robins, by his invention of the ballistic pendulum and his work. New Principles of Gunnery. 1742, first established the science of ballistics on a substantial basis. Subsequently Rumford's experiments 1792, Hutton's with the ballistic pendulum 1805, Mordecai's researches on gunpowder 1842-45, Rodman's invention of prismatic powder and the pre ure guage and his improvements in gun casting 1849-61, with the scientific investigations of Piobert, Bunsen, Schischkoff and others, caused rapid advances to be made. From 1875 to the present time the extremely valuable labors of Capt. Noble, R.A.. and Sir F. Abel. Chandler's Encyclopedia The modern sea coast gun may justly be regarded as a complete triumph of the application of scientific principles to the control of the enormous forces developed by high explosives for war purposes. The main difficulty in the development of exterior ballistics has been the determination of the law of air resistance to bodies with varying velocities. The important labors of Bach forth 1864-79, and those of Didion, Siacci, Mayevski, Niven and others, have been fruitful in solving this problem. The two principal instruments now used for finding initial velocities of projectiles are the Schultz Chronoscope and the Le Boulengè Chronograph; the ballistic and gun pendul pendulums and other early velocimeters being obsolete. Sebert's Velocimeter is used for finding the velocity of the recoil of the gun, from which also that of the projectile can be determined.