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Gunnery   /gˈənəri/   Listen
Gunnery

noun
1.
Guns collectively.



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"Gunnery" Quotes from Famous Books



... how six cadets occupied the space intended for each gun-carriage, where hammocks hung from hooks served them instead of beds; how the chapel was in a closet opened only on Sundays. He described the gymnastic feats in the rigging, the practice in gunnery, and many other things which, had they been well described, would have been interesting; but Fred was only a poor narrator. The conclusion the young ladies seemed to reach unanimously after hearing his descriptions, was discouraging. They cried ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... three weeks to-day since I came to England, and it seems ages. The first week was spent on leave, the second I passed my exams in gun drill and gun-laying, and this week I have finished my riding. Next Monday I start on my gunnery. ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson

... fair national trial of the military faculties, courage, activity, and fortitude, discipline, gunnery, and tactics, for the first time the palm was awarded by Englishmen to Americans over Englishmen. Without fortuitous advantage the Americans proved too much for the redoubtable English, though superior in number, therefore universally arrogating to themselves ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... was still flourishing in which he used to sit and take pot shots at herons as they flew over 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 side were pouring their off-scourings ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... 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.

... to point his instrument exactly to a star he was confronted with precisely the same difficulty as is met in gunnery and rifle-shooting. The sights and the object aimed at cannot be in focus together, and a great deal depends on the form of sight. Tycho Brahe invented, and applied to the pointers of his instruments, an aperture-sight of variable ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... (500 boys); 'St. Vincent,' at Portsmouth (700 boys); and 'Boscawen,' at Portland (500 boys). To each is attached a brig for cruising during the summer months. The boys go through a regular course of instruction at school, in seamanship and in gunnery, till they are "rated," after a year or a little more, as 1st Class boys, when they have a cruise in the brig. With respect to the school instruction, the principle is to give the more backward boys more schooling than the more advanced, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... our history; but it could scarcely be expected that metaphysical studies or the fine 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 to have adopted it ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... particularly of that portion which forms the lofty and impregnable citadel. It is difficult to decide in this most remarkable fortress whether nature or art has done the most to render it what it seems absolutely to be, impregnable,—the strongest citadel in the world. The improvements in modern gunnery have lately caused important additions and alterations to be made. A hundred-ton gun was landed fresh from England while we were at the rock. One natural cave which was visited, in the system of fortified apartments, with port-holes commanding a broad ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... understood that each may employ such charge as he prefers, and that each shall load his own piece?" The seconds assented to this. Of course, in those days only muzzle loaders were used, although we had cut-felt wads and all the improvements in gunnery known at that time. My weapon was supplied me by Captain Stevenson—a good Manton, somewhat battered up from much use, but of excellent even pattern. Orme shot a Pope-made gun of London, with the customary straight hand and slight drop of the English makes. I think he ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... eagerly discussing Joe Atlee's medical qualifications, and doubting whether, if it was a knowledge of civil engineering or marine gunnery had been required, he would not have been equally ready to offer ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... Teach distributed the best of the men among the guns of the spar-deck battery on the port side. As was usual, the guns were already charged. There were no loggerheads available, no matches with which to fire them, but Morgan instructed those who seemed to have some skill in gunnery, whom he placed in temporary charge of the cannon, how to fire them by snapping their pistols at the touch-holes, which were primed from a powder horn that had been brought by ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... heavy battery that had come into action within a quarter of a mile of our H.Q. The "MAN BATTLE POSITIONS," the order succeeding "PREPARE FOR ATTACK" in the defence programme, was not expected that night, and we gossiped and talked war and new gunnery devices much as usual. No story goes so well at mess as the account of some fatuous muddle brought about by the administrative bewilderments that are apparently inevitable in the monster armies of to-day. This was one told with quiet relish by ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... a young officer was ordered to report himself at the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich, to undergo six months' further training in his regimental duties and in practical work at the Arsenal, with occasional visits to the School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness. It was a happy six months if he managed to keep out of trouble, for there were many temptations to overcome. Straight away from the strict discipline of the "Shop," the young officer found himself—or at ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... 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 ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... whom the French call "varnished," which is a way of saying that projectiles glance off their anatomy. They keep away from points where the enemy will direct his fire as a matter of habit or scientific gunnery, and always recollect that the German has not enough shells to sow them broadcast over the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... proofs that British seamen gained their victories as much by their proficiency in gunnery and their activity as by their strength and courage. Of this there are numberless instances, among others the following. In 1761, on the evening of the 13th of August, the Bellona, of 74 guns, and a crew of 550 men, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... of gunnery!" said the young man, stooping over it, after treading the last spark into the springy sand. "The little artillery man is wanted here. Ladies, you may safely stay here now. They will not make two hits in proximity to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... 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 material, also falls to him, and among a mass of other business in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Gunnery Instructions for the Navy of the United Slates. Compiled from the Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy, for the Use of the United States Naval Academy. New York. D. Van Nostrand. Square ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... gymnastics, of military equitation, officers' riding-schools, a military technical academy at Charlottenburg, where officers may study the technical engineering and communication services, an artillery and engineer school at Munich, a field-artillery school of gunnery, a foot-artillery school of gunnery, a cavalry telegraph school, and ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... demonstrate that solid bodies do slowly evaporate. It is proper here to mention our countryman, Count Rumford, whose discoveries as to the nature and properties of heat, improvement in stoves and gunnery, and in the structure of chimneys and economy of fuel, have been so great ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... one hundred and fifty-five guns suddenly opened on that one division. For two hours the air was fairly alive with shells. Every size and form of shell known to British or American gunnery shrieked, whirled, moaned, whistled and wrathfully fluttered over the ground, says Wilkinson. "As many as six in a second, constantly two in a second came screaming around the headquarters. They burst in the yard; burst next to the fence where ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... their-selves, them that's under obligation to 'ee. But you started on me, an' so I'll be polite an' lead off. In th' first place, with all this tow-row, the fish be all gone to bottom; there's not one'll take hook by day nor net by night. An' next, with a parcel o' reservists pickin' up the gunnery they've forgot, for a week or so the firin' is apt to be flippant. Yes, Mr Pamphlett, you can go back to your business an' feel all the easier in mind every time a bangin' great shell makes ye bob up an' down in your ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... heating or telephone wires. Nothing was touched except the lines to the guns, of which there are eight disposed upon the deck. From the guns connections run to the switch room, the conning tower, the gunnery control platform aloft, and to the gunnery officer's bridge. It was the main cable between the switch room and the conning tower which was cut, and it was one cable laid alongside a dozen others. Now who could know that this was the gun cable, and the only one in which ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... discriminate. Permit me, however, to recommend to your particular notice my first Lieutenant, William H. Allen. He has served with me upwards of five years, and to his unremitted exertions in disciplining the crew, is to be imputed the obvious superiority of our gunnery exhibited in the result ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... on an island three miles long, in the Cauvery River; outside it we were met by a victoria and drove about the island. It is a pleasant place to spend a day; the marks of our forefathers' gunnery on the walls gives quite a homely feeling. You see where they camped and the river they looked at—a gentle-running, sapphire stream with yellow-grey stones showing across it, not much more than a hundred yards across when we saw it—and the big double masonry wall beyond it which they ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... 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 of this plot calculated, that ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... would like to be an engineer. I found him up to everything that is done in the contracting line by Messrs. Peto and Brassey—cunning in the article of concrete— mellow in the matter of iron—great on the subject of gunnery. When he spoke of pile-driving and sluice-making, he left me not a leg to stand on, and I can never sufficiently acknowledge his forbearance with me in my disabled state. While he thus discoursed, he several times directed his eyes to one distant ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... that if two hostile vessels meet equally matched in all the ordinary points of equipment and preparation, and manned by crews equally skilled in gunnery, the advantage will be in favor of the ship that loads quickest; and should it happen that nicety of aim becomes a matter of secondary importance, in consequence of the closeness of the action, then, evidently, rapidity of fire will ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... American public, and the stupefaction of England, five American cruisers in succession captured or sank five British in the autumn of 1812, utilizing superior weight of broadside and more accurate gunnery with merciless severity. These blows did no actual damage to a navy which comprised several hundred frigates and sloops, but the moral effect was great. It had been proved that Americans, ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... said Tom. "It's time that you and I and Gordon should pass for seamanship, and as soon as we go home we shall get through the college and gunnery, and then, I hope, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... "ravelin", When I can tell at sight a Mauser 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 learnt 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 elemental strategy, You'll say a better Major-General ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... Tories, High and Low Church, the poets, astronomers, and critics, may settle it among themselves." How remote seems that epoch now! and how remote will the present soon appear! while art and science will resume their sway serene, beneath skies eternal. Yesterday I turned from treatises on gunnery and fortification to open Milton's Latin Poems, which I had never read, and there, in the "Sylvarum Liber," I came upon a passage as grand as anything in "Paradise Lost,"—his description of Plato's archetypal man, the vast ideal of the human ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... aloft which both vessels sustained caused the battle to take on the character of an action at long range. Under such conditions, the victory was assured to the side showing the best gunnery. For a moment only did it seem that the vessels were likely to come to close quarters, and the English captain seized that occasion to call up his boarders. But they refused, saying, "She's too heavy ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... Arabs, had become familiar with it before the other nations of Christendom. The affirmation of Zurita, however, that 5000 balls were fired from the battery of the besiegers at Gerona in one day, is perfectly absurd. So little was the science of gunnery advanced in other parts of Europe at this period, and indeed later, that it was usual for a field-piece not to be discharged more than twice in the course of an action, if we may credit Machiavelli, who, indeed, recommends dispensing with the use of artillery altogether. Arte della Guerra, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... the moment, prove a capable fighter for his country even amid such strange and novel surroundings as obtain in the naval service. These young men have especially upheld the American supremacy in the art of gunnery, and have, on all occasions, proved brave ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... not the only intelligent man who took an interest in Godwin. In a house which the boy sometimes visited with a school-fellow, lodged a notable couple named Gunnery the husband about seventy, the wife five years older; they lived on a pension from a railway company. Mr. Gunnery was a dabbler in many sciences, but had a special enthusiasm for geology. Two cabinets of stones and fossils gave evidence of his zealous travels about the British isles; he ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... people who had merely an ordinary grammar school education, I felt like a child. When discouragement came, I took refuge in the fact that several avenues of usefulness were open to me in army life. I had shown some proficiency in gunnery. For a steady plodder who attends strictly to business there is always promotion. As a flunky, there was the incentive of double pay, the wearing of plain clothes, and some intimate touch with the aristocracy. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... building, while actually of private ownership, had long been regarded as part of the thoroughfare. Overlooking it from the north end, opposite Hal's office, was another window, in the reference room. Any kind of gunnery from those vantage-spots would guard the press. But would the mere threat of firing suffice? That is what Hal wished to know. He had no desire to pump bullets into a close-packed crowd. On the other hand, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Schoolmasters in the Kurmark, and having the youth better educated." What a pretty idea; neat and beautiful, killing two important birds with one most small stone! I have known enormous cannon-balls and granite blocks, torrent after torrent, shot out under other kinds of Finance-gunnery, that were not only less respectable, but that were abominable to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... returned on March 30, 1917, from this unarmed voyage she was given three six-inch guns, two forward and one aft, and a gun crew from the U. S. S. Texas, under Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware, who had already made his mark in gunnery. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... tested in an isolated area of the New Mexico desert. Conducted in the final month of World War II by the top-secret Manhattan Engineer District, this test was code named Trinity. The Trinity test took place on the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, about 230 miles south of the Manhattan Project's headquarters at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Today this 3,200 square mile range, partly located in the desolate Jornada del Muerto Valley, is named the White Sands Missile Range and is actively ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum

... of the sword. battle array, campaign, crusade, expedition, operations; mobilization; state of siege; battlefield, theater of operations &c (arena) 728; warpath. art of war, tactics, strategy, castrametation^; generalship; soldiership; logistics; military evolutions, ballistics, gunnery; chivalry. gunpowder, shot. battle, tug of war &c (contention) 720; service, campaigning, active service, tented field; kriegspiel [G.], Kriegsspiel [G.]; fire cross, trumpet, clarion, bugle, pibroch^, slogan; war-cry, war-whoop; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... pieces which fire the cartridge by percussion against its back end have the disadvantage of the charge burning forward, and thus wasting itself partly in the air after the bullet has left the muzzle. This difficulty, however, has been overcome in recent gunnery, and the needle-gun such as it was in the hands of King William's soldiers at Sadowa, must now be regarded as a clumsy ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... "Holy Land." The general tone, as well as the special incidents of the book, argues that the stories may have been ancient, but they certainly have been modernised. Coffee is commonly used (passim) although tobacco is still unknown; a youth learns archery and gunnery (Zarb al-Risas, vol. vii. 440); casting of cannon occurs (vol. v. 186), and in one place (vol. vi. 134) we read of "Taban-jatayn," a pair of pistols; the word, which is still popular, being a corruption of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... through batteries, tearing men and horses to pieces; the very earth seemed to shake and the hills to reel as the terrible thunders re-echoed amongst them. For nearly an hour every conceivable form of ordnance known to modern gunnery hissed and shrieked, whistled and screamed, as it went forth on its death-mission till exhausted by excitement and heat the gunners slackened their fire and silence ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... tow at an average speed of four knots an hour. The Haliotis was very hard to move, and the gunnery-lieutenant, who had fired the five-inch shell, had leisure to think upon consequences. Mr. Wardrop was the busy man. He borrowed all the crew to shore up the cylinders with spars and blocks from the bottom and sides of the ship. It was a day's risky ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... then would point to holes in the lava to show where explosions had taken place, bulging the lava around the edge and hurling huge rocks to a considerable distance. As they climbed the mountain proper they found that Sunset, too, had engaged in some gunnery in those far-away ages, as was shown by many lava ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin

... to stop to pick up her boat, and the delay probably saved us; we must, moreover, have been a very uncertain mark in the unnatural light, which doubtless would be no aid to gunnery practice. On we tore, with the steam-gauge uncomfortably near danger point; the warship in hot pursuit, looking, wreathed as she was in the smoke and flame of her fiercely worked guns, and the electric glare of the vivid shaft which still turned night into day, more like some fabulous sea-monster ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... Kluck's generalship was successful. It might have been regarded as risky to leave 100,000 men to guard a river confronted by 250,000 picked and reenforced French troops. But General von Kluck's faith in German guns and German gunnery was not ill-founded. This was the first of the open-air siege conflicts, and the French army had no guns which could be used against the German heavy artillery. Hence it followed that the brilliant work of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... should be quite a paragon, And worthy of the noblest pedigree, (His Sire was of Castile, his Dam from Aragon) Then, for accomplishments of chivalry, In case our Lord the King should go to war again, He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... have told you that little Dolly Venn had served in the Naval Reserve and knew more of gunnery than the most of us. To this, I bear witness, we owed much ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton

... Dartmouth, heading the list at the passing-out exam, and so at once gaining the rating of midshipman; doing equally well afloat during the subsequent three years and a half, qualifying for Gunnery, Torpedo, and Navigating duties, serving for six months aboard a destroyer, and everywhere gaining the esteem and goodwill of my superiors, here was I, Paul Swinburne, at the age of seventeen and a half, an outcast ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... the American guns opened up with a roar that shook the ground. The guns were served with the precision that has made American gunnery the envy of the world, and great gaps were torn in the dense masses of the enemy troops. But the lanes filled up instantly, and with hardly a moment of faltering ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... officer, who himself was an actor in the scene. "It 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

... Ordnance, and Captain McClellan, just promoted from a Lieutenancy of Engineers to a Captaincy in the Cavalry. Major Delafield was charged with the special subject of Engineering; Major Mordecai with Ordnance and Gunnery; and to Captain McClellan was assigned the duty of a general report upon the Organization of Armies, with a special hearing upon the formation of Infantry and Cavalry. Each of these gentlemen has written a book, and that of McClellan, originally published as a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... 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

... days taking on stores and munitions, and I was too busy supervising the stowage and checking manifests to bother about running down Allyn's story. I met the other officers—Lt. Pollard the gunnery officer, Ensign Esterhazy the astrogator, and Ensign Blakiston. Nice enough guys, but all wearing that cowed, frustrated look that seemed to be a "Lachesis" trademark. Chase, meanwhile, was up in Flag Officer's Country ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone

... delayed the expedition for a year. The "Invincible Armada" [30] set out at last in 1588 A.D. The Spanish vessels, though somewhat larger than those of the English, were inferior in number, speed, and gunnery to their adversaries, while the Spanish officers, mostly unused to the sea, were no match for men like Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, the best mariners of the age. The Armada suffered severely in a nine-days fight in the Channel, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... occasion, however, did matters proceed so far that the veteran had been induced to take his post in this warlike attic; where, there is little doubt, had occasion further offered for his services, he would have made a suitable display of his knowledge in the science of gunnery. But the simple history of the Wish-Ton-Wish had furnished another evidence of a political truth, which cannot be too often presented to the attention of our countrymen; we mean that the best preservative of peace is preparation for war. In the case before us, the hostile ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... expert acrobatics came careful training in machine-gunnery. The Brighton boys went through a course of study on land that made them thoroughly familiar with machine-guns of more than one type. Machine-guns, they found, were in all sorts of positions on the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll

... jealous of the Muses. I tell you if you stand well in her gratheth, by Jove, Thir, you mutht give yourthelf up to her body and thoul. How the deuthe can a fellow that's out at drill at hicth in the morning, and all day with his head filled with tacticth and gunnery, and—and—' ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... know 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 ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... the boats got close up to the ship, the people on board began to gesticulate furiously, and it seemed with no very friendly intentions. Of this they gave proof, for they got some smaller guns on the quarter-deck slewed round, and began firing away at the boats. Fortunately their gunnery was very bad, or they might have cut them to pieces. On seeing this, Mr Thorn made a white pocket-handkerchief fast to a boat-hook, and waved it towards them, but the barbarians seemed to hold a flag of truce in very ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... on, strafing was an important part of machine gunnery until, now, together with barrage fire, it comprises about all there is to machine-gun work, proper, for the automatic rifle has taken over the greater part of ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... and looking, in his strange envelope, like an infuriated bull-moose in the act of charging a hunter. A shot struck the corner of the target just as we got away from it, slightly splintering it, so as to give the bewildered Indian a pleasant practical lesson in the science of gunnery and fortification. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... afterwards, when the graduates themselves took up the task of instruction. There were two who taught us mathematics, one of whom remains in my memory as the very best teacher, to the extent of his knowledge, that I ever knew. The professional branches, seamanship and gunnery, fell naturally to the sea officers who conducted the drills. These studies, as pursued, reflected the transition condition of the period which I have before depicted; the grasp on the old still was more tenacious than that on the new. The preparation of text-books ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... and on the other connected with 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, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... vessels were remarkably 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 ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... this corps must appear obvious when it is considered that the only person supposed to be qualified and experienced in gunnery on board His Majesty's ships, is the gunner, who, too often ignorant of his own duty, is totally unable to instruct others. In the quarter bills of most ships, it is well known that a very small proportion of the marines are reserved for ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... gun with which the garrison sought to make reply was dismounted the moment it was advanced into the embrasure, compelling their withdrawal during daylight hours; and though each night as soon as dark screened them from the accurate gunnery of the Americans, they were restored and the firing renewed, it was done with a feebleness that bespoke discouragement and exhaustion. For two days shot and shell splintered and tore through abattis and fraising, and levelled ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... are a body of some 400 men trained to the use of fire-arms and under military discipline. The majority are Sea Dayaks, the remainder Malays and Sikhs. Two white officers, the commandant and the gunnery instructor, are supported by native non-commissioned officers. The force is recruited by voluntary enlistment, the men joining in the first place for five years' service. This force supplies the garrisons of the small forts, one or more ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... Assistant's crew were wounded, one afterwards dying; and "the depth to which the arrows penetrated into the decks and sides of the brig was reported to be truly astonishing." But bows and arrows, on this as on many another occasion, were no match for gunnery; so that, after a hot peppering, the Papuans gave up the fight, paddling back to a safe distance as fast as they could, without exposing themselves to fire. They rallied beyond reach of musket balls, as though for a second onslaught, but a shot fired over their heads from the Providence served ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... assigned to George was of great importance and of great danger. The enemy had already trained their heavy guns on to the hill, and it was only their bad gunnery that made it possible for the officer's plan to be carried out. In every direction shells were flying, bursting overhead, on either side, short, and far over the city, till the air was filled with flying fragments of metal; every moment was a constant threat, ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... though managed by the hand, are achieved by the head, we feel little disposed to meddle with what Burke calls "the mystery of murder," or "the present perfection of gunnery, cannoneering, bombarding, and mining;" and inveterate as may be the weapon of the goose-quill, we trust our readers will not suspect us of any other policy than that of pleasing them, the ne plus ultra of all public servants. As our title implies, we are bound to present or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various

... periodically to the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, to receive and escort the young gentlemen cadets from Marlow College, who were abandoning the red coat and drill of the foot-soldier to become neophytes in the art and mystery of great gunnery ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... Dan put me thro' the gunnery practice on the way out, an' I went through it creditably. Only a slight hitch now and then. Two or three balls in the mouth ready to spit ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... he had previously served for a short time, prevailed upon the admiral to transfer him to his own ship, the Sybille, of 48 guns, "a crack frigate," in a high state of discipline, the crew of which was remarkable for its skill in gunnery. ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... and La Vengeance. In wardroom or steerage almost every man could tell of engagements in which he had behaved with credit. Trained in the school of hard knocks, the sailor knew the value of discipline and gunnery, of the smart ship and the willing crew, while on land the soldier ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... 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, They are reeling, they are running, as the shameful years have run, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... knowledge he had gained that he was able from the first to do his duty as well as any one. He was fortunately stationed at the gun of which Jacob was captain, and the old sailor took pains to instruct him in handling it. Naval gunnery not being in those days the art it has since become ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston

... if only they could win their way to where their half-starved comrades waited for them. But nothing happened. Hours passed and nothing happened. An occasional shell from the big gun plumped among them. One, through some freak of gunnery, lobbed slowly through a division, and the men whooped and threw their caps at it as it passed. The guns on Swartz Kop, at a range of nearly five miles, tossed shells at the monster on Doornkloof, and finally blew up his powder magazine amid the applause ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... said he, jocosely. 'Only first-class certificates in gunnery, seamanship, and mathematics; then, to finish up with, the unhappy youth has to look forward to an interview or two with the hydrographer, who isn't at all a gentleman to be made ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... the gunboats rounded the point of land a mile and a half below the fort, the Rebels opened fire, and the boats replied. There was excellent gunnery. The shots from the fort and batteries fell upon the bows of the boats, or raked their sides; while the shells from the boats fell plump into the batteries, cutting the embankments, or sinking deep in the side of the hill and bursting with tremendous explosions, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... 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 ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... threatened constant attack—Lee and Beauregard had used every resource to strengthen defenses of the still open port. What success they had, is told by the tedious and persistent bombardment—perhaps unexampled in the history of gunnery; surely so in devices ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... the first to come forward. Well armed, they stole out of the stockade, but it proved a useless mission. The mutineers were bolder than we fancied or they put more trust in Israel's gunnery. For four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores and wading out with them to one of the gigs that lay close by, pulling an oar or so to hold her steady against the current. Silver was in the stern-sheets in command; and every man of them was now provided with a ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... green warriors were kept circling above the contending fleets of Helium and Zodanga, since their batteries were useless in the hands of the Tharks who, having no navy, have no skill in naval gunnery. Their small-arm fire, however, was most effective, and the final outcome of the engagement was strongly influenced, if not wholly ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... personage in the ship. He had once been a captain's clerk, and having distinguished himself very much in cutting-out service, had applied for and received his warrant as a gunner. He had studied the "Art of Gunnery," a part of which he understood, but the remainder was above his comprehension: he continued, however, to read it as before, thinking that by constant reading he should understand it at last. He had gone through the work from the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... the lad. "Every breed of gunnery that there is. You know a Coast Guard cutter becomes a part of the navy in time of war, so an officer has got to know just as much about big guns as an officer in the navy. He might have to take his rank on ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... indeed have been true. At this moment, 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! I never shall forget the satisfaction which ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth



Words linked to "Gunnery" :   implements of war, weapons system, munition, arms, weaponry



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