[No. 6.]

COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS, Saturday, January 4, 1913. The committee this day met, Hon. Lemuel P. Padgett (chairman) presiding.

STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL N. C. TWINING, CHIEF, BUREAU OF ORDNANCE.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen of the committee, we have with us this morning Admiral Twining, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance.

Admiral, the first item in which you are interested is on page 33 of the bill, "Bureau of Ordnance," Ordnance and ordnance stores," and I notice that the language is the same except that the total appropriation is increased by $400,000, and the limit of cost on the appropriation for clerical and drafting force is increased by $8,000. Will you please explain the necessity for the increase of the total appropriation first?

Admiral TWINING. The increased sum asked for is intended to cover the expected additional cost of target practice during the fiscal year 1914. This matter has been under advisement in the department for a number of months. The department has been anxious to have more target practice; not only more target practice for each vessel, but to have more vessels have it. It is intended that the vessels in reserve have target practice but to a less extent than those in the active fleet. I have been obliged to oppose it so far on account of lack of funds-

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). How much have you been expending per annum ordinarily?

Admiral TWINING. On target practice?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir.

Admiral TWINING. It is a little difficult to give you exact figures. The CHAIRMAN. Approximately?

Admiral TWINING. For three or four years past it has been approximately $1,000,000, sometimes a little over and sometimes a little under that amount.

The CHAIRMAN. And you want to increase it by $400,000?

Admiral TWINING. The department wanted to increase it by considerably more than that, but when I represented to the Secretary that it would necessarily mean an increase of about $700,000 in the appropriation, he decided to cut down substantially the program laid out, and only ask for $400,000 additional. This estimate was put in by direction of the department. I was satisfied before, but, of course, I desire to meet the wishes of the department in the matter of target practice, and I could not do that with the present appropriation without having other work suffer.

The CHAIRMAN. How much target practice are we having each year out of the expenditure of $1,000,000?

Admiral TWINING. It runs about 24 rounds from each of the large guns, of which 16 rounds are fired with reduced charges, which cuts down the expenditure about practically one-third. That is done for two reasons to save money in the cost of ammunition, and to save the wear on the gun. By cutting down the charge of powder we reduce the erosion very much.

The CHAIRMAN. In target practice do you fire the large guns, the 10-inch, 12-inch, and 14 inch guns? You have not any 14 inch guns actually installed?

Admiral TWINING. Not yet, on any completed vessel. We fire all the guns.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you fire them as much as 24 rounds a year in target practice?

Admiral TWINING. That is the plan, and it has been done in some cases. You asked me what had been done in the past. We have not fired as many as that until this last year. It is the intention to fire 24 rounds from all of the vessels that are in full commission, and from the vessels in reserve it would be a quarter of that, about 6 rounds a year.

The CHAIRMAN. The estimated life of one of the big guns, the maximum estimate, would be something like 180 or 200 rounds, would it not?

Admiral TWINING. The maximum is about 300 for some of the 12inch guns. I should say that probably most of the guns we have now in the battleship fleet have a life of about 200 rounds, but of these 24 rounds 16 are to be fired with reduced charges.

The CHAIRMAN. The statement you made just a moment ago that the life of the 12-inch guns now reaches 300 rounds is very gratifying information. A short time ago it was stated to us about 100 was the maximum limit.

Admiral TWINING. I have heard some people make a great many irresponsible statements before the committee. I do not think I have ever made that statement.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not say that you had.

Mr. ROBERTS. When you speak of the life of the gun, you mean that it would have to be relined?

Admiral TWINING. Yes, sir; relined.

Mr. ROBERTS. The gun is not destroyed?

Admiral TWINING. No, sir. It is not absolutely necessary to reline the gun when it reaches what we call its "life," but we must either do that or have a special projectile for it. We can, I suppose, keep on firing a gun twice that number of rounds, but it would be necessary to have projectiles especially made for it. It is not advisable to do it.

The CHAIRMAN. And the accuracy of the gun is very much reduced? Admiral TWINING. Yes, sir; unless relined or a special projectile used.

To continue in regard to the expenditure of ammunition: For the maller guns, that is, what we call the torpedo defense guns, from 7 inches down to 3 inches, the expenditure runs somewhat greater than 24 rounds a year; in some cases it may run to 30 rounds, but

the average will be 24 or less; the wear on those guns is immaterial; they have very long life.

Mr. ROBERTS. You say "very long life." Could you estimate about the average number of rounds?

Admiral TWINING. Eight hundred to 1,000 rounds. We never have worn out one in service. I think we have worn out one or two 6-inch guns and perhaps one or two 3-inch at the proving ground, but in service they have practically an unlimited life.

Mr. ROBERTS. Those guns can be relined also?

Admiral TWINING. Yes, sir.

In addition to the cost of the ammunition for target practice we have the cost of the targets themselves and the material, the cordage and canvas that is used in constructing them. That portion of the expense I estimate will normally be about $100,000 a year. The rest of the $1,400,000 which we contemplate for target practice will go into ammunition.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to ask you this question, Admiral, What is the status of your reserve ammunition, to permit less accumulation of reserve and the use of more of the current appropriation for target practice?

Admiral TWINING. We do not accumulate any reserve ammunition out of this particular appropriation. All of the service ammunition, including armor-piercing shell and powder for firing, is bought from the appropriation "Ammunition for ships of the Navy" or from a special portion of this ordnance appropriation assigned to the purchase and manufacture of smokeless powder. From the appropriation "Ammunition for ships of the Navy," we buy all the ammunition for the first outfit of the new vessels and as much reserve as we can get out of it. We are not expending any of the reserve at target practice.

The CHAIRMAN. I know you are not. Have we a sufficient reserve or are we short on reserve at the present time?

Admiral TWINING. We have not as much of either powder or projectiles in reserve as I think we should have and as the department thinks we should have, although we are approaching it in the matter of powder.

Mr. ROBERTS. Right on that point, at the rate we are now appropriating, how soon will we reach the proper reserve of ammunition and projectiles, in how many years?

Admiral TWINING. As a full reply to this question would involve making public certain confidential information, with the permission of the committee I will submit the information asked for, confidentially, and not to be entered in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. You purchase ammunition also from a fund under "Increase of the Navy?"

Admiral TWINING. No, sir. We do not make any purchases of ammunition from that appropriation now.

The CHAIRMAN. You have quit?

Admiral TWINING. Yes, sir; we quit that when the appropriation. "ammunition for ships of the Navy" was first made.

The CHAIRMAN. You consolidated it all under that appropriation? Admiral TwINING. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What have you to say as to the increase in the limitation of $8,000 for clerical and drafting services?

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Admiral TWINING. The appropriation for the current fiscal year provides for an increase of $25,000 in this amount as compared with the previous year. I explained to the committee last year my reason for asking for that increase. In the legislative bill for the present fiscal year there was a provision for an increase of approximately $8,000 in the amount authorized to be expended from the appropriation "Ordnance and ordnance stores" for clerks, draftsmen, and other technical services in the Bureau of Ordnance. At the time I asked for that increase before the Committee on Appropriations and at the same time asked for an increase of $25,000 here, I was not aware that the $8,000 would be considered as a part of the $25,000, but I find that the department has heretofore held that such sum as is specified in the naval appropriation bill as covering the pay of that class of service covers the same class of service in the bureaus. I did not think it was a correct ruling, and at my request the matter was referred to the Comptroller of the Treasury, who decided that since the department had made this ruling a number of years ago, Congress presumably was familiar with the fact and therefore, as they had not enacted any legislation to the contrary, that the decision must stand. Consequently, the expected $25,000 increase in what I may call the field, the navy yards, etc., was cut down to $17,000.

The CHAIRMAN. That was last year's appropriation?

Admiral TWINING. Yes, sir. That is the reason I am asking now for the increase of $8,000, which will merely give me the $25,000. that I thought I was getting last year. There is no additional appropriation involved; it is merely an allowance.

The CHAIRMAN. The proviso is stricken out, and that is a matter that is always considered.

The next item is on page 35, "Purchase and manufacture of smokeless powder, $1,150,000," which is the same as last year?

Admiral TWINING. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. There is a question which occurs to me on the subject of powder. The newspapers have been having a good deal to say in reference to French powder, and in a recent issue of a paper I saw this little clipping:

Experiments having demonstrated that the new powders used in the French navy were no better than the old ones, the battleships of the third battleship squadron and the first squadron recently received orders to put them ashore.

I saw, before that, a statement that while the French navy had heretofore been making the same general class of ordnance powder that we were making nitrocellulose that their process of manufacture was different from ours, but after the disaster they had some time ago that they abondoned their process of manufacture and had adopted identially the American process of manufacture and that would indicate they had trouble there. I would like to ask you, Admiral, what you have to say about that matter?

Admiral TWINING. So far as I am aware, the French have not adopted our methods of making powder. While their powder is in general the same as ours, there are two or three very radical differences. One is in the selection of the raw material-their cotton. They have not been careful, or were not until very recently at least, to select the very best cotton for making their powder. In the