"MacDonnell, J E - 125 - Blind Into Doom UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonnell J E)

Even without Fawcett's warning it was obvious what the captain
meant to try; just as plain was the time factor, and its shortness.
Lusby's gun was P2 - the second, after, mounting on the port
side. Behind P1, some ten yards to his right, stood Petty-Officer
Copeland, officer of quarters of the gundeck and thus in charge of
the whole eight guns; the conductor of this bassoon orchestra, now
tuned-up but silent.
Lusby had only brief and occasional interest for Copeland. For
the umpteenth time his eyes ran over his own gun. It was a mark 16
- J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 17 -



mounting, the latest. The twins were beautiful guns, semiautomatic,
firing a 351b. shell at better than two thousand feet per second, and
each could deliver twenty rounds a minute. They were dual-purpose,
capable of firing just as effectively at a surface target, and used fixed
ammunition. Thus Warwick, if engaged both sides at once, could
hurl from her 4-inch gundeck one hundred and sixty shells every
minute.
Lusby was not at the moment interested in statistics. He took in
his men; all in overalls, anti-flash hoods, steel helmets, long fire-
resistant gloves reaching to their elbows, and heavy boots.
Considering their present target only the boots would be necessary,
but vitally so-one of those heavy brass cordite cylinders ejecting
from a gun and finding an unprotected foot could splinter its bones
and leave him one loading number down.
He was standing on a platform beside the breech of the left gun-
the senior position. Apart from overall command of the gun's
operation, it was his specific duty to check the left gun's loading and
then, with the breech sliding shut, to slam the palm of his hand up
under the firing interceptor and complete the electrical circuits to
the gunlayer in the director. Given the differences in size, loading
mechanism and so forth, the four-inch used the same fire-control
principles as Warwick's main weapons.
Lusby wiped his fingers over the brass nipples of the interceptor
contacts. This was an automatic gesture-of all things, those points
were kept free of grease, immaculately clean-and performed while
his sight roved over the loading numbers.
He had three to each gun. They stood in rear of the mounting,
with ammunition like oversize rifle cartridges cradled in their arms.
The noses of the shells were lowered, ready at a word to be thrust
into the mouth of each automatic fuse-setting machine. Once in there
the fuse forming the shell's nose would be set so as to explode
correctly for height and range, within lethal bursting distance of the
target. This was a miracle performed in the High Angle Control
Position below the director, with the simple fuse-setting figure being
the result of a logarithmic sum whose ingredients included enemy
range, angle of sight, speed, barometric pressure, and even the wear
in each barrel. And this sum was being continually solved, the fuse-