One must not conclude this chapter, however, without a reference to those useful weapons which are known among the soldiers as "Archibalds" and officially as anti-aircraft guns. These are perhaps the most familiar guns of all to the general public, since they were installed in many places in Britain for the purpose of dealing with the Zeppelins. No doubt not a few of my readers have had the experience of being awakened from their beauty sleep by the cracking of the anti-aircraft guns and have seen their shells bursting like squibs in the air. They are fairly long guns, not unlike field guns, but they are mounted upon special supports which enable them to be pointed at any angle so that they can fire right up into the sky. The sights, also, are somewhat different, being fitted with prisms, or reflectors, so that the gunners can look along the sights and align the gun upon an object overhead without lying on their backs. Much more could be said on this subject, but national interests forbid, so with this general review of modern artillery we must pass to another subject. CHAPTER IX THE GUNS THEY USE IN THE NAVY Both the great English-speaking nations are immensely proud of their navies. They can, on occasion, produce soldiers by the million of the very highest and most efficient type, but they never feel quite that pride and patriotic fervour over their soldiers that they do over their ships of war and their sailors. The guns, therefore, with which the ships are armed, always form a subject of great interest, especially those large ones which constitute the armament of the Dreadnought battleships and battle-cruisers. Let us first consider what is required in a naval gun, for it must be remembered that the naval and military weapons are different in some respects. Experience at the Dardanelles showed that even the guns of the _Queen Elizabeth_, the largest and most powerful then known, fresh from the finest factories, were not particularly successful against the Turkish forts. The Germans, too, set up what was probably a naval gun and occasionally dropped shells into Dunkirk with it at a range of twenty miles or so, but without causing much harm, and the fact that they only did it occasionally and then abandoned it altogether seems to indicate that in their opinion they were not doing much good with it.