Henry Ernest Dudeney/Modern Puzzles/99 - The Rejected Gun

Modern Puzzles by Henry Ernest Dudeney: $99$

The Rejected Gun

Here is a military puzzle that may or may not give you a moment's difficulty.

It is such a simple question that a child can understand it and no knowledge of artillery is required.

Yet some of my readers may find themselves perplexed for quite five minutes.

An inventor offered a new large gun to the committee appointed by our Government for the consideration of such things.

He declared that when once loaded it would fire sixty shots at the rate of a shot a minute.

The War Office put it to the test and found that it fired sixty shots an hour,

but declined it, "as it did not fulfil the promised condition."

"Absurd, said the inventor, "for you have shown that it clearly does all that we undertook it should do."

"Nothing of the sort," said the experts. "It has failed."

Now, can you explain this extraordinary mystery?

Was the inventor, or were the experts, right?

Sources

• 1926: Henry Ernest Dudeney: Modern Puzzles ... (previous) ... (next): Arithmetical and Algebraical Problems: Various Arithmetical and Algebraical Problems: $99$. -- The Rejected Gun
• 1968: Henry Ernest Dudeney: 536 Puzzles & Curious Problems ... (previous) ... (next): Arithmetical and Algebraical Problems: Miscellaneous Puzzles: $181$. The Rejected Gun