122 TARGET PRACTICE IX FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



through the courtesy of the British war office witnessed the 

 setting up and working of the targets, describes it as follows : 



The ground used at Aldersliot for this purpose enables one battalion to 

 advance to the attack with as near an approach to the conditions of actual 

 warfare as I have seen. The battalion advances in column of route, when 

 fire is suddenly opened upon it by a single gun, posted about 800 yards to 

 the left front. Deployment is made at once and the gun is silenced. On the 

 Uring line reaching the crest of a long hill perpendicular to the front, the 

 first position of the enemy is seen, about 900 yards distant, and the advance 

 is subjected to artillery fire from a battery about 2,500 yards. The enemy 

 can hardly be distinguished, as their skirmishers show only their heads 

 and shoulders, and that only occasionally. As the advance continues, the 

 enemy are supposed to have retired to a second position about 800 yards 

 away, with a deep ravine in its front, through which runs a main railway 

 line. The enemy's object is to destroy this line before the advance can 

 occupy it, and with this object in view, an armored train is sent down to 

 cover a party of men who come running down the hill to blow up the 

 tracks, which they are supposed to succeed in doing. The advance con- 

 tinues beyond the railway and up the hill, when the enemy is found to 

 have taken his last position near the guns aforementioned. The battalion 

 thus strikes three positions, covering about 2,500 yards. 



The targets are merely dummy figures of the simplest construction, and 

 look as if they had been made by some post carpenter. They are all 

 worked by men in pits by means of ropes and springs, with the exception 

 of the armored train and the wrecking party. An extensive system of 

 telephones connects all the pits. A peculiar i^art of the arrangement is 

 that the advance is the whole time subjected to shrapnel fire, which is 

 obtained by means of the explosion of small, harmless bombs, suspended 

 from wires above the men's heads or laid on the ground in front. This 

 and the firing of the dummy guns by the same means are the only elec- 

 trical features of the system. I must myself confess to having been 

 startled when one of the imitation shrapnel exx^loded without any warn- 

 ing at my horse's feet. The only thing in the system which could not be 

 made at any post is an ingenious spring by wiiich the fixed targets are 

 made to resume their upright position after being pulled down. I can 

 heartily recommend the adoption of a similar system at some of our larger 

 posts. I inclose an extract from the Strand Magazine of December, 1901, 

 containing plates of the only photographs of the new system. 



In conclusion, it must be stated that over all the ground are covered pits 

 for the use of umpires, who, by means of mirrors, can watch the advance 

 in all its movements. The only drawback to the practical utility of this 

 range is that the Government will allow only 20 rounds per man to be used 

 in this practice. 



The Strand Magazine, from which the accompaiiying illus- 

 trations are copied, says : 



In order to give our readers an idea of a field day on the ranges we will 

 imagine, for the time being, that we are part and parcel of the attacking 

 force. Forward ! March ! We scatter and become units of a long strag- 

 gling line of creeping, ever advancing foes. We avail ourselves of every 

 particle of cover. What is that on the crest of the hillv The enemy"? 



