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THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF Q.F. GUNS 
FOR ARTILLERY IN THE FIELD. 
BY 
LIEUTENANT A. S. BUCKLE, Royal Artillery. 
“NEC TEMERE, NEC TIMIDE.” 
COMMENDED ESSAY, 1898. 
Introduction. 
Artillerymen of the present day have, in modern field guns of ordinary 
type, unquestionably very formidable weapons : when properly handled 
there is no doubt that they enable us to carry out to the letter Prince 
Kraft’s famous dictum as to our three duties of “ hitting.” The guns 
themselves shoot accurately. They are possessed of sufficient mobility 
to be brought up to the scene of action in good time, and to be expedi¬ 
tiously moved from point to point of the battle-field when the course of 
the fight necessitates a change of position. Most modern equipments 
are sufficiently strong and simple to stand fairly well the wear and tear 
of service, and the many severe trials of mechanism and of structure 
which will assuredly have to be encountered in war. Their fire can be 
kept well under control. The field guns of most nations at the present 
time fire an effective projectile as regards man-killing power (5 times as 
effective, according to an authority,^ as was that with which the German 
Artillery won battles in 1870). The question to be discussed in this 
essay is whether it is worth while to try to introduce an equipment with 
which it shall be possible, when necessary, to “ hit ” the enemy much 
harder, by raining upon him a great number of such projectiles in a 
short time—a considerably greater number than could be fired in the 
same time from the present guns, even by the utmost efforts of their 
detachments : but an equipment in which there is a risk of being 
compelled to sacrifice one or more of the above-mentioned advantages, 
undoubtedly possessed by the “simple” field gun of the present time. 
The word “ simple ” is used in this instance and in the following 
pages, for convenience, to describe the ordinary B.L. field guns at 
present in use, as opposed to Q.F. 
* Colonel Walford, R.A., as quoted in ‘'Achievements of Field Artillery,” p. 158. 
7. VOL. xxv. 
