Q.F. GUNS FOR FIELD ARTILLERY. 
441 
respective Presidents met together and drew up a definite report; 
such a report ought to be of the very highest value, and if acted 
upon, as one would hope it might be, ought to give our Artillery an 
excellent fresh start. 
Of course you know what seems the logical outcome of a Q.F. 
equipment, viz., a considerable number of light Field columns for 
Ammunition Supply. These of course will be a practical difficulty, as 
they will not be popular. But if the thing is to succeed they would have 
to be created, and to be made popular by being made a recognized 
road to advancement—nor merely dumping grounds for officers 
otherwise useless. Of course all this ought to be considered before 
taking the plunge. It certainly seems that the future increases to the 
R.A. should take the form of columns rather than of batteries, if a 
Q.F. equipment be introduced. 
Major H. B. .Jeffreys, R.A. :—I do not propose to follow the 
essayists in the establishment of the truth of certain propositions per¬ 
tinent to this subject, for few will deny their soundness. These pro¬ 
positions are— 
(1.) At certain periods of a battle, just as the magazine rifle is 
superior to the single loader, so is the quick firer of 
equal power superior to the present field gun. 
(2.) Power of rapid fire does not necessarily involve waste of 
ammunition. 
(3.) Expenditure of ammunition is easily controlled in the ar¬ 
tillery and can be suited to the supply available. 
Nor will I take up your time by discussing the question of how the 
necessary ammunition can best be supplied, which problem has been 
fully treated by the essayists; nor will I touch upon the advantages 
claimed for four as compared with six gun batteries. These are side 
issues. If quick firing guns are found to be desirable, sufficient am¬ 
munition to enable full advantage of their power to be taken must 
and will be provided. And the number of guns in a battery may be 
decided on other grounds than that of efficiency of fire, all important 
though it be. 
It is evident that if inventors and the manufacturing departments 
can give us a gun equal in power to and capable of delivering a fire 
double or treble that from our present field guu, artillery will have 
made an enormous advance. 
But how is power to be defined ? Up to 1871 the power of field 
guns depended upon the bursting charge of their shells; now it de¬ 
pends upon the number of bullets which can be released in a given 
time from the shrapnel which contain them, provided always that 
such bullets have sufficient weight and, when released at rauges up 
to 4,000 yards, have sufficient remaining velocity to disable a man. 
Our experts have fixed the necessary velocity at about 700 ft. secs., 
and the necessary weight at about 35 to the lb. Now as our 14’1 lb. 
shell contains 210 of such bullets and our 12*5 lb. shell only 162 
bullets it is obvious that if the weight of the shell is to be much re¬ 
duced in the quick firer owing to the necessity for diminishing the 
