Q.F. GUNS FOR FIELD ARTILLERY. 
451 
that ammunition may be possibly wasted is capable of being made 
too much of. 
Then the second point is how the requirements are to be met. 
There are two important limiting conditions upon the manufacturer. 
In the first place he must do nothing which will decrease in any way 
the mobility of artillery. I think that we are all agreed that a battery 
of horse artillery should not have their present form of movement 
limited in the slightest degree, that is a severe condition which is im¬ 
posed upon us manufacturers. The second limiting condition is the 
necessity of what is known as simplicity—I think the meaning of 
simplicity is not always understood. It is not a simple thing to 
define simplicity. As Major Elmslie has pointed out in his essays 
the things that seem complicated at first, when we are accustomed to 
them become quite simple, and we may sometimes mistake unfamiliarity 
for complexity. The most complicated thing may be the simplest in 
actual working. The 6-in. quick firing gun of to-day, which is prac¬ 
tically the staple armament of most navies, is a complicated thing, 
but it is much simpler in handling than the 32-pounder with which 
we won our great naval victories. The Lee-Metford, or the 3-lb. 
Hotchkiss—is not in itself a simple machine, yet we have seen that the 
Afridis can use the one and the Abyssinians the other. Provided 
that the machine will stand the rough usage of the field, we need not 
be afraid of what is sometimes called complication. This is the real 
test. We cannot of course hope ever to make a field carriage recoil¬ 
less. That is out of the question, the ground is always varying, and 
the anchorage which answers in one case will not do for another; but 
we can go fairly near to the conditions necessary for increasing the 
speed of fire of field artillery. 
There are four solutions of the quick firing gun carriage problem. 
The first is to make the gun and carriage recoil over the spade and 
run them forward into position by means of a spring. That is the 
principle of the patent that Messrs. Yickers are working, which has 
been tried for many years, and probably is as perfect now as it ever 
will be. It has a great many advantages, but it has a drawback to 
my mind that is that it has a recoil of perhaps thirty inches so that 
the men must always stand clear of the wheel before every round. 
The second plan is to hold the carriage by a spade under the point of 
the trail or under the axle and to give the gun in the carriage a long 
recoil. I have applied this arrangement by converting an existing 
carriage which behaves very well and only recoils three or four inches, 
but the jump is at present too great. However, with a f-charge the 
converted carriages leave little to be desired. I think that the jump 
can be got over by a careful adjustment of the buffers, but the question 
largely depends upon the internal ballistics of the gun. The third 
method is to treat the guns and limber as one mass. I have de¬ 
signed and made a carriage on that principle which I think is very 
promising and perhaps the best of all; bat this first carriage is not as 
perfect as it should be and as it could be made with the experience I 
have now obtained. You can keep down the recoil of the whole mass 
